Anderson Crow, Detective by George Barr McCutcheon

I have been reading some old detective stories that are in the public domain, mostly from Feedbooks. This is one of them.

Like many of the detective novels I've been reading, which tend to be about 80-110 years old, this is actually a series of related short stories. They are set in the small town of Tinkletown, and Anderson Crowe is the deputy marshal of the town, and also the deputy superintendent of the fire department, commissioner of the water works, and various other official positions he has managed to wrangle his way into. He is a very self-important man, prone to bluster and lies to aggrandize himself. He is, in short, an idiot, and on the rare occasions when he manages to be in the right place at the right time it is purely by accident.

The odd thing about Anderson Crow is that, even though the townspeople seem to see right through him, they are oddly fond of him nonetheless. He is especially assisted by Harry Squires, who runs the newspaper, and Alf Reesling, in spite of Anderson believing that Alf is the town drunk. As Alf says:

"Look at me. I ain't had a drink in twenty-three years, and what good does it do me? Every time a stranger comes to town people point at me an' say, "There goes the town drunkard." Oh, I've heerd 'em. I ain't deef. An' besides, ain't they always preachin' at me an' about me at the Methodist an' Congregational churches? Aren't they always tellin' the young boys that they got to be careful er they'll be like Alf Reesling? An' what's it all come from? Comes from the three times I got drunk back in the fall of 'ninety-three when my cousin was here from Albany fer a visit. I had to entertain him, didn't I? An' there wan't any other way to do it in this yerk-water town, was there? An' ever since then the windbags in this town have been prayin' fer me an' pityin' my poor wife."

The tone of these stories is humorous, unlike most of the detective novels I've been reading of the same vintage. McCutcheon is well aware that Crow is an idiot, and pokes fun at many of the townspeople, too. That said, his idea of what is humorous does not always align with modern taste. For instance, three of the stories involve people's dogs getting killed, which McCutcheon seems to believe is funny but doesn't sit terribly well with me. Or the story in which a man beats his wife and finds that he's instantly become more attractive to many of the other women of the town. It's eventually explained that, after the first time, he never actually hurt her, and she was playing along at having a seemingly foul-tempered, dangerous husband so the other women would envy her, but really--what the hell? Likewise the old farmer who has buried four wives through poverty and grinding hard labor is treated as light and funny, as he complains that he's now got five mothers-in-law, poor him! Urk. Or the story in which the young men of the town are all suddenly anxious to get married so that they will not be drafted to die horribly in the trenches of France, and Anderson decides he has to put a stop to it -- I didn't actually find that particularly humorous, either.

I realize that tastes change, and that's one of the reasons I read these books -- they are fascinating cultural documents about a very, very different time. That said, humor is hard to do well, and for the most part this book was very unfunny to this modern reader.

Camera Obscura by Lavie Tidhar

Camera Obscura is the second novel in The Bookman Histories. The first is The Bookman. It is a steampunk novel set in a world in which Amerigo Vespucci landed on a Caribbean island and woke up a bevy of hibernating lizard men. They proceeded to try to take over the world, and at the time of these novels they have been running the British Empire for a couple of centuries.

Camera Obscura takes place mostly in Paris. Our protagonist is Cleo, Lady de Winter. She is an agent for the Silent Council which runs France, a shadowy organization run by intelligent machines. We meet her at the scene of a murder on the Rue Morgue, where an Asian man has been killed and eviscerated. This killing gets her involved in the politics of nations, chasing after a killer, searching for what was stolen from the dead man, and trying to learn more about a condition which has the infected rising from the dead.

Cleo is a cold-blooded killer, and very skilled with her beloved guns. She is tough and cynical and nearly fearless. But, like Orphan in The Bookman, she really has no control over her fate or the events in Camera Obscura. She is very much a pawn that the Silent Council is pushing around the board for their own reasons. They keep her in the dark and mislead her as to their motives, and yet more than once in the novel she is chided for being ignorant of the bigger picture, which seemed a bit unfair. Also, more than once she finds that she is in danger from other agents of the Council. They employ all sorts of unsavory characters (though I suppose she is one herself) and jerk her around and very, very bad things happen to her -- and yet she never questions her allegiance to them or seriously ponders whether they are worthy of rule. And in that sense, I suppose she is responsible for her lack of understanding. Cleo is a weapon they aim at problems, and she is content to be no more than that.

As with The Bookman, Tidhar mixes a cast of familiar characters, both historical and fictional, to create a weird and interesting setting. This is a high-action adventure story, and in no way familiar or predictable. It's original and entertaining and interesting. That said, I did not enjoy this one as much as The Bookman. I wasn't as interested in the problem in this one, nor was the protagonist as sympathetic. Cleo did not deserve some of the very bad things that happened to her, but she is no innocent, either. Camera Obscura is still an amazing and inventive story, it just isn't quite as enjoyable as the previous volume.

Of Fiction and Language

I am, once again, struggling through a book for my mystery group that is leaving me entirely cold. I knew, of course, that there are many subgenres of mystery, and that I like some and not others, but nevertheless I am surprised how many of the books for the group are not only not enjoyable to me but actually repulsive things that I am unable to force myself to finish.

The current book does not fall quite to those depths, but it's flirting with the edge of the dropoff. However that, in itself, isn't exactly what I want to talk about. I want to ponder, specifically, the importance of language in fiction.

Let me say, first of all, that there are millions of books out there, thousands being published every year, and that every reader will like different things. That is as it should be. If everyone was going to like the same things, there would be no demand for thousands of new books every year. We all like different things, and we all are entitled and allowed to like what we like without being sneered at by people who think their taste is better than ours. I, for one, read lots of mystery, fantasy, and male/male, with a bit less science fiction and nonfiction, rounded out by lots of other things in smaller proportions. And I am not at all ashamed to admit that I have a soft spot for gay werewolf romances, or amnesia stories, or even a good old-fashioned psionics story, even though they fell out of fashion decades ago.

What I am, however, is an avid reader. I am on track this year to finish at least 150 books, and last year was over 200. I read a lot, I read widely, and I have been reading voraciously for the last 30 years or so. I can tell the difference between clumsy writing and skilled writing. But I have to say that story and character are far more important to me than the author's use of language.

I hang out online in a lot of places where people talk about books, and there is definitely a somewhat strained relationship between "literary" fiction and "genre" fiction. I tend to fall into the genre camp, myself. I prefer to read about distant and imaginitive places, wild adventures, and strong characters. But it's not just plot and character -- I tend to prefer skillful but invisible writing. One of the things I see again and again from defenders of "literary" fiction is that they value the richness of the language used in literary fiction, and they find it much more satisfying and worthwhile than reading the sort of writing that I like.

I have seen this statement so many times from so many people that I believe they are all telling the truth--there are readers to whom the sort of writing and language use often found in literary fiction is an important part of what makes them enjoy literary fiction. Upon reflection I think that this may be why there was great criticism (which was confusing and seemed insane to me when I read about it) when this year's Booker judges made the mistake of saying that they were looking for books this year that were readable, causing many to decry the choices because they thought the judges were wanting light, breezy, junk instead of important and substantive literature. At least, that's all I can figure - that those who think the language use is an important part of good fiction felt that "readability" meant quick, zippy reads lacking what they value in fiction.

Hmm, I seem to be digressing, but I just had a revelation there. Sorry.

OK, back on topic: I have to say that I do not value "literary" language use in fiction. As I said, I like well-done invisible prose that delivers story and character efficiently and seamlessly without calling attention to itself. This is very common in genre fiction, and is every bit as valid, and difficult, as writing flowery language intended to evoke mood. Neither is better than the other, but they are different, and appeal to different people, to different tastes. I like what I like, and find the other type of writing actually detracts from my enjoyment of a book. Doubtless the same is true of people whose preferences are different than mine.

So, as I was saying: I began reading this month's selection for my mystery group. The cover gave me hints that this book wasn't really written for people like me, but it's a library book, so I'm not out anything by trying, anyway. I got to page twelve:

In the hallway of the house there was the usual smell he could never identify, brownish, exhausted, a breath out of childhood, if childhood was the word for that first decade of misery he had suffered through.

At this point, I realized that this book might pose a problem for me. That kind of writing not only doesn't suck me in, it pushes me out of the story, making me restless and impatient. Even though this book is shelved in the mysteries at the library, I now know that this isn't written like a genre book, it's written like literary fiction (WHICH IS PERFECTLY OKAY, just not my thing). Page fourteen:

Chill air stood unwelcoming in the living room, where the rain murmured against the two high windows, relics of a richer age, which no matter how dull the day were always somehow filled with a muted radiance.

Right, no doubt about it, now.  This is literary fiction masquerading as genre.  So I continued reading, another hundred pages.  Claustrophobic, full of characters I don't give a shit about, in a setting I just find depressing.  Not my thing, and I will yet again go to mystery group having disliked the book.  OK, off to Librarything to see if any of the reviews spoil it enough to confirm my suspicions about who the father of the orphaned baby is.  And what do I find? The author is actually John Banville, Booker Award winner, writing under a pseudonym.  Yes, this is literary fiction, and no, I am not even slightly moved or entertained by the quality of the language.  I am a genre reader at heart, and what I want is good story and interesting characters, told cleanly and without dragging too much.

Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey

I may have blogged about this one before, as I have read and enjoyed all of Dorsey's novels about Serge Storms. But I have recently listened to a couple of them as audiobooks in the car, and I'm finding that format to be perhaps even more enjoyable than reading them. Hurricane Punch is the one I just finished a couple of days ago, so I am going to talk about it.

This is a series of manic crime novels set in Florida. The protagonist of all of them is Serge Storms, hyperactive Florida-loving serial killer. His engine runs faster than most of us who are sane, and so he is usually balanced out by a slower sidekick. Sometimes it's Lenny, but in this novel it's Coleman, who is a good-natured substance abuser. He isn't fussy what sort of substance, he is happy to try anything, but most often it seems to be alcohol or pot.

Some of these novels are set around particular Florida themes, like cruise ships or spring break. Hurricane Punch is, of course, about hurricanes. Serge, not surprisingly, loves hurricanes. He and Coleman steal a Hummer in the first scene of the book, and they spend the rest of hurricane season driving around Florida, running in the eye of the storm whenever possible. Occasionally they encounter an asshole who needs to die, and Serge handles each one in inventive fashion.

There is a parallel storyline about a miserable young crime reporter for Tampa Bay Today, owned by a media conglomerate that resembles Rupert Murdoch's properties but with a CEO who seems to be based on Richard Branson. In this storyline, as well as Serge's commentary on hurricane coverage, Dorsey is able to insert a lot of material on the media. Jeff McSwirley hates being a crime reporter, but they refuse to allow him to switch beats because he's very good at it. He is miserable and falling apart, a man getting close to the edge.

There is a series of murders, which Mahoney, formerly a state agent before his nervous breakdown, believes are being committed by Serge. He decides to use Jeff to flush out Serge by planting things in his stories designed to make Serge angry. The problem is that Serge doesn't seem to be the killer, and the real killer has now set his eyes on McSwirley.

Hurricane Punch is a terrifically fun romp. I have enjoyed all of this series to one degree or another, but I love the crazy rush of deliberately running along inside the hurricane. I suppose that's why this one has stuck with me more than some of the others. It was interesting listening to is as an audiobook, too. The reader's voice for Serge was different than I hear him in my head, but probably that's the voice I will imagine in the future. One interesting thing is that listening to the book made me aware that there were some repetitive parts. I'm not sure why Dorsey did it, but for instance the bit about Jeff being miserable and why he's a good crime reporter was explained at least three times. The book isn't so long or complicated that I had forgotten after the first explanation and needed it to be repeated. On the other hand, Dorsey does some interesting things playing around with the timeline of the story (which he also did in the other one I listened to recently, Nuclear Jellyfish), so who knows what order the scenes were originally written in? Anyway, when I read the book I was able to just skim right over the repetitive bits without them sinking in, but when you're listening to a book, you can't just skim a paragraph or three every so often, you have to take it at the reader's pace. This is one reason why I am very careful in choosing audiobooks to listen to.

I love this series, and listening to them is perhaps even more fun than reading them. I look forward to Torpedo Juice next.