Up All Night to Get Murder Monday
Feb. 22nd, 2016 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
Special Announcements Can Be Murder
Starting today, I'm shifting Murder Mondays to once every two weeks, to make room for some RL projects that are not as much fun as fictional homicide investigations. If I get really bad at time management, I might eventually do the same with the Wednesday Reading Meme, but we'll see.
What I've Finished Reading
A Study in Scarlet:
Holmes, that's not what you said three pages ago!
It was funny to see how abruptly the footnotes dried up once the narrative shifted to Mormon Melodrama. There were a few notes on geographical and historical inaccuracies, and that was about it. Maybe because the milieu is less familiar/more invented out of whole cloth, maybe because the fandom just isn't as interested. Even though the rational portion of my brain wanted to make fun of the Mormon Melodrama, the part that is 9 and hiding behind the couch with a busted library paperback and five Oreos still thought it was pretty exciting.
Also Sweet and Low by Emma Lathen. Murder on the Cocoa Exchange in 1974: Very interesting as a period piece, almost incomprehensibly boring as a mystery.
The little details of life in the business world circa 1974 are great. There are some Straw Leftist Documentarians, who are unfortunately a little too bluntly drawn to be funny even by normal strawman standards. A character is described as "the last man in the metropolitan area to use slides" in an educational presentation, which surprised me because slides were definitely still being used in my Midwestern middle school in the early 90s. What would have been the cutting-edge presentation technology of 1974? The book doesn't say. There are some excellent descriptions of new TV commercials (Dreyer Chocolate Co. is bringing out a new themed chocolate bar in time for the bicentennial), with sarcastic commentary. But the plot was so dull that I lost the trail somewhere around page 40 and never bothered to get it back again. I'm not sure why. The prose is uninteresting but functional.
One interesting thing about this book is that it has enthusiastic blurbs from Edmund Crispin and C. P. Snow, arguably the one writer from each of my reading lists that I am the most indifferent to. Maybe that should have been a sign? But I do like Crispin and Snow a little and under the right circumstances I might like Lathen, too, so I'll try another book in a little while.
What I'm Not Reading
The Abominable Bride was all right! It didn't break my heart or rock my world. The Victorian AU was fun -- I liked John's Mustache of Flourishing (to contrast with his Mustache of Sadness in "The Empty Hearse") and Lestrade's Sideburns of Haplessness. The beautiful Victorian costumes sometimes seemed to underscore the weaknesses in the writing, but I couldn't tell you why.
The solution to the Victorian mystery was SO DUMB, but as a product of Sherlock's flailing subconscious and a tongue-in-cheek tribute to ACD's goofier moments, I didn't mind it. Well, I did a little, because it was SO, SO DUMB. And in a way it felt like the writers were patting themselves on the back for. . . noticing that they haven't always treated their female characters very well? Which is sort of in the spirit of the show, I guess, but my inner humorless feminist was glowering from the back of my brain with her arms crossed, looking a little more petulant than imposing but what can you do
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot more than "His Last Vow." I even kind of liked Moriarty, which I was not expecting.
What I'm Reading Now
Death of a Fool is an odd duck, part return to form for Marsh, part. . . not quite? It's interesting. The Special Topic this time is a traditional dance performed every year in an obscure village. In the dance, five sons betray their father and chop off his head, but he bounces back up at the end. The blacksmith and his five sons have performed it every year, but this year there has been some conflict in the family. Meanwhile, a German folk-dancing enthusiast has been sneaking around trying to get enough material for a full description, and the blacksmith's long-lost granddaughter, whose mother married some posho and betrayed the family honor or something, has turned up in search of her roots.
It's a mix of (mostly) gentle mockery of Traditional Folk Culture enthusiasts, and Village Gothic played (partly) straight, so far, at least. Eventually everyone gathers to watch the dance in its traditional circle of thistles up on the hill, but there's a snag. One of the dancers' heads is found literally chopped off during the performance, but no one saw it happen and he was dancing just fine a minute ago.
Bizarrely theatrical murder in the middle of a public performance is Marsh's specialty. It's extra interesting here because the entire production is in an open-air round: there appears to be no way the killer could have lopped off someone's head without being seen. These villagers are not as dull as some of Marsh's other villagers, though they are not as sharp as her usual theater people, either. Alleyn and Fox are just as they ought to be, no more or less.
The original title was Off With His Head, which is much more dynamic and descriptive, and gives you a better sense of the tone and content of the book than the American title Death of a Fool, which could be any old pack of doofuses in a drawing room.
What I'm Reading Next
Nothing this week! I'm on a week-long break from reading to see what happens. I have a Wednesday post written that covers the past few days, which I'll post on Wednesday. I'll start again with my crumbling Christies on Monday, and maybe by then the library will have Career of Evil (or I'll break down and buy it, one or the other).
I was planning to start reading Agatha Christie's autobiography, but someone bought it so it's not at the bookstore anymore. Maybe I'll see if the library has it.
Special Announcements Can Be Murder
Starting today, I'm shifting Murder Mondays to once every two weeks, to make room for some RL projects that are not as much fun as fictional homicide investigations. If I get really bad at time management, I might eventually do the same with the Wednesday Reading Meme, but we'll see.
What I've Finished Reading
A Study in Scarlet:
"It was magnificent," he said, as he took his seat. "Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood."
"That's rather a broad idea," I remarked.
"One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature," he answered.
Holmes, that's not what you said three pages ago!
It was funny to see how abruptly the footnotes dried up once the narrative shifted to Mormon Melodrama. There were a few notes on geographical and historical inaccuracies, and that was about it. Maybe because the milieu is less familiar/more invented out of whole cloth, maybe because the fandom just isn't as interested. Even though the rational portion of my brain wanted to make fun of the Mormon Melodrama, the part that is 9 and hiding behind the couch with a busted library paperback and five Oreos still thought it was pretty exciting.
Also Sweet and Low by Emma Lathen. Murder on the Cocoa Exchange in 1974: Very interesting as a period piece, almost incomprehensibly boring as a mystery.
". . . and, John, this is Mrs. Libby," Charlie was saying.
"M-z-z-z-!" she interrupted fiercely.
"All right, M-z-z Libby," Charlie obligingly buzzed back.
Well, that settled it, thought Thatcher. The woman was going to be you as far as he was concerned. Nobody was committing him to a word that didn't have a vowel.
The little details of life in the business world circa 1974 are great. There are some Straw Leftist Documentarians, who are unfortunately a little too bluntly drawn to be funny even by normal strawman standards. A character is described as "the last man in the metropolitan area to use slides" in an educational presentation, which surprised me because slides were definitely still being used in my Midwestern middle school in the early 90s. What would have been the cutting-edge presentation technology of 1974? The book doesn't say. There are some excellent descriptions of new TV commercials (Dreyer Chocolate Co. is bringing out a new themed chocolate bar in time for the bicentennial), with sarcastic commentary. But the plot was so dull that I lost the trail somewhere around page 40 and never bothered to get it back again. I'm not sure why. The prose is uninteresting but functional.
One interesting thing about this book is that it has enthusiastic blurbs from Edmund Crispin and C. P. Snow, arguably the one writer from each of my reading lists that I am the most indifferent to. Maybe that should have been a sign? But I do like Crispin and Snow a little and under the right circumstances I might like Lathen, too, so I'll try another book in a little while.
What I'm Not Reading
The Abominable Bride was all right! It didn't break my heart or rock my world. The Victorian AU was fun -- I liked John's Mustache of Flourishing (to contrast with his Mustache of Sadness in "The Empty Hearse") and Lestrade's Sideburns of Haplessness. The beautiful Victorian costumes sometimes seemed to underscore the weaknesses in the writing, but I couldn't tell you why.
The solution to the Victorian mystery was SO DUMB, but as a product of Sherlock's flailing subconscious and a tongue-in-cheek tribute to ACD's goofier moments, I didn't mind it. Well, I did a little, because it was SO, SO DUMB. And in a way it felt like the writers were patting themselves on the back for. . . noticing that they haven't always treated their female characters very well? Which is sort of in the spirit of the show, I guess, but my inner humorless feminist was glowering from the back of my brain with her arms crossed, looking a little more petulant than imposing but what can you do
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot more than "His Last Vow." I even kind of liked Moriarty, which I was not expecting.
What I'm Reading Now
Death of a Fool is an odd duck, part return to form for Marsh, part. . . not quite? It's interesting. The Special Topic this time is a traditional dance performed every year in an obscure village. In the dance, five sons betray their father and chop off his head, but he bounces back up at the end. The blacksmith and his five sons have performed it every year, but this year there has been some conflict in the family. Meanwhile, a German folk-dancing enthusiast has been sneaking around trying to get enough material for a full description, and the blacksmith's long-lost granddaughter, whose mother married some posho and betrayed the family honor or something, has turned up in search of her roots.
It's a mix of (mostly) gentle mockery of Traditional Folk Culture enthusiasts, and Village Gothic played (partly) straight, so far, at least. Eventually everyone gathers to watch the dance in its traditional circle of thistles up on the hill, but there's a snag. One of the dancers' heads is found literally chopped off during the performance, but no one saw it happen and he was dancing just fine a minute ago.
Bizarrely theatrical murder in the middle of a public performance is Marsh's specialty. It's extra interesting here because the entire production is in an open-air round: there appears to be no way the killer could have lopped off someone's head without being seen. These villagers are not as dull as some of Marsh's other villagers, though they are not as sharp as her usual theater people, either. Alleyn and Fox are just as they ought to be, no more or less.
The original title was Off With His Head, which is much more dynamic and descriptive, and gives you a better sense of the tone and content of the book than the American title Death of a Fool, which could be any old pack of doofuses in a drawing room.
What I'm Reading Next
Nothing this week! I'm on a week-long break from reading to see what happens. I have a Wednesday post written that covers the past few days, which I'll post on Wednesday. I'll start again with my crumbling Christies on Monday, and maybe by then the library will have Career of Evil (or I'll break down and buy it, one or the other).
I was planning to start reading Agatha Christie's autobiography, but someone bought it so it's not at the bookstore anymore. Maybe I'll see if the library has it.
