Collected Miscellany

After reading a book about the last hours of the French Monarchy in the French Revolution (review to follow shortly), I found myself drawn to this time period in France. In this vein, I just finished an historical mystery entitled Mute Witness by Charles O’Brien. It is the first book in a series and, based on the first, I cannot wait to read the rest.

Here is a brief summary from the book’s website:

The story is set in France on the eve of the Revolution. Paris in 1786 seethes with fiscal crisis and social tensions. Anne Cartier hears distressing news. Her stepfather, the actor Antoine Dubois has mysteriously died in Paris. The official verdict: he killed his mistress, then himself.
Anne enlists the aid of Colonel Paul de Saint-Martin and his adjutant Georges Charpentier of the royal highway patrol. Their investigation goes nowhere. Then, a deaf, illiterate seamstress with a talent for puppetry leads Anne to the truth. Along the way, she confronts an amateur theatrical society of dissolute young noblemen; a tormented female botanist; a sadistic aesthete; a rich, well-connected financier; a professional assassin.

Unravelling the mystery tests Anne’s nerve as well as her remarkable acrobatic skills. At a critical juncture in the investigation, she acts the part of an exotic queen in Indian costume at a reception. Priceless Indian jewelry disappears. Its owner, an aged count is murdered. And a venal police inspector threatens to derail Anne’s project.

The story rises to a violent climax in a labyrinthine cave outside Paris where the city has begun to bury its dead.

The heroine and the heroes in the book are very likeable. They are very human – with believable strengths and weaknesses that allow you to embrace them and feel their varying emotions.

Although the book is fiction, it captures the time before the French Revolution perfectly. O’Brien describes the class tension between the poor and the aristocrats through Cartier’s experiences with both. You can understand why the French Revolution occurred because of the poor treatment of the commoners by the aristocrats and the unfair advantages the aristocrats had over everyone else.

This is a must read for anyone who is a connoisseur of mysteries or the French Revolution era.

The opening paragraphs of David Frum’s review (sub. req.) of Nixon and Kissinger:
Partners in Power by Robert Dallek is something I wish I had written. It sets up the subject, builds the tension, and then slides the knife in:

A protracted war. Divisions at home. Insecure energy supplies. Tensions with allies.

America in 2007? Yes, but also America in 1969. In the introduction to his new study of the foreign policy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek writes: “I am convinced that the many questions raised in this book have relevance for current national and international problems.”

The questions faced by Nixon and Kissinger do indeed resonate in our own time. Should Americans promote democracy abroad? How can peace be kept between India and Pakistan? Between Arabs and Israelis? Across the Taiwan Strait? How much deference should Congress show the president in foreign policy?

Nixon and Kissinger articulated forceful and coherent answers to these questions and many more — and Americans have fiercely debated their answers for nearly four decades. The debate continues into our own time. When President Bush charged, in his November 2003 Whitehall Palace speech, that “your nation [Britain] and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability,” it was Nixon and Kissinger he was criticizing.

You might imagine that a historian would hesitate to join this voluminous and ferocious controversy unless he had something new and important to say. You would imagine wrong. Robert Dallek has written bestselling books about John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Somebody — his publisher, his agent, his wife, the financial-aid officers at his children’s colleges — obviously decided it made sense for him to add another administration to the series. Whoever that unknown adviser was, he did Dallek no favor.

Nixon and Kissinger represents itself as a deep new study of the making of American foreign policy. In reality, it is a hasty summary of newly released memos and phone transcripts from the Nixon and Kissinger archives, lightly seasoned with authorial commentary.

Ouch!

Anyone interested in rare or antique books might be interested to know I have two items for sale at eBay. OK, I don’t really know how rare they are, but they are old.

– The first is a unique 1961 school edition of Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This edition has a special study guide included.

– The second is a signed 1949 edition of I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Ogden Nash.

Both are hardbacks in good condition. So make a bid if you are interested.

I am finding it hard to post on all the interesting things that find their way to my inbox – I have no idea how bloggers with serious traffic sort through it all – and I am late to the game on this but I wanted to make a note of it nonetheless.

As part of the relaunch of the Vintage Classic Imprint Vintage is launching something called Vintage Classic Twins. The idea is to pair a classic work of literature with a contemporary novel in such a way as to provoke a new way of thinking about both classic and contemporary novels:

Each Twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic and one established work. The two books have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. They have linked cover designs and will be shrink-wrapped together and sold for a special RRP of £7.99. Some of the pairings could be considered controversial but Vintage is keen to incite debate about these works and encourage readers to look at the classics from new and perhaps unexpected angles.

As a fan of both classics and contemporary works I think it is a great idea. Check out the website for the details and pairings. I am looking forward to the Crime pairing of Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith &Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky shamefully neither of which I have read. The same goes for the Youth pack of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh &Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Which pairing interests you? Any that you think are wrong? What classic and contemporary books do you think would match up well?

It is not easy to label Michael Marshall’s latest book. Is it a mystery? A psychological thriller? Science Fiction? Horror? As you might have guessed, it is all of those things wrapped up in a complicated and compelling package.

The plot of The Intruders starts out pretty basic. Ex-cop Jack Whalen has recently left Los Angeles for Washington State. Jack quit the force after the publication of his artsy coffee table book and his wife’s work in advertising allows her to live in this idyllic town east of Seattle and commute to the various company offices when needed. Jack is having trouble getting started on his second book, but other than that everything seems to be going well.

That is until an old acquaintance from high school tracks Jack down and asks for his help in solving the mysterious double murder that opened the book. Jack demurs but is slowly pulled into the mystery as a strange series of events seem to connect his wife to the case. His search for answers leads him deeper into a complicated – and unbelievable – conspiracy and into the ghosts of his own past.

At some point, however, the plot switches from standard mystery/thriller to paranormal or science-fiction/fantasy. The explanation at the bottom of the mystery involves a twist that is beyond the normal conception of human existence. I can’t say more without giving away the plot.

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In his farsical “review” of The Essential Russell Kirk Alan Wolfe dedicated a chunk of his time to a description of Kirk’s most popular book The Old House of Fear. Wolfe commented that he found it dreary and that:

His explicitly political writings are just as fantastic as Old House of Fear. And his fiction is as didactic as anything he writes about Plato or Coleridge.

Seeing how Wolfe had gotten just about everything wrong in his essay, I thought it might be interesting to see if his criticisms of Kirk’s fiction had any more merit. Not surprisingly they do not.

The Old House of Fear is best described as a Gothic novel. Let’s go to Wikipedia:

Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. The effect of Gothic fiction depends on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of essentially Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole’s novel.

Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical), mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets and hereditary curses.

(for more on the Gothic novel see here)

Old House of Fear fits this description nicely as it contains both horror and romance and all of the prominent features listed above. The story focuses on Hugh Logan an attorney sent by an aging and wealthy industrialist to purchase the Scottish island of Carnglass in the Hebrides and its castle The Old House of Fear. The industrialist, Duncan MacAskival, is a distant relative of the clan that has lived on the island for centuries. The island is now owned by the widowed Lady MacAskival but she is old and dying.

Duncan MacAskival has been trying to negotiate the sale of the island for years to no avail. But when he finally receives word that Lady MacAskival is willing to meet to discuss the sale, he is determined to conclude a deal. Logan is dispatched to try and convince her. From the very beginning, however, he finds his way blocked and the situation more complex that he had thought.

It turns out the island is controlled by a madman named Dr. Edmund Jackman who is attempting to use Lady MacAskival’s money for evil ends in order to win back approval from his former communist paymasters. Although he manages to get to the island, soon Logan is worried about surviving Carnglass rather than buying it.

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