Murder and Mondayness

[evelyn_b]

Cross-posted from Livejournal

What I've Finished Reading

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky! Raskolnikov, who used to be a law student in Saint Petersburg but now just lies around on his couch all day not drinking tea and wondering if he should kill this old pawnbroker he knows, finally decides to take decisive action! I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say it doesn't go as well as he'd hoped.

What I'm Reading Now

"I know, dear," said Miss Marple, "that your books are very clever. But do you think that people are really so unpleasant as you make them out to be?"

"My dear aunt," said Raymond gently, "keep your beliefs. Heaven forbid that I should in any way shatter them."

"I mean," said Miss Marple, puckering her brow a little as she counted the stitches in her knitting, "that so many people seem to me not to be either bad or good, but simply, you know, very silly."

If I'd known that The Thirteen Problems was the same book as The Tuesday Club Murders I might have saved myself some trouble, but no worries! Raymond West starts a club for figuring out unsolved mysteries, but it's no fun because Miss Marple just guesses them all right away.

Sometimes there are jarring moments. I am sorry that Miss Marple feels the need to make digs at "that class" when she knows perfectly well that no class is immune from remembering things as more significant and exciting than they are once an officer shows up to ask questions about them. And it contradicts her running theme that people aren't really different from each other in the ways they think. But that just shows that I've internalized an ideal of Miss Marple that is a little freer from prejudice than the on-page Miss Marple; the same thing happened with Inspector Alleyn.

And at least one of the solutions is a little too Encyclopedia Brown-ish for me: she knows the man can't really have been a gardener, because gardeners never work on Monday! Well, maybe. But overall this is an excellent showcase for Miss Marple's uncanny talent for picking out the murderer in any room.

I finally started The Gentle Axe! It's pretty good. A tall man and a dwarf have been found murdered in a park, but nothing about the scene is exactly as it seems. Porfiry Petrovich, Crime and Punishment's investigating magistrate, annoys everyone by insisting on autopsies and following suspects around, smoking and blinking at them. Stylistically, it's not trying to do a one-to-one pastiche of Dostoevsky, which would almost certainly have been a disaster, but R. N. Morris has a good ear. Porfiry Petrovich and all of the characters are a little quieter and less grotesque than they are in Dostoevsky, which is probably advisable. Some of the Crime and Punishment callbacks feel a little too on the nose right now, even if my suspicion is correct and the nervous starving student turns out to be a red herring, but it's not hurting anything yet.

What I Plan to Read Next

The Hound of Death, another short story collection by Agatha Christie - which I couldn't find at first because I'd either written it down as "The Hand of Death" or wrote it down too sloppily to read again. Also hanging out in the waiting room (my floor): Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett and The Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Someday I must read Crime and Punishment! I hear good things about it, although also that it's possibly harrowing? How do you feel about the harrowment factor in the book?

I also really like that Miss Marple quote you picked out. I'm sure Raymond thinks this is a touching sign of his aunt's naivety, little realizing that she understands the depths of silliness in people with far more moral profundity than he has mastered.

Terribly curious what The Apple in the Dark turns out to be about. The title doesn't mention murder or death at all! Are we sure it's truly a mystery?

[evelyn_b]

YOU MUST. How harrowing you'll find it is really hard to say. Some people think it's boring and goes on too long. I found it harrowing and impossible to put down when I first read it as a teenager; re-reading it now, I don't feel those things as much, though I still love it. I have more detachment now from Raskolnikov and his POV, I think, and more appreciation for the other characters - not just Porfiry Petrovich, who is a magnificent detection troll and a delight, but especially Raskolnikov's sister who has a messy (non-homicidal) storyline of her own and does a much better job of. . . everything than her brother. Reading it at almost the same time as Lions and Shadows was interesting, because Isherwood and Raskolnikov are both driven by private fixations (that they're intensely protective of) to do extremely silly things, and they both have this wonderful thudding contrast between the satisfyingly dramatic consequences they imagine themselves nobly suffering and the dismal, ridiculous, and embarrassing reality.

It's the kind of book where every character is constantly tugging at your coat and begging you to understand something, and every one of them is a pile of rubble with a tragic history or a bundle of rags soaked in kerosene and knee-jerk prejudices and improbable hopes. Including the author. Except Porfiry Petrovich. I love it, but I've loved it for a very long time so I probably can't judge.

Poor Raymond. The more he tries to be worldly and sophisticated, the more Miss Marple shakes her head sadly at the innocence of young people.

I'm not sure! But it's on my murderstack because it was shelved in the "mystery and thriller" section of the bookstore, so at least one other person thinks it is!

[thisbluespirit]

but now just lies around on his couch all day not drinking tea and wondering if he should kill this old pawnbroker he knows, finally decides to take decisive action! I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say it doesn't go as well as he'd hoped.

LOL, this is a fair summary.

And Miss Marple. ♥

But that just shows that I've internalized an ideal of Miss Marple that is a little freer from prejudice than the on-page Miss Marple; the same thing happened with Inspector Alleyn.

Which is kind of back to front, I know, but as I do that too, I think shows something about the fundamental nature of those characters that rises above the limitations of the author and their time, even when it actually, for a bit here and there, doesn't.

(Although in the case of The 13 Problems, it probably is fair to note that these are pretty much the earliest Miss Marple. She had one story first, and then these, so there's room for change yet for both her and Agatha. Also, Miss Marple is a lady of a certain class - for all her intelligence and virtues, she does have a few limitations of her own that are always there. She just will see the truth in the end, no matter what!)

[evelyn_b]

♥ ♥ ♥

This book is a treasure trove of great Miss Marple quotes - I don't have the book with me but I'll post a few more next Monday.

I should re-read The Murder at the Vicarage alongside this one to see if there's a noticeable evolution going on -- I feel like there might be, and that Miss Marple comes into her own a little more here as a character, but the feeling's pretty vague.

[thisbluespirit]

I re-read several Miss Marples for YUletide, especially those two, and I would say yes? I think in Murder at the Vicarage itself, she starts to pick up importance and character as it goes on, while I'm not sure if some of the short stories were actually earlier, but they build on her as a little more of a force of nature - but it won't be till much later that she truly becomes Nemesis.