A whodunnit set in a Teacher Training College for Young Ladies. It seems to be paying homage to Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers, a murder mystery set in a women's college at Oxford starring Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. The plot is similar, and one of the lead characters, Laura, rather like Lord Peter, fills her speech with so many literary allusions that her dialogue needs to be interpreted rather than read:
- “I fig-ew-er that the Duchess of Malfi put on burglar's gloves and then did those knots with a hair pin. ... There is going to be one devil of a fine pow-wow-plus-fight; referee and timekeeper that vicious and unstable Old Maid of the Mountains Principal du Mugne, Old Mutt and Young Jeff, defendants our humble selves.” (Ch 4)
- “Somebody must have collected a bevvy of Edgar Allans.” (Ch 4) This refers to a collection of chamber pots. Pot, pronounced to rhyme with Poe, thus Edgar Allan. Cockney rhyming slang or pure whimsy?
Generally speaking the dialogue has an affected, high camp quality that made this novel seem immensely dated. Of course the social context on single sex educational institutions and college 'rags' also seem old fashioned. As for the treatment of the working classes ... The servants are principally there to provide humour and as such are stereotypes. One family of servants are surnamed Ditch and have concerns about a discussion about archaeology: "do ee thenk their brains, like, ull stand et? Tes like so much wetchcraft to I.” They also suggest rape as a courtship procedure: "Master Jonathan ded ought to make a bold bed there, and bring her to et violent. Tes the only way. Her'd gev en, easy enough, ef he act forceful." (Ch 7) One of the servants at college, Lulu, is a black woman (her boyfriend is described as a “mulatto”) who speaks in stereotypical patois: “Sho’ we hasn’t another dry swab in de house wid all dis water.” (Ch 7) These are cliches of the worst kind. It might be argued that the novel reflects the social conditions of the time, and the attitude of the reading public. However, such an unthinking use of hackneyed archetypes suggests laziness on the part of the author and undermines suggestions that this work might have literary merit.
It also meant that I found it very difficult to empathise with or find credible any of the characters. This meant I struggled to maintain interest. And the plot was so convoluted that, well before the end, I was reading simply for the sake of finishing, without even caring whodunnit or why.
In chapter 15 the play Richard of Bordeaux by Gordon Daviot is referenced, presumably as a tribute to Josephine Tey (GD was her pen name), a vastly superior writer of murder mysteries, who Daughter of Time was regarded by the Crime Writers' Association as the best crime novel of all time (Gaudy Night came 4th, Gladys Mitchell does not feature in the top 100).
Selected quotes:- “The teacher is the stage-manager, not the chief actor.” (Ch 8)
- “You could love me, too. It's perfectly easy. My parents have managed it for years, and then not terribly talented.” (Ch 11)
No comments:
Post a Comment