Category: Fiction

Book Beginnings on Friday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

This is the opening sentence of the book I’m going to read next:

The night the war ended, both Mrs Trevor and Mrs Wilson went on duty at the Red Cross post as usual.

from The Village by Marghanita Laski. As this sentence indicates the setting is at the end of World War Two – in fact, the very day it ended. It seems to me as though Mrs Trevor and Mrs Wilson don’t want to give up the routine they had during the war and I’m keen to see what effect the end of the war will have on them.

This opening reminds me a bit of One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes, also set in 1946 and chronicles the changes the Marshall family encountered, a book which I loved.

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader.

The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Daphne Du Maurier has been one of my favourite authors ever since I read Rebecca as a young teenager. I’ve read quite a lot of her books, some more than once, but this is the first time I’ve read The Parasites.

This is different from the other books by Du Maurier that I’ve read. There’s no real mystery, no dramatic suspense, no need to hold your breath and wonder what comes next. In some ways it’s a family drama and in others it’s a psychological study. The characters, for the most part, are not likeable – they’re selfish and self-centred, the ‘dreadful Delaneys‘. They’re from the theatrical, artistic world and they mix with the rich and the upper classes. They are siblings, with famous parents – Pappy, a singer who is a  larger-than life character and Mama who is a dancer. Between them they have three children – Maria, who is Pappy’s daughter; Niall, who is Mama’s son; and Celia who is their daughter.

At the beginning of this book Charles, Maria’s husband accuses her and her stepbrother, Niall and half-sister Celia of being parasites:

… that’s what you are, the three of you. Parasites. The whole bunch. You always have been and you always will be. Nothing can change you. You are doubly, triply parasitic; first, because you’ve traded ever since childhood on that seed of talent you had the luck to inherit from your fantastic forbears; secondly, because you’ve none of you done a stroke of ordinary honest work in your lives, but batten upon us, the fool public who allow you to exist; and thirdly, because you prey upon each other, the three of you, living in a world of fantasy which you have created for yourselves and which bears no relation to anything in heaven or on earth. (page 5)

The narration alternates between the past and the present and between the first person narrator and third person description, which I found rather odd at first. The narrator could be any one of the three – Maria, Niall or Celia – or is it Daphne Du Maurier herself? I read Margaret Forster’s biography of Daphne a while ago and checked what she had to say about The Parasites. I wasn’t surprised to find out that this book is semi-autobiographical. Daphne had written to a friend in 1957 explaining that these characters were her ‘three inner selves’ and Margaret Forster considers that Pappy was modelled on Gerald, Daphne’s father.

It’s the relationships between the three siblings that forms the core of The Parasites. After Charles’s outburst the three of them discuss what he meant and go back through their lives. There are poignant moments as they remember the joys and difficulties of growing up and that strange realisation that you’re no longer a child:

Grown-up people … How suddenly would it happen, the final plunge into their world? Did it really come overnight, as Pappy said, between sleeping and waking? A day would come, a day like any other day, and looking over your shoulder you would see the shadow of the child that was, receding; and there would be no going back, no possibility of recapturing the shadow. You had to go on; you had to step forward into the future, however much you dreaded the thought, however much you were afraid. (page 61)

Like all of Du Maurier’s books I could visualise the scenes, almost as though I was really there. I may not have liked the characters but they are convincing –  I wouldn’t want to have to spend much time with any of them. But it’s not all intense. There is also humour to balance the drama, such as the hilarious scene where the Delaneys visit the Wyndham family soon after Maria has married Charles.

Even though this does not rank with my favourites of Daphne’s books I did enjoy it and it spurred me on to read My Cousin Rachel, which I’ve been meaning to read for years, and Justine Picardie’s novel, Daphne – more about both books another time.

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Virago Press Ltd; New edition edition (5 May 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1844080722
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844080724
  • Source: I bought it
  • My Rating: 3.5/5

Recent Reading

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I’ve read some books recently and haven’t written about them – ‘real life’ keeps getting in the way! So here are a few brief notes on three of the books I’ve read this month:

  • The Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi 4/5 – the first in the Hermes Diaktoros, Greek detective series, set on a remote Greek island. Hermes investigates the death of a young woman. It’s great on location and characters, but a bit slow in parts. Each of the books in the series features one of the Seven Deadly Sins – in this one it is the sin of lust. I’ve read the third book in the series – The Doctor of Thessaly – and have the fifth one, The Whispers of Nemesis. I just need to find the second and fourth books to complete the series.
  • Before the Poison by Peter Robinson 4/5. This is a stand-alone book, about Chris Lowndes, a widower who has bought a house in the Yorkshire Dales. Sixty years earlier a man had died there and his wife Grace was convicted of his murder and hanged. Chris wants to discover whether she really was guilty. This is a convincing mystery, told alternating between the present day and the past. Another book well grounded in its locality and with great characterisation.
  • The Inspector’s Daughter by Alanna Knight 3.5/5 – the first in the Rose McQuinn Mystery series. Set in Edinburgh in 1895, Rose, recently returned from America’s Wild West, steps into the shoes of her father, DI Faro (another series of books features this detective). Her friend Alice ask her to investigate her husband’s strange behaviour as she is convinced he’s having an affair. Meanwhile there is also the mystery of the brutal murder of a servant girl to solve. Rose lives in an isolated house at the foot of Arthur’s Seat and is helped by a wild deerhound who appears just when she needs him. An interesting historical murder mystery, convincingly set in the late 19th century, when Edinburgh was developing and the Forth Railway Bridge had just been opened.

March Prompt – A Classics Challenge

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The focus this month in the Classics Challenge is on Setting.

I’ve just finished re-reading (for the umpteenth time) Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Each time I read it I still enjoy it immensely. I think knowing what happens next adds to the pleasure. I read it this time looking out for information about the settings – something I haven’t done before, although Pemberley always stands out!

There are many locations, but for this post I’ve chosen Longbourn.

Pride and Prejudice is a novel based on character, plot and is a study of society in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, but above all it is a love story. The settings provide an essential backdrop but in most cases leave a lot to the reader’s imagination; dialogue takes precedence over description – place is really unimportant.

The book begins with no indication of its setting, or time of day, with a conversation between two characters – Mr and Mrs Bennet. And it is only in the third chapter that the location is revealed and then all we learn is that that the family lives in the village of Longbourn, where they are the principal inhabitants. More information about Longbourn is scattered throughout the book. It’s one mile from the village of Meryton, in Hertfordshire, where the militia are quartered for a while, and twenty four miles from London.

Longbourn House is the family home of the Bennets. There is little description of the house. It must be quite large, it has land – an estate, including a farm. The family have the use of a carriage and horses, when they are not needed for farm work. There are servants – a butler, housekeeper, cook and maids, a drawing room, dining-parlour, and dressing rooms as well as bedrooms. There are gardens, with gravel walks, a shrubbery, a hermitage, and what Lady Catherine de Burgh called  ‘a prettyish kind of little wilderness on one side of your lawn.’

Reading the book I haven’t formed a definite picture in my mind what Longbourn House looks like, although I like this one from the 1995 TV series.

Luckington Court the 1995 TV location of Longbourn House © Copyright Paul Ashwin and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

Kerrie’s community meme – The Alphabet in Crime Fiction – is back for 2012 – for full details see her blog, which includes a schedule showing the date that the week’s page will be posted and the letter of the week. It begins on May 21, with, of course, the letter A. Could that be a post about Agatha Christie, or one of her books, I wonder?

The rules are that each Friday you write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book’s title, the first letter of an author’s first name, or the first letter of the author’s surname, or even maybe a crime fiction “topic”. But above all, it has to be crime fiction. It is ok to skip a week.

I’ve signed up and will be posting each week where possible – some letters are always tricky!

The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Labours of Hercules is a collection of 12 short stories featuring Hercule Poirot, first published in 1947. Poirot is thinking of retiring, but before he does he wants to solve 12 more cases and not just any cases. These have to correspond to the Twelve Labours of Hercules, specially selected problems that personally appeal to him.

Most of the stories are quite easy to work out, but that doesn’t detract from the pleasure of reading them. And so that he can complete his twelve cases, Poirot does some uncharacteristic travelling around the world – he can’t rely solely on his ‘little grey cells.’

The labours of Hercules were set for the classical Greek hero by King Eurystheus of Tiryns as a penance. On completing them he was rewarded with immortality. On the face of it, Poirot and Hercules are vastly different, both in character and appearance and after immersing himself in classical lore, Poirot decides he is definitely superior, as he looks at himself in the mirror he thinks:

Here, then, was a modern Hercules – very distinct from that unpleasant sketch of a naked figure with bulging muscles, brandishing a club. Instead a small compact figure attired in correct urban wear with a moustache – such a moustache as Hercules never dreamed of cultivating – a moustache magnificent yet sophisticated.

Yet there was between this Hercule Poirot and the Hercules of Classical lore one point of resemblance. Both of them, undoubtedly, had been instrumental in ridding the world of certain pests … Each of them could be described as a benefactor to the Society he lived in … (page 14)

  •  The first case is my favourite of the twelve. It corresponds to killing the Nemean lion a frightful beast. It’s a mystery concerning the kidnapping of a Pekinese dog. At first Poirot is reluctant to take on the case, disapproving of such dogs – ‘bulging-eyed, overpampered pets of a rich woman.’ But there is one small detail that is unusual and he is curious. And as one of the characters tells him. ‘according to the legend, Pekinese were lions once. And they still have the hearts of lions.’
  • The Lernean Hydra was a monstrous snake with many heads. In the second case Poirot’s modern equivalent is malicious gossip, spreading rumours of murder, which he ‘kills’ by discovering who the real culprit was.
  • The Arcadian Deer – Poirot helps a young mechanic, who is ‘a simple young man with the outward appearance of a Greek god’  reminding him of a ‘shepherd in Arcady’ to find a beautiful young woman who has disappeared – the Arcadian deer.
  • Poirot’s equivalent of the fourth labour of Hercules in the Erymanthian Boar is to capture a violent murderer. Set high in the Swiss Alps, Poirot is in great danger as he contends with an infamous gang leader and in doing so he is uncharacteristically physically active!
  • In the Augean Stables Poirot gets involved in politics, averting a scandal using a force of nature, as Hercules used a torrential river to cleanse the stables belonging to King Augeas. Poirot’s equivalent is a sex scandal to divert attention from political chicanery.
  • The Stymphalean Birds – man-eating birds. In this case Poirot is in Herzoslovakia where Harold Waring is having a restful holiday when he meets a delightful English couple – an elderly woman and her pretty daughter. Also staying at the hotel are two other  women – who are not English and who seem to him to be ‘birds of ill omen’. Harold soon finds himself a victim and it is up to Poirot to chase away the ‘birds’ from their hiding place.
  • The Cretan Bull – in the legend Hercules captures the bull, which was possibly the father of the Minotaur. Diana Maberley appeals to Poirot for help after her fiancé breaks off their engagement as he fears he is going mad. The connection with the legendary story is very slight.
  • The Horses of Diomedes – the eighth labour of Hercules was to capture the wild horses that were fed on human flesh. Poirot’s equivalent are human beasts who supply drugs – ‘the person who deliberately profits from the degradation and misery of other people is a vampire preying on flesh and blood.’
  • The Girdle of Hyppolita was captured by Hercules after he had defeated the Amazons and either killed their Queen or had captured one of her generals. Poirot’s ‘Girdle’ is a Rubens masterpiece, stolen in broad daylight. Initially it doesn’t interest him very much, but it brought the case of the Missing Schoolgirl to his attention – and that interested him much more. She had apparently disappeared off a train, leaving a pair of shoes on the railway track.
  • The Flock of Geryon – in the legend Hercules kills the monster, Geryon, to gain control of the flock. Poirot, of course, doesn’t kill anyone. He meets Miss Carnaby (who is also in the first story, the Nemean Lion) who tells him how worried she is about her friend who she believes is being victimised by Dr Andersen, the leader of a religious sect, The Flock of the Shepherd.
  • The Apples of the Hesperides. There are several versions of this. The apples grew on a tree guarded by a dragon – Hercules either killed the dragon, or sent Atlas for the apples, in the meanwhile holding up the world on his own shoulders. Poirot’s apples are emeralds on a tree around which a dragon is coiled, on a missing Italian renaissance goblet. It seems that Poirot may have to go on a world tour to retrieve the goblet – to investigate locations in five different parts of the globe.
  • The Capture of Cerberus – a three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades, or Hell. In Poirot’s final case Hell is a nightclub run by the Countess Vera Rossakoff, an old friend of Poirot’s. This nightclub is guarded by the ‘largest and ugliest and blackest dog’  Poirot has ever seen. Entrance to the club is only after throwing a ‘sop’ to Cerberus from a basket of dog biscuits. The police believe it’s the headquarters of a drug racket involving the fencing of stolen jewellery. Poirot can’t believe that Vera, for whom he has a soft spot, can be involved. I liked the ending of this story when Miss Lemon queries a bill for roses sent to the Countess. He responds:

‘There are moments,’ he said, ‘when one does not economise.’

Humming a little tune, he went out of the door. His step was light, almost sprightly. Miss Lemon stared after him. Her filing system was forgotten. All her feminine instincts were aroused.

‘Good gracious,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder … Really – at his age! … Surely not…’

I enjoyed this book both for the linking of Poirot’s cases with the Labours of Hercules and for the personal snippets of information about Poirot, scattered throughout the text.