The Red Thumb Mark by R. Austin Freeman (1907)

 
This story is not only surprisingly charming to the reader but also unexpectedly relevant to the contemporary fad for forensic procedurals. Thorndyke seems, in many ways, to having been designed to be an interesting not quite anti-Holmes. Thorndyke does not call into question the necessity for the careful checking of clues and scientific examination of all possible aspects of the crime. What he calls into question is what might called the fetishization of particular forms of scientific findings without considering all the possibilities of how that “evidence\” came to be found at the scene of the crime. In this case, Thorndyke, in defending Reuben Hornby, has to counter the automatic assumption of the police that “a finger-print as a kind of magical touchstone, a final proof, beyond which inquiry need not go.\” Indeed, Thorndyke argues that “this is an entire mistake. A finger-print is merely a fact, a very important and significant one, I admit, but still a fact, which, like any other fact, requires to be weighed and measured with reference to its evidential value.”

Thorndyke does not debunk the science behind fingerprinting nor is he skeptical of the process of scientific investigation. What he does present is the difference between true scientific inquiry and the automatic assumption that having mastered a particular scientific technique one may fall back upon it as if it were written in stone. And indeed, he demonstrates that any technique of investigation will soon be countered by criminals who take it into account and counter it with new techniques of their own. It is particularly interesting to read this book today at a time when many treat DNA evidence with reverence but without real understandings of its strengths and weaknesses. Indeed one wonders what opinions Dr. Thorndyke would have as to the reliability of many of today’s labs and many of today’s experts.

For those who are interested in the details of forensic analysis Freeman devotes a good part of the book to that very aspect of forensics which is most overlooked in most television procedurals; how does one present evidence in a way that is understandable and convincing to juries. For those who are less interested in the scientific aspect of “ratiocination” Freeman includes a wonderful analysis of the Holmesian deductive method as Thorndyke explains not only why his supposition that a figure outside the window was a stationmaster was sound but also why it was, for all that soundness, a mere educated guess.

In conclusion: This is an enjoyably written book which avoids unneeded plot complications, does a good job of introducing the reader to Dr. Thorndyke and his methods and may do well to assuage that empty feeling the reader is left with after consuming the last of the Holmes stories.

Rating: 3-1/2 stars

 
August Folly by Angela Thirkell (1936)

In August Folly, the fourth of Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels, the reader finds hirself once again the world of the English gentry in the years between the two World Wars. It is tempting to categorize this as light-weight book with two main functions: to entertain and the second to sketch in more completely the existing characters that make up the cast of the Bartsetshire novels and to add a few more members to that cast.

Those functions may have been the conscious intentions of the author however August Follyleaves the modern day reader with a carefully sketched picture of the realities of provincial life among the English gentry in the 1930s. In particular the reader is given an insight in the nuanced complications of economic inequalities among people of similar class status. The England in which this story has set has already begun to undergo the changes that would lead to, if such a thing c ould exist, a partial upheaval in the class system.

Many of the characters in this book seemed trapped in the contradictions between the economic/class system that was and the economic/class system that is to come. The families around whom this book revolves all belong to the gentry (they are, in the terminology of the time, ladies and gentlemen.) The sons attend university and clearly studying at Oxford or Cambridge are their only options for acquiring tertiary education. However, unlike previous generations of young men of their class, this cohort is more conscious of the limitations of such education in providing them with the skills required to get jobs (and make money) in the world of business. Whereas earlier generations of the gentry had been content (and able) for the most part to live off dividends and perhaps the income from their land the current generation was finding it more and more difficult to do the same.

The story itself revolves around one summer in the country life of three families living in the Barset countryside:[1] the Palmers, the Deans and the Tebbens. As is not uncommon in books of this type characters meet, interact, and misunderstand each other. Their actions and interactions take place against the attempt on the part of Mrs. Palmer to stage Euripides’s Hippolytus. Usually in romance/soap operas there would be a clear echo between the themes of the play being staged and the drama enacted among those rehearsing the play and yet, in this case, there is not. The modern reader may be struck with the extent to which the English at the time had such a shared culture that one could be fairly sure that any other ‘educated’ person would have read the same plays and know the same poetry. Aside from that sense of “shared culture” the overwhelming echo from play to book is that the characters about whom Thirkell is writing live as constrained lives as those in the play. There were but a narrow number of people that any individual could pair up with and there was but a narrow range of jobs any individual could enter be they upper, middle or working class.

Unlike many other novelists who include a number of characters who all belong to the gentry Thirkell does not rely on subtle clues to indicate to the readers the differences in financial statuses of the different families. Of the Palmers we learn little save that they have no children and they are quite comfortably situated. The Deans are clearly well heeled. There are nine children in the family and at no time is there any indication that choices are made for financial reasons. Mr. Dean works and is evidently successful although one doubts that the lifestyle of the family arises only from his wages. They own more than one car. They employ more than one chauffeur. They eat caviar and spend money without consideration. The Tebbens, on the other hand, are clearly struggling to maintain the what they consider the necessities of life. Mr. Tebben holds a position as a civil servant (or which we learn precious few details) and his wife writes economic text books. They cannot afford a car but they have a (not particularly good) cook. They hire household servants but worry about the cost of tea. Though they belong to the same class as the Deans and the Palmers the economic realities of their lives are so dissimilar that a modern reader, less schooled in the nuances of class, will wonder why they consider themselves part of the same social set.

If August Folly had been set in London the counterpoint of the old ways dying set against the formation of the next generation might have become lost in the midst of its own playing out. It is says much for why Thirkell was considered a popular and accessible (but fundamentally lightweight) author by her contemporaries that it is possible to read and enjoy her books without even noticing the underlying themes and tensions yet if one considers them carefully if the thematic material was removed there would be little left to read.

This is a story a people who are at best only minor actors upon the stage of their county and their country. They react rather than act and thus are at the mercy of the fates as to the direction of their own lives. Because they are born to a class that is accepted as “the leaders” they see themselves as having some degree of control over their lives and yet, as one looks back over the occurrences of the book, one realizes that Thirkell has presented to the audience characters with as little final control over their lives as had the characters in the Greek play they were staging.

[1] For those unfamiliar with the work of Thirkell – one of the major conceits of the greater number of her novels is that they take place in the same corner of England as Trollope explored in many of his novels. Not only do Thirkell’s readers encounter place names familiar from many of Trollope’s books the reader is also explicitly informed that Thirkell’s characters inhabit Trollope’s created England by having the narrator or characters identify other characters as descendants of individuals in Trollope’s books.

Rating: 3-1/2 stars

 
Tiassa by Steven Brust (2011)

It is difficult to write a review of Tiassa because I will not know myself exactly what I think of it until I have read it at least 3 or 4 more times. And even after those re-readings I suspect that I would find it difficult to give the book an exact grade.

So, first things first.

Did I enjoy Tiassa?

Yes indeed.

Did Tiassa live up to your expectations?

It is difficult to answer that question because I have learned to have few expectations of any of Brust\’s books except that the time and effort spent reading them will be worthwhile.
However I had no specific expectations as to when in Vlad Taltos life the book would be set. Nor did I have specific expectations as to which of the other characters we have previously met in the Dragaeran books we would encounter in this outing. My hope was that this book would deepen our understanding of how the Dragaeran Empire runs — and it does so. My hope was that Brust would return to tell us more about particular characters — and he has done that. My hope was that at the end of Tiassa I would want to immediately go back and reread all the other books in the Vladiad in the light of my new insight and understand of the Vlad\’s story — and that was my second impulse after I reached the last word of the book. My first impulse was to turn back to the first page and read Tiassa again.

Is Tiassa a well-written book?

Brust shows off his technical skills as a writer in this book. This reader had already been impressed with the difference in \”voice\” between the Khaavren Romances, the Vladiad and Agyar. In Tiassa Brust moves from one point to another in both the life of Vlad and Khaavren and in doing so uses the right voice for the right person in the right time.

Is this a good choice for a \”first Vlad\” book?

To write more than this would be to spoil this book for those who have followed Vlad\’s saga over the years. And as much as I enjoyed this book I would not suggest it as a good \”first Vlad\” for someone not already familiar with the series. Brust is, as always, mercifully sparing of the infodump and therefore much of the individual reader\’s understanding of situations is dependent upon the having read the previously published books. In addition to problem of being \”lost\” without adequate backstory the reader who has never read another Vlad/Khaavren book will also miss the joy that long time readers have of trying to determine who is an unreliable narrator, who is a self-deluded narrator and who, if anyone, really understands (and could relate) what really happened.

Rating: 4-1/2 stars

 
I wouldn\’t say I surprised when various American news broadcasts described the outcome of the recent (2011) Canadian election in a way that was so simplified that it was misleading. However, I had not expected the particular way in which the coverage would distort the realities of Canadian politics. The New York Times piece on the election results, Conservatives in Canada Expand Party\’s Hold, discussed them without ever mentioning, Jack Layton, the man who lead the New Democratic Party (the new official opposition) to win a record-breaking number of seats. In the same article Michael Ignatieff, leader the Liberals, is mentioned three times (excluding the still incorrect corrections at the bottom of the piece.) Similarly The Washington Post article,
Harper says he won’t move Canada hard to the right after winning coveted majority in election does mention Jack Layton by name but does so in the second half of the piece and devotes far more time talking about Ignatieff than it did the very surprising success of the leader of the NDP.

It was after reading an article about the Canadian election in Slate.com Worthwhile Canadian Candidate: Michael Ignatieff may want to be prime minister too much for Canadians to give it to him. that I finally realized which presumptions/stereotypes that Canadian public\’s rejection of Michael Ignatieff was being filtered through.

First: Canadians are just like Americans except they like to play hockey, say \”eh\” and \”aboot.\” Verities of American politics can be applied at will to Canadian politics.

Second: Separatism is a strange thing that has something to do with the fact that they speak French in places in Canada but Canadian regionalism isn\’t really important because they are just like Americans except for the fact that they play hockey etc…

Third: Oh, and they have these \”left leaning\” parties and some of them even have \”socialist\” roots but a conservative is a conservative is a Republican so delving any deeper into the party platforms (what! conservatives in Canada back socialized medicine!) isn\’t really necessary.

Fourth: People who live outside of Canada and become well-known in the United States should be recognized by Canadians as ambitious not expatriate.

Fifth: Canadians who don\’t immediately warm to a Harvard intellectual who spent more than 3 decades out of the country and came back and almost immediately ran for the leadership of his political party are parochial, credulous (falling for the Rovesque tactics of the Conservatives) or suspicious of ambition.

Sixth: That someone from the \”outside\” (if they are an American) can better understand/judge what is good for Canadians than can Canadians.

Lest these suggestions come across as simply another case of Canadian \”touchiness\” I would point out that all the things which annoy me about the American coverage of Canadian politics also annoys me about Canadian coverage of the politics of other countries. Just as American news writers and editors understanding and evaluate Canadian news through the filters of their prior concepts so do Canadian news writers and editors understand and evaluate other countries through prior concepts/stereotypes. As citizens of democracies we are called upon at regular or irregular intervals (depending upon one\’s electoral system) to make decisions and judgments that should be made out of knowledge rather than ignorance. We should be reacting to the reality of the world around us not the phantasms created by \”common knowledge,\” media steroetypes and fact challenged news delivery systems.

 
Ankle Deep by Angela Thirkell (1933)

The opening paragraphs of Ankle Deep suggest that it is a typical example of a particular genre. The author lets the reader continue under that misapprehension for a short while then inexorably bends the story in one place and straightens it in another and discloses a few cards hidden up the narrator’s sleeve. By the last page the reader has been taken to both expected and unexpected places and has been finally set down not far from the point where they were originally swept up – in the process having experienced a ride on that strangest of beasts, the existential comedy of manners.

This early Thirkell novel, published in the same year as her first Barsetshire novel, is written with a surety of authorial voice that allows the reader for relax and enjoy this glimpse of a way of life that zie knows will only too soon come to an end. The particular problems that face the characters are both similar to and very different from those which face families today. While some of the particular problems Thirkell\’s characters encounter (for example, the public shame that accompanied divorce) reflect a much different world than our own other problems (especially those rooted in the personalities of the characters) remain with us today.

Although this is not one of the better remembered Thirkells it was an enjoyable read, a worthwhile reread and a spur to find and read more of the author\’s work.

His next appearance was at the American Embassy.

The Ambassador, however, was not there, having received a royal mandate to dine. Wimsey damned the dinner, abandoned the polite, horn-rimmed secretaries, and leapt back into his taxi with a demand to be driven to Buckingham Palace. Here a great deal of insistence with scandalised officials produced first a higher official, then a very high official, and, finally, the American Ambassador and a Royal Personage while the meat was yet in their mouths.

[is] at this moment . . . cleaving the air high above the wide Atlantic. In this wintry weather he is braving a peril which would appall any heart but his own and that of the world-famous aviator whose help he has enlisted so that no moment may be lost in freeing his noble brother from this terrible charge.

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers (1923)

Rereading Sayers’ first Wimsey book, Whose Body?, reminding this reviewer why they so loved this genre of story. Sayers’ writing style is unobtrusively good. One is seldom consciously aware of the fact that the author has managed to draw deep and nuanced word portraits in a few sentences. Words are used carefully yet the author seldom makes a point of her erudition save for her choice not to translate the portions of a conversation that take place in French.

Although the method by which the murderer carried out his plans strains credulity Sayers does not resort to the all too common plot device of a massive international criminal conspiracy that one encounters in so many of English mystery/detective stories of this period. This murderer’s motivations are almost mundane in comparison to those found in the books of many of the author’s contemporaries.

A number of things stand out to this reader:

First, there is a base level of anti-Semitism in the Britain of the 1920s that may take a modern reader aback. People are described as “Hebrew” as if that was an identifier no different from “blond.” And many of the characters in this book are clearly prejudiced against Jews. Yet Sir Reuben Levy, the “self-made” and wealthy Jew around whose disappearance much of the book revolves, is not characterized as miserly or money-grubbing. Yes, he holds to the personal economies that helped him become a very wealthy man but he is also shown to be extremely generous to his wife and daughter. His marriage is portrayed as happy and sound and his wife, who braved criticism when she chose to marry a Jew is shown as having never had a reason to regret that decision.
 
Second, near the end of this book there is a short and stunningly effective depiction of PTSD. The behaviour described was at that time known as shell-shock but there can be no question as to what Lord Peter is experiencing. It is because of this PTSD that he sometimes withdraws in apparent fatuity. As a man who knows that deep emotions may trigger flashbacks he uses a variety of techniques to dampen down those emotions at moments of stress. This grounds Wimsey’s behaviour, and the acceptance of that behaviour on the part of those around him, not in his “class” or the fashion of his social circle but in their knowledge that he has, in a sense, earned the right to sometimes withdraw both intellectually and emotionally.

Third, Sayers treats her non-aristocratic characters as intelligent and rational people. One understands why Lord Peter would find Mr. Parker (a Scotland Yard detective) an enjoyable person with whom to dine. Parker himself is well-educated and is shown to read books that are as intellectually challenging as those that interest Wimsey. Indeed, when he and Lord Peter discuss the morality and rationale of detective work and law on a serious level it is often Parker who seems to make the better argument.

Bunter (Wimsey\’s \’man\’), is another character who, written by a lesser author, could easily fall into caricature rather than characterization. Bunter does not drop letters from his speech and fall back on cant and argot. He, it is pointed out in the text, has been educated well. And the last line in the “shell-shock” scene makes it clear that what ties Bunter to Wimsey is not loyalty based on a class relationship but the loyalty that is forged by shared experiences in combat and physical deprivation.

Whose Body? is not the “perfect” mystery novel. The plot is over complicated and the denouement rather weak. This is, however, an impressive first outing for a detective, and a cast of characters, whose motivations and psychologies are better drawn in a scant few hundred pages than other authors can achieve after several books.

It was a very peaceful end. I was resting my hand on her chest in order to check her heartbeat and I felt the last beat of her heart. I had been sitting with her all day and in the evening, after my father had left for dinner, there seemed to be something different about her breathing. Mmyspouse went to get dad and so he was there with her when she breathed her last.

It had been winter when she went into the hospital and it was spring when she died. Leaving behind the deathbed vigil was like emerging from a very long and dim tunnel to find that ordinary life had continued in our absence. At home the grass needed to cut and yard work needed to be done. In just a week my father would face his first birthday without mom in over 60 years.

Sitting day after day and then week after week in the hospital I have learned much about the amount of sadness in the world. The morning before my mother\’s death another patient on the floor of the palliative care unit died. The man had only been in the unit for 2 days and his family was totally unready for the his death. His daughter was sitting by him, looked away and when she looked back he was dead. She broke down in hysterics. Across the hall was a man who has been on the floor for 18 months. The doctors had given him 5 months to live when he arrived. He went home for a few hours on Sunday to enjoy the Masters with his grandsons. He and his family knew that every day could be his last. Just down from his room was that of a young woman — maybe 24 or 25 — who had metatastic bone cancer. Her father told me that \”it sounds like a cliche but every day becomes a precious gift to you.\” And in yet another room a 23 year old was dying of cancer and his mother expected that he wouldn\’t last more than a few more weeks. And a few hours after the corpse of the man who died in the morning had been removed the room had a new occupant. The man, just transferred down from oncology, was constantly wracked by coughing and gasped as if always fighting for enough air just to breathe.

We walked out of the palliative care ward leaving one set of worries and fears and taking up another. Our  concern was now to look after my father, a man who was both heartbroken at the passing of his wife and ready for it. He loved her and he looked after her to the end. We loved her and the greatest gift we could give to her memory was to care for and cherish the man she had loved so long and so well.

The problem isn\’t that people do not know what to say to you when you tell them that your mother is dying it is that people want to say something wise, moving, insightful or spiritually uplifting.

Perhaps because so many of us are from small families and so few of us have experienced the practical details that attend sickness and death people have trouble understanding the deathbed realities of the grieving family.

The address book

My mother had an old well-thumbed address book. I think she bought it decades ago and over the years she had drawn lines through many of the addresses. In some cases my mother had simply lost touch with the person named but in a heart-breaking number of cases the struck-through addresses had the word \”dead\” written over them in red ink. But we could not simply pass on because of the red line drawn through the name. That person might still have living parents (unlikely), be survived by a spouse (somewhat less unlikely) or by children and grandchildren. We would search through the ragged address book looking for candidates.

We sat down and made a list of the people who needed to be called and shared the names out amongst us. We discussed what needed to be said and what was better left unsaid. And then we began making the phone calls.

How many times can one say \’my mother is dying?\’
How many times times can one politely and patiently answer the questions?

\”Are you sure?\”
\’Yes,\’ I would say, while thinking, would I call a near stranger to tell them this news were I not sure?\”When did you find out?\”

\’Well,\’ I would say \’I am fuzzy about the exact day,\’ while thinking, please please don\’t be offended that my first response was not to call you.

\”Is there anything I can do?\”
\’No,\’ I would say, while thinking, if I knew of anything anyone could do for my mother do you not think I would have already asked that it be done.*

You know that these people don\’t mean to hurt you. They may even think that they are helping you by giving you \’a chance to talk about it.\’ But talking about it doesn\’t make you less tired, less worried, less concerned about your father\’s health, less concerned as to whether your mother is scared or in pain.

Every second talking to someone else is a second you are not spending with your mother. And your mother has very few seconds left. You don\’t know when she will draw her last breath but you do not want to spend some of those last few precious moments of time telling yet another person \’my mother is dying.\’

So you answer the questions with as much speed and as little emotional involvement as possible.

And then you go back to your mother\’s bedside. Talking didn\’t help. Sharing didn\’t help. Answering questions didn\’t help.

Your mother is still dying.

* There are some wonderful people do don\’t say vaguely \”Is there anything I can do?\” but instead make suggestions as to what they could do. This frees you from the fear that you have misunderstood the nature of their offer. \”Would you like me to pick up your groceries?\” or \”Do you need to have any books returned to the library?\” are much more useful offers than a vague \’anything.\’

They lie to you in movies and on television about what it is like to sit by the deathbed of a loved one. Movies are too short to capture the mixture of exhaustion, boredom, panic, worry and grief that closes in around the people at the bedside.  Television is too episodic to capture the grinding constancy of routinized sorrow. 

A year ago I thought I understood just how wrong are the images of dying we learn in popular culture. I was wrong.

The day after I learned my mother was dying I woke up early. The last I had seen of my mother the night before she had fallen into an fitful uneasy sleep. Since I knew the time of the nursing shift change I wanted to talk to my mother\’s nurse before she went off duty. A pattern had already been established. I introduced myself to the nurses as they came on shift and if I was not there when they went off shift I called them. 


The speed with which the patterns of hospital time became the patterns of my time was something I had not expected. By the end of the first few days I knew when they gave medications and when they changed the sheets. I knew when they took each patient\’s temperature and blood pressure and I knew when they gave my mother a bed bath and shampooed her hair. But I didn\’t know when they fed their patients because my mother would never eat again. 


We don\’t know exactly how long my mother had been suffering from severe pain after attempting to eat. It wasn\’t until the night my father found her vomiting blood that he realized how she was ill and insisted that she let him take her to the hospital. Although on the day of her \”death sentence\” she had been in great pain she was still able to think clearly and discuss her medical situation with her surgeon. Soon the mixture of pain killers and pain left her unable to remember exactly why she was so terribly hungry. 


I quickly learned that tending to a dying person means having to take great care lest you accidentally rip their skin. I learned that tending a dying person means holding their head as they gasp and cough and fight to breathe because they have have accidentally obstructed the ng suction tube. I learned that sitting at the bedside of a dying person meant monitoring their urine bag and their ng collector bag and always knowing the location of every nurse on the floor. I quickly learned that giving comfort and preventing pain was all I could do. 


By the end of the second day of my season of sadness I felt that I had learned much. By the end of that second day I thought I knew exactly how wrong the movies and television were about death bed vigils. I was wrong. There was much more I had yet to learn about exhaustion, worry, pain and grief.