Fiction, Reviews

‘The Five Red Herrings,’ by Dorothy L. Sayers

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“An official personage like you might embarrass them, don’t you know, but there’s no dignity about me. I’m probably the least awe-inspiring man in Kirkcudbright. I was born looking foolish and every day in every way I am getting foolisher and foolisher.”

The seventh novel in Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series is The Five Red Herrings, a book that, I fear, has not aged well. The Amazon reviews suggest that most other contemporary readers agree.

Back in the 1930s or so, readers loved their puzzles, and spent time on them. Crossword puzzles were a relatively new innovation, and they took the country by storm. A corollary was the railway timetable mystery, in which the culprit’s alibi is based on a clever manipulation of train times, and the detective must figure out the trick. I assume readers worked at these books the same way they did with their crosswords, attacking them with pencils and pads of paper. Railroad timetables were familiar and interesting to them, because that was how urban people traveled back then.

The town of Kirkcudbright, in the Scottish county of Galloway, is home to a renowned, picturesque artistic colony. These people are generally friendly and amiably competitive, but they all share a loathing of Campbell, a black-bearded semi-talent with a massive, defensive ego, a drinking problem, and a reflexive tendency to resort to his fists.

So no one is much grieved when Campbell’s corpse is found one morning in a river at the foot of a steep bank, below an unfinished painting on an easel surrounded with artist’s supplies. But Lord Peter, examining the site, notices something the police have missed. One object that ought to be there is not there – and it can’t be found. So it’s not an accident but murder, and the investigation begins. Suspects are not lacking. The problem is that they all have alibis that seem solid. Several of them involve travel on trains.

For a reader not willing to work the puzzle by means of transcribing timetables and comparing them closely, reading The Five Red Herrings involves a lot of taking things as given that you don’t quite follow. This makes for some fairly opaque reading for long stretches. But Lord Peter is as amusing as usual, and he does get some good lines off. And there’s some very clever work in the final solution to the mystery.

Most readers today find The Five Red Herrings the least interesting of the Wimsey series. But if you’re reading the books and enjoying them, you should probably not skip it.

Reading, Uncategorized

My true love sent to me 5 Red Herrings

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Yes, you’re in the right place. This is where you get my occasional book reviews, but more often you get excuses for why it’s been several days since the last review. Not that you’d expect me to read a book every day. I know you pretty well by now, Gentle Reader, and you’re not unreasonable. As a matter of fact, I think you’re pretty gosh-darn patient.

It was a weekend full of translation work for me. Which is good. I approve, and am grateful. Only Christmas’ wingéd chariot keeps drawing near, and I haven’t started my cards yet. No, that’s not quite true. I gave the address labels a start yesterday. And then got confused and lost all my work. I shall resume, Sisyphus-like, tonight. If I can work up the energy. (My cold is better, but I’m still a little tired.)

The book I’m reading at the moment is Dorothy Sayers’ classic Five Red Herrings, which is considered a masterpiece of the railroad timetable school (which was very popular at the time). But I feel I’m not doing it justice, because I’m not making spreadsheets of all the data. Thus, my progress is slow.

But I share the little video above, which is the original titles for the BBC production of Clouds of Witness, back in the 1970s. Broadcast in the US on Masterpiece Theater. I always liked that music.

By the way, have I mentioned I did translation work on a production that was broadcast on Masterpiece Theater last spring? I’ll tell you about it if you insist…

Music

Advent Singing: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

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“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” was a 12th century Latin hymn brought into English by John M. Neale of London. The Latin words come from an 8th century poem. This makes another commonly sung hymn with ancient roots.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Music, Poetry

God Is Infinitely Wise and We Are Not Remotely

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Something triggered a memory today. I told my parents, over apple pie at Dollywood, that Jonathan Edwards had suggested the Lord had risen in the East and could possibly return in the West, even America. I don’t think he was suggesting it would happen, just that it could and would flow with the pattern of history. The main reason I remember that is the impression of impressing my parents with this detail from Edwards. A small thing. Both of them passed away in the last few years; now the holidays are different.

Pastor and author Tim Keller has been fighting pancreatic cancer for over a year. It’s now at stage IV. On Twitter Friday afternoon, he said, “It is endlessly comforting to have a God who is both infinitely more wise and more loving than I am. He has plenty of good reasons for everything he does and allows that I cannot know, and therein is my hope and strength.”

In The Atlantic this year, Keller wrote about his faith growing in the face of this struggle. Speaking of earlier in his life, he said, “Particularly for me as a Christian, Jesus’s costly love, death, and resurrection had become not just something I believed and filed away, but a hope that sustained me all day. I pray this prayer daily. Occasionally it electrifies, but ultimately it always calms:

“And as I lay down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace, keep me in the joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, I will someday know my final rising, because Jesus Christ lay down in death for me, and rose for my justification.”

Writing at Age 91. We don’t know what time or days we have…. what was I saying just now? Oh, never mind.

Do you like reading poetry? Does it matter if you enjoy it or is it a professional exercise? “I can only think that a large-scale revulsion has got to set in against present notions, and that it will have to start with poetry readers asking themselves more frequently whether they do in fact enjoy what they read, and, if not, what the point is of carrying on.”

Writing is ridiculous, bound to fail; even success feels like failure. “Some people doubt themselves far too much, others not remotely enough.”

Researchers have concluded contemporary worship songs are going stale quicker than they used to, for reasons they can’t explain. “The average arc of a worship song’s popularity has dramatically shortened, from 10 to 12 years to a mere 3 or 4.” I don’t want to suggest these are only the most consumeristic churches, but in my church circles, we sing old songs–maybe a new melody or arrangement, but the lyric is still several years to centuries old. What I’m sharing in our new Sunday post is the kind of singing I hope you have in your churches.

Photo: Wellsboro Diner, Route 6, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. 1977. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Music

‘Mary’s Boy Child’

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I think I’m actually in denial about Christmas this year. I need to get started with my cards and newsletters, and I need to get my tree up. I used to get right on those things the day after Thanksgiving, but this year it seems like a lot of work.

Still, it’s not too early to post a Sissel Christmas song. This is the young Sissel, way back in 1987, on Norwegian TV but singing in English for your convenience. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do this song better.

My cold lingers, which it would be surprising if it didn’t, because it’s only been a few days. I have an idea this one will hang on, though. Had to do my annual eye appointment this morning. I arrived at the usual place, and behold, it was deserted. Lots of room in the inn.

I had a vague memory that they’d announced they’d moved. Again. This clinic changes venues more often than Nathan Detroit’s crap game in Guys ‘n Dolls. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, though, I was able to find the right location on my cell phone, and I still had time to make the appointment.

The new place is a medical complex. With signs for various clinics and services. But none for my ophthalmologist.

The address was right. I double-checked. I got out of my car and went to investigate.

By the door, one of those three-foot stand-up yellow plastic signs, saying my eye clinic was inside.

This seems to me a rather cruel thing, to have a vision clinic with no visible sign. Like playing blind man’s bluff with an actual blind man.

But I did get in. Verdict: My eyesight has deteriorated slightly, but only slightly. My cataracts (every old person has them) have advanced marginally, but not enough to call for Steps to Be Taken yet.

Also finished my translation job and submitted it.

I am tired now. Wake me Monday morning.

Reading

What Can Be Gained from Translated Works?

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Benjamin Moser talks about finding a somewhat old library of English books and how he began to change his opinion of translating world authors into English.

In recent years we have seen writers outside English become global phenomena: Elena Ferrante, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Haruki Murakami. But such a literary life, the popularity owed to translation, began to seem a little fake to me. And when I read Mizumura I found myself agreeing that, strictly speaking, literary universality does not exist. The books I loved were, after all, about something, not everything. But even in practical and commercial terms, the prominence of English created more losers than winners, favoring, like so many other forms of globalization, a handful of instantly recognizable and inoffensive brands. 

…

Translation — not the thing but the unquestioned emphasis on its virtue — started to feel to me like another philistinism masquerading as worldliness.

By worldliness, Moser means people travel the world–or read from around the world–and they start to think they own the place.

Micah Mattix discusses the essay in the latest Prufrock email, saying maybe readers or literary opinion makers should lighten up a bit. “A healthy curiosity is a virtue, of course, but there is nothing wrong with enjoying a work on its own.”

Goofing

‘General’ concerns

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Above, a clip from Buster Keaton’s “The General,” one of the funniest, most creative, and genuinely terrifying movies ever made. No CGI there. Keaton put himself into real peril with those stunts. That was his business.

(By the way, if you’re a Democrat, you’re not allowed to laugh at this. He’s playing a Confederate railroader, and THAT’S NOT FUNNY!)

Anyway, I posted the clip because I feel kind of like Keaton’s character right now. Run ragged, just barely surviving. The comparison’s absurd of course. I’m in no real peril. But I do feel ragged as I run. Or waddle. Come to think of it, Fatty Arbuckle would make a better comparison. But I don’t know his work.

The translation jobs keep coming. This is reason for thanksgiving. There are retired guys out there who don’t know what to do with their time. I weep for their meaningless lives. Me, I wonder where I’ll find the hours for all I have to do.

I’ve got a cold, on top of it. I’m pretty sure it’s not Covid, because I retain my exquisite connoisseur’s palate. (Unless it’s the new Omigosh variant, but it seems too soon for that.) I generally get a cold every winter, and sometimes it lasts me the whole season. Last year, probably because of the Levitical sanitation measures, I got no cold at all. But I have one now. And it’s making me tired.

But someone on the translating team in Norway has Covid (mild, I’m told, thank the Lord), so I must do my part and put my shoulder to the wheel. The shows must go on. And, I must not forget, I get paid for this.

But things keep popping up to steal my valuable time. Had to do the whole mortgage refinancing signature dance all over again today, for some reason I don’t quite understand. Some t not crossed the last time, I guess. A prescription to pick up. Bill-paying day, with an associated cash flow problem. And I need to find a new internet service provider before the end of the month.

I really need a valet. Jeeves would handle all this stuff, freeing my time up for translation and witty repartee. And he’d no doubt have a secret concoction whose ingredients would include honey, lemon, turmeric and Bombay gin, to make me feel better.

I could have been a great financial success, I’m pretty sure, if only I’d been born rich.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Imposter’s Trail,’ by J. C. Fields

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A quiet, inoffensive man parks his car by a lake, reads a letter from his brother, and shoots himself to death, leaving a letter confessing to a series of murders. The suicide’s ex-wife tells the police her former husband was driven to kill himself by his brother Randolph, who’s a psychopath.

Randolph Bishop, serial killer, is back in action in J.C. Field’s The Imposter’s Trail.

Years ago, retired FBI agent Sean Kruger had a chance to kill Bishop, the worst serial killer he ever encountered, but let him live and be arrested. The man went on to make his bullied brother his scapegoat, and to murder a string of innocent people. Kruger feels personally responsible for every victim.

So now he’ll be coming out of retirement and going after Bishop again. This time he’s not going to let him go. Especially after Bishop proves to have terrorist ties. And even more so after Bishop threatens Kruger’s family.

In terms of storytelling, I found The Imposter’s Trail (third in a series) a pretty compelling entry in the Thomas Harris “stare into the abyss” school of psychological thrillers.

I personally do not like stories where we get to share victims’ last minutes with them. I prefer to be shown the bodies and let my imagination do the rest. But your tastes may vary.

One real weakness in the book was plain proofreading. “Slight of hand” for “sleight of hand.” Infelicities like “Retreating further back.” Using “conscious” instead of “conscience.” The manuscript would have benefited from a good proofreader.

The Imposter’s Trail was a little dark for my tastes, but you might like it better. Cautions for intense situations, but the language wasn’t too bad.

Music, Uncategorized

‘Sir Patrick Spens’

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Busy. I am busy. Busy like the bees, and the beavers, and any number of industrious, alliterative animal life forms.

I posted the video above (recorded in Denmark) because I was on a long road trip over Thanksgiving, and I told the story thought to be behind this ballad. I’ve mentioned it here before. “Sir Patrick Spens” is thought to be (loosely) based (with a shipwreck thrown in) on historical events surrounding the death of Queen Margaret of Scotland. Known in Scotland as Margaret, Maid of Norway. And in Norway as Margaret, Maid of Scotland.

She was the last royal heir of the Scottish Canmore dynasty. Her mother, who had already died, was a Scottish princess married to King Erik II of Norway. When all the rest of the Canmores were gone, Margaret became presumptive heir. At 7 years old, she was betrothed to Prince Edward of England (later Edward II) and sent home to assume the throne. But she took sick on the voyage and died in the Orkneys.

The struggle for the throne that followed is the actual background for the “Braveheart” story, but it wasn’t cinematic enough for the screenwriters. So they invented that scene where Edward I hangs the Scottish chieftains, an event that never happened.

Poor Margaret lived on in song and story, the Maid of Norway (or Scotland). Elevated by that “Camelot” instinct we all bear within us, the sense that if some hero (or heroine) of the past had only lived, everything would have been all right. A shadow of Eden, perhaps.

Anyway, I took a long ride over Thanksgiving, and we had a very nice family celebration. Especially nice after last year’s isolation. I came home with leftovers, which is nothing to sneeze at, at today’s prices.

And I came back to work a-waiting. For the moment it seems to be pouring in, and I can translate as much as I can handle.

And that was a little frustrating too, because I had a pile of jobs to do that I’d put off over the holiday. Doing my laundry. Talking to Customer Service at the grocery store about why my gas rewards card isn’t working. Calling my health insurance company to find out why a medication they’d always paid for was suddenly refused (this got straightened out, and required a visit to the store for a refund). Something more that has to be done on my mortgage refinance, for some reason. And now I learn that my internet provider is withdrawing service, so I’ll have to find a new one of those.

Not to mention the Sverdrup Society work I haven’t had a chance to look at for weeks.

Thank you for your time. I must return to my workbench now.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Lockdown,’ by Sean Black

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[This novel was published in 2014, so its title should not be understood to have anything to do with the current pandemic.]

A trend I have deplored more than once is the emulation of “action movies” in thriller novels. Action movies (and more so now that we have CGI) have traditionally incorporated greater implausibilities than action books. Because movie action happens so fast – not giving us time to think about things – and we actually see the implausible happening before us. Reading is a slower, more thoughtful process, so writers have always, in the past, had to work a little harder to maintain the reader’s confidence.

Not anymore, though. Nowadays, more and more frequently, action novels are just as implausible as movies. Such is the case, in my opinion, with Sean Black’s Lockdown, first in a series.

Ryan Lock is a private security expert working for a major pharmaceutical company. Animal rights activists have been protesting their practice of animal testing, which culminated in a few of them digging up the company president’s recently deceased wife and dumping her body on a street. Then the company met with the protest leaders. Surprisingly, they announced that they would be ending animal testing immediately.

Then someone is murdered, and everything turns into chaos. There’s a kidnapping, and Ryan Lock is on the case; he stays on the case even after getting fired from his job. Soon it will be impossible to tell friends from enemies, and a terrorist wild card will be added to the deck.

It seemed to me Lockdown followed the action film template too closely. Switch was followed by switchback so regularly that it got to be pretty predictable. And not very believable.

But the thing that really annoyed me about Lockdown was the villain – an over the top, Ming the Merciless type motivated by nothing more than pure grandiosity. I didn’t believe in him, either.

Also, the formatting was awful. Paragraphs and line endings bore no relation to my page layout. Which is annoying.

However, if you’re looking for popcorn reading that doesn’t get too political, Lockdown will keep you interested.