tisdag 26 april 2011

The crime novel isn't getting better all the time

I recently read two articles on the history and status of the crime genre which followed an all-too-familiar pattern. You could call it "the whig history of the crime novel". The supposition is that the crime novel has constantly moved on, evolved and left the time of dusty whodunnits behind in favour of new, better and braver ideas. It's hard to deny that crime novels in general have changed, though there are still whodunnits to be found, and some of the "exciting new ideas" may have been around for longer than fans of modern crime writing realise. The concept of serial killers wasn't unknown to Christie, for instance, and she used it - though in a typical, twisty way - in "The ABC Murders". But yes, the focus seems to have shifted from the human drama with a puzzle element to other kinds of crime stories. It doesn't follow, though, that they are superior to the old whodunnits.

What then, according to the admirers of modern crime fiction, are these great new influences that have revolutionised the genre?

1) The psychological crime story. It gets almost ridiculous when the writer of the articles I mentioned names P.D. James as an example of a new, "psychological" sort of crime story. It is not new. P.D. James writes squarely in the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers. Yes, there is a crime that needs to be solved, but the characters involved in the mystery and their feelings and reactions are at least as important as the mystery itself. I have a lot of time for Sayers, as long as his lordship Peter Wimsey isn't too flippin' annoying with his supposedly engagin' aristocratic manner. (You feel that if he had been born in the Regency period, he would have been of those who judge people by the manner they tie their cravats.) I have just finished re-reading "Gaudy Night", which is surely the psychological crime story at its finest: it's got interesting characters, a touching, complicated love story and a cracking good mystery all rolled into one book. This kind of crime writing has its pitfalls, however: in the case of P.D. James, she handles the psychological part beautifully, but the crime story tends to disappoint in contrast. I would be interested to read a "straight" novel without a crime element by her.

2) The serial killer plot Is it actually possible to see the random motivelessness of the serial killer in a murder mystery as a good thing? Figuring out the motive is one of the most enjoyable things with reading crime stories. You may of course be aware of it, or elements of it, from the start, but then you ask yourself: what was the trigger of the crime? What made the murderer go from, say, mere dislike of the victim to actually killing him/her? I don't pretend to be any more moral than fans of the serial killer yarn, as I have a weakness for the "themed" murder mystery: a string of murders where clues are left at the scene of the crime. The clues should point to a motive which explains why the killer wanted the victims - the victims personally, not something they represented - dead. The difference between the "themed" murder mystery, which I realise is rather cheap and best kept to TV mysteries like "Midsomer Murders", and the serial killer plot is that the serial killer targets strangers. He/She may have something against blondes/businessmen/horrid people who have escaped justice generally, but there's no interesting history of personal grievances, which makes the murderer's motive, frankly, boring.

3) The gore-fest If you like your mysteries bloody you like'em bloody. But since when did a talent for turning the reader's stomach amount to a flare for High Quality Literature? Gory, sadistic murders are not necessarily more realistic than the one-hit-with-a-blunt-instrument-kind. If the writers really wanted to make a point about the nastiness of murder in real life, they could write about the sense of loss experienced by the victim's nearest and dearest. Too bleak? I should think so.

4) The forensic crime story Great if you've always wondered what a drowned corpse's entrails look like. Less great if you haven't.

5) The "social criticism" crime story One shouldn't knock preaching to the converted. The converted need a sermon now and then to lift their spirits. But one should see the "social criticism" in crime stories for what it is: fictionalised rants by authors with decided opinions but no more political expertise than the reader (often less - writers are infamous for being political idiots). These crime stories are no more wholesome than reading your favourite political blogger just to get that lovely feeling you're not alone in the world. If you share the writer's opinions you will have a whale of a time. If not, probably not. The dominance of this kind of crime story in Sweden is the reason why I have read remarkably few Swedish crime writers. I would only touch a Mankell in extreme circumstances, like at gunpoint. I lived in the halcyon days of "The Swedish Model", sonny, and it wasn't as wonderful as all that.

The modern trends aren't all bad, though. I do like a sub-genre not mentioned in the whig-history articles: the historical murder mystery. Unsurprisingly, these mysteries are as often as not - whodunnits.

tisdag 12 april 2011

Copperfield fatigue

I have to admit it: when it comes to TV adaptations of "David Copperfield" I am starting to get jaded. The one with the Little Lord Fauntleroy David that I'm watching now is the fifth version I've seen. It's got its good points, such as Paul Brightwell's Uriah - high on the bitterness, low on the cringing, just the way I like it - and an excellent performance from Jeremy Brudenell who almost makes you see why anyone should bother with a spoiled wastrel like Steerforth. And yet the adaptation seems run of the mill - maybe because it more or less makes the same choices regarding which scenes to include and which to cut as all the other adaptations. "Betsey Trotwood: you've heard of her, I dare say" - idyllic childhood scene - "come on, shake hands, Davy" - "Barkis is willing" - "Drownded" - "if I were a lady" - "Clara, my dear, firmness" - I could go on, and on... The same story shortcuts are taken, the same incidental characters removed: no Dr Strong subplot, no Martha, no Omers, no Miss Mowcher. Mr Mell and Julia Mills do put in an appearance, which is rare enough, but one of my favourite minor villains, the impeccable manservant Littimer, is nowhere to be seen. Incredibly, he only turns up in one of the adaptations I've watched (the latest BBC one).

I'm starting to realise why reviewers whine when they have to see another "Figaro's Wedding" or "Carmen" (it's often opera reviewers who grumble openly: I don't think a theatre critic would dare to say "oh no, not another b-y Hamlet"). Probably, it's for their benefit that directors take such pains to set the familiar pieces in any setting or time except the one specified in the libretto. Familiarity breeds if not contempt then at least indifference.

So what if the Uriah's good: I've seen enough good - some even great - Uriahs to form a bridge team. McCusker, Lyndhurst, Jarvis and now Brightwell (even Moody wasn't that bad, but he shouldn't have made the part into a comic turn): all of them are showcased in pretty much the same scenes. The one where David first comes to the Wickfields' house. The one where Uriah reveals his interest in Agnes. The one where he exasperates Wickfield. And then finally, the one where his fraud is exposed by Micawber. Yes, important scenes all, but not the only ones by a long way to feature Uriah. To be fair, this adaptation pastes in some Uriah lines from cut scenes in the remaining ones, but a line like "We needn't make it known to ALL the town" deserves to be heard in its proper context.

Surely there is enough good stuff in this rich novel to come up with an adaptation that stands out a little from all the others? I'm not saying I thought the Omers were that much of a hit, and Dickens himself almost ruins Miss Mowcher by suddenly making her not only one of the goodies but self-pitying too. But maybe it would be worth-while to try to make something of them? And why does no-one want to touch the melodrama-rich story of the Strong marriage?

I shouldn't complain, though. Things might be worse. I might, for instance, be a fan of Wilkins Micawber. Of the five adaptations I've seen/am seeing, only two feature stand-out performances in the role of Micawber (Ralph Richardson and Bob Hoskins). Arthur Lowe in the Jarvis version was great on the pompousness - as you would expect from Captain Mainwaring - but the jollity seemed forced. The Little Lord Fauntleroy adaptation boasts Simon Callow as Micawber, and you would think he'd be ideal for the part. Unfortunately, though, instead of using his own plummy voice which would suit Micawber excellently, he contorts his jaw and actually lisps. Er, no, sorry Simon, wrong comic character, wrong book even. This is not the first time something like this has happened; there seems to be something about Micawber that brings out the mugger in actors. Tragic, isn't it?

måndag 4 april 2011

The genius of Jasper Fforde

It's not often I buy a book in hardcover. I know hardcover books are more elegant and durable, but try lugging one to work and back for your lunch read every day and the elegance soon palls. A week or so ago, I made an exception, however, as I could not bear to wait any longer for Jasper Fforde's latest Thursday Next novel. Luckily, the hardcover was pretty trim and lugging it to work never became a problem, as I finished it in one weekend.

It's not surprising I should like Fforde's books, as I'm 1 bookish 2 a geek. The combination of an alternative reality world and references to classics such as Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontës and lots and lots of Dickens is pure bliss for me. But Fforde doesn't only have a marvellous premise which must appeal to millions of bookworms - the notion that yes, somewhere the world of books does exist in real life, as do your favourite fictional characters - he follows it through and comes up with new inventive ideas all the time. Take the scene where Thursday, Fforde's heroine, is up before the court of Kafka's "The Trial", or the one where she gets stranded in a lecture on Ethics and as captain of the boat Moral Dilemma has to face those gruesome constructed problems you (hopefully) only encounter in Philosophy Class.

It's the follow-through I admire in Fforde, not just the inventiveness. He not only comes up with a good scenario, but gives a great deal of thought to it. In the latest novel, "One of Our Thursdays is Missing", Thursday (not the real one, the written one - long story) has to visit the part of BookWorld called Conspiracy. It's the home of among others aliens, Elvises and "the notion that FDR somehow knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor". So far, so funny, but Fforde has taken the time to enter the mindset of the Conspiracy-dwellers: "They banish us here to Fiction [...] when we should be up there, in Non-Fiction." I like details like these, which add a kind of weird realism to the flights of fancy.

Another strong point with Fforde is the characterisation of the main characters (and some, if not all, of the minor ones). Thursday Next is a lovely, feisty heroine, though not without her faults - she tends to underestimate her enemies, for instance, and to forget that they may have feelings too. Not surprising, really, as Fforde's villains are mostly cartoonish, though fun. Jack Spratt, Mary Mary and their nerdy alien sidekick Ashley in the Nursery Crime series are also engaging characters. (The Nursery Crime series is good too, but as a foreigner I enjoy the Thursday Next novels more - I know my English classics, but nursery rhymes are a different matter.)

I didn't care for the leads in "Shades of Grey" though - a novel set in a dystopian future where everyone is severely colour-blind. The heroine Jane (of course) Grey is a humourless, violent revolutionary who I'm sure would join a terrorist group like Rote Armee Fraktion in a heartbeat (except they would have to rename it Graue Armee Fraktion). The hero is all right, but wet. Fforde has put his normal amount of thought into his imagined world, but ironically, it is a bit too black and white. "Shades of Grey" demonstrates one of Fforde's weaknesses - sometimes, he can become just a little bit preachy. Don't get me started on the Neanderthals in the Thursday Next series - like Noble Savages, only even more annoying.

You can pick holes aplenty in Fforde's novels if you want to - and, an occupational hazard this, geeks often do want to. Fforde is not one to let consistency get in the way of a good story, or joke. The most glaring example is the way he completely destroys the premise of his first book, "The Eyre Affair" (which hinges on the assumption that a fictional character, especially a first-person narrator, cannot be replaced). In "The Well of Lost Plots", Fforde suddenly introduces the concept of "generics", characters who are moulded to fill different roles in fiction, and who can replace characters who are lost or crack under the strain of the parts they have to play. I never liked the "generics" concept much - I want fictional characters to be their characters, not just to act them - though I understand why it may have been a narrative necessity. There's not much suspense in a world where no-one is allowed to die as that would automatically ruin a Classic work. But it is a problem that it is never explained why the abduction of Jane Eyre in "The Eyre Affair" was such a big deal, when there must have been generics ready to take her place.

Fforde can be a bit too clever-clever at times - you can get enough of the genre-related book jokes after a while. Also, he can be guilty of "Sutherlandisms" - that is, like the literary critic John Sutherland, he may think he knows a book so well he doesn't have to check his facts, and then he gets some detail wrong which sometimes can ruin the whole argument or joke. "David Copperfield" is up for a re-read, I think: Fforde's DC jokes tend to be a bit off. (It's not just that I thought his Uriah was a disappointment, honest.) But Sutherlandisms can happen to us all and are not that serious, providing you don't make a living as an Eng.Lit. academic.

Going from one thing to another, what is the deal with the Goliath Corporation? Is it a parody of the typical Evil Corporation you find in all kinds of yarns from adventure stories to earnest thrillers? Or is it actually meant to be hard-hitting corporate satire? It's hard not to read Goliath's efforts to turn itself into a religion as a satire on the horror that is "corporate values". Marketing inedible meat from endangered penguins, though - come on, that has to be Evil Corporation parody, surely? Maybe Goliath is a mixture of parody and satire - anyway, it's churlish to complain, as I'm rather attached to the Goliath goons.

To sum up: quibbles aside, Fforde is seriously good. Think you're bookish? Think you're geeky? Buy him.