I must say that I love the way Lady James describes Hampstead Heath. I can smell the air and look southward over the City as the land falls away to the Thames. I am standing on an expansive lawn. I should be untroubled. I see the English city in my mind's eye but I think of Fredericksburg, the beautiful city, nestled up to the grey Rapidan. Bare early spring trees are a low mist around the city whose buildings sparkle in the morning sun. A battle is to come in the afternoon.
And oddly enough it also has me thinking of Pacific Heights Park and the last time I stood looking over rooftops to the water.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Universal Grieving
The Murder Room is writtem by PD James. This is a blog as I read the book.
At the end of chapter one, we drive up to the museum along a narrow drive. (Narrow is important to the action later on in the book.)
Dalgliesh sees a young man and an elderly woman engaged in gardening. The young man is Ryan Archer we will recognize. And the older woman must be Mrs. Faraday, the elder.
We meet Mrs. Muriel Godby, librarian -- I believe. At least she is a guardian of some sort. Cold. Steely.
James Calder-Hale, curator. A poof? Urbane, to be sure. We find out later that he has some tie to the government's anti-terror bureau. He's an ex-FCO, Middle East expert, speaks Arabic and two or three dialects.
But it is interesting that Calder-Hale in a subsequent chapter does not volunteer this information about himself, when the author shows us Calder-Hale through his own internal dialogue.
A new gap murder is introduced: The Blazing Car Murder of 1930. A tramp is murdered by Alfred Arthur Rouse in an attempt to disappear from his womanizing troubles. The tramp is doused with petrol and set ablaze in Rouse's car. Unfortunately for Rouse, two young chaps walking home saw him and asked him about the blaze. "It looks as though someone is having a bonfire," he says as he leaves the scene.
This is important. We find the first murder victim (jumping ahead a week) in the E-type Jag -- a car beloved by Neville Dupayne -- burning in the garage at the museum. Tally Clutton (yet to be introduced) is almost run down by a fair haired young man in a car driving away from the blaze. The young man stops to see if she is hurt and in leaving says, "It looks as though someone is having a bonfire." Tally does not recognize the young man but says that he looks familiar.
Now I have not read so far as to know who the second victim will be in Book Two, but I predict that it will be Tally.
Dalgliesh is wandering through the museum when he comes to stand beside a young man looking at a painting, Passchendaele 2. A thin young man with a pale and delicate face. A painting of dead bodies on a WWI battlefield. Had any modern conflict produced such universal greiving? thinks Dalgliesh.
The young man says mysterously that this painting was purchased from his grandfather by Max Dupayne who got it cheap because grandfather was desparate for money.
As the chapter ends, Dalgliesh is glad to leave Conrad to his research and wonders what about this time period so fascinated Max Dupayne?
It is an excellent question. We see this time period mostly through The Murder Room and only once through this painful painting. What is it about the discouragement and malaise after WWI that fascinates? So much changed in English society. So much was lost. But Lady James has not shown us the details. She has not dwelt on it. For the time, it is merely a backdrop to murder and the intreguing statement that murder, the unique crime, is a paradigm of its age.
We find out later that Max's fascination for the museum caused him to ignore and hurt his children, most notably the middle child Neville. The other children too but they have not yet revealed how they were injured.
Cool Marcus keeps his emotions to himself.
Abrasive Caroline seems unfeeling.
At the end of chapter one, we drive up to the museum along a narrow drive. (Narrow is important to the action later on in the book.)
Dalgliesh sees a young man and an elderly woman engaged in gardening. The young man is Ryan Archer we will recognize. And the older woman must be Mrs. Faraday, the elder.
We meet Mrs. Muriel Godby, librarian -- I believe. At least she is a guardian of some sort. Cold. Steely.
James Calder-Hale, curator. A poof? Urbane, to be sure. We find out later that he has some tie to the government's anti-terror bureau. He's an ex-FCO, Middle East expert, speaks Arabic and two or three dialects.
But it is interesting that Calder-Hale in a subsequent chapter does not volunteer this information about himself, when the author shows us Calder-Hale through his own internal dialogue.
A new gap murder is introduced: The Blazing Car Murder of 1930. A tramp is murdered by Alfred Arthur Rouse in an attempt to disappear from his womanizing troubles. The tramp is doused with petrol and set ablaze in Rouse's car. Unfortunately for Rouse, two young chaps walking home saw him and asked him about the blaze. "It looks as though someone is having a bonfire," he says as he leaves the scene.
This is important. We find the first murder victim (jumping ahead a week) in the E-type Jag -- a car beloved by Neville Dupayne -- burning in the garage at the museum. Tally Clutton (yet to be introduced) is almost run down by a fair haired young man in a car driving away from the blaze. The young man stops to see if she is hurt and in leaving says, "It looks as though someone is having a bonfire." Tally does not recognize the young man but says that he looks familiar.
Now I have not read so far as to know who the second victim will be in Book Two, but I predict that it will be Tally.
Dalgliesh is wandering through the museum when he comes to stand beside a young man looking at a painting, Passchendaele 2. A thin young man with a pale and delicate face. A painting of dead bodies on a WWI battlefield. Had any modern conflict produced such universal greiving? thinks Dalgliesh.
The young man says mysterously that this painting was purchased from his grandfather by Max Dupayne who got it cheap because grandfather was desparate for money.
As the chapter ends, Dalgliesh is glad to leave Conrad to his research and wonders what about this time period so fascinated Max Dupayne?
It is an excellent question. We see this time period mostly through The Murder Room and only once through this painful painting. What is it about the discouragement and malaise after WWI that fascinates? So much changed in English society. So much was lost. But Lady James has not shown us the details. She has not dwelt on it. For the time, it is merely a backdrop to murder and the intreguing statement that murder, the unique crime, is a paradigm of its age.
We find out later that Max's fascination for the museum caused him to ignore and hurt his children, most notably the middle child Neville. The other children too but they have not yet revealed how they were injured.
Cool Marcus keeps his emotions to himself.
Abrasive Caroline seems unfeeling.
Murder, The Unique Crime, is a Paradigm of Its Age
The Murder Room by PD James. This is a blog as I read the book.
Dalgliesh's eccentric and endearing old friend runs through some murder cases chronicled at the Dupayne Museum. Conrad Ackroyd's thesis is that murder is a paradigm of its age.
Mrs. Edith Thompson in the Thompson--Bywater case; 1922, Bywater the young lover kills husband. Edith's love letters convicts her.
Dalgliesh's character is introduced by his reaction to the Thompson case. "Even as a boy the case had confirmed him as an abolitionist; had it, he wondered, exerted a subter and more persuasive influence, the conviction, never spoken but increasingly rooted in his comprehension, that strong passions had to be subject to the will, that a completely self-absorbed love could be dangerous and the price too high to pay?"
We learn through Ackroyd that Dalgliesh is seeing a young beautiful woman. Not yet introduced. I wonder if she could inspire a strong passion in Dalgliesh?
And who of the players in this murder has a completely self-absorbed love that is dangerous?
The Wallace case; 1931 wife Julia is found battered to death, husband William Herbert accused and found guilty on circumstantial evidence by a jury that did not like him because he was a cool cucumber. The jury's verdict was later overturned on the grounds that the case was not proved with the certainty necessary to justify a guilty verdict.
Pretty cold, clinical stuff in contrast to the heat of the first murder case.
Ackroyd talks of the Duayne family during the drive. The father and founder, Max (deceased); the sons Marcus, retiring from Civil Service; Neville who garages his E-type Jaguar on the property.
All the motives for murder are covered by the three "L 's": Love; Lust; Lucre: Loathing, says PD James through dalgliesh's thoughts. And the most dangerous is Love.
Hmmmm. Who loves whom? Who is in love with what?
Dalgliesh's eccentric and endearing old friend runs through some murder cases chronicled at the Dupayne Museum. Conrad Ackroyd's thesis is that murder is a paradigm of its age.
Mrs. Edith Thompson in the Thompson--Bywater case; 1922, Bywater the young lover kills husband. Edith's love letters convicts her.
Dalgliesh's character is introduced by his reaction to the Thompson case. "Even as a boy the case had confirmed him as an abolitionist; had it, he wondered, exerted a subter and more persuasive influence, the conviction, never spoken but increasingly rooted in his comprehension, that strong passions had to be subject to the will, that a completely self-absorbed love could be dangerous and the price too high to pay?"
We learn through Ackroyd that Dalgliesh is seeing a young beautiful woman. Not yet introduced. I wonder if she could inspire a strong passion in Dalgliesh?
And who of the players in this murder has a completely self-absorbed love that is dangerous?
The Wallace case; 1931 wife Julia is found battered to death, husband William Herbert accused and found guilty on circumstantial evidence by a jury that did not like him because he was a cool cucumber. The jury's verdict was later overturned on the grounds that the case was not proved with the certainty necessary to justify a guilty verdict.
Pretty cold, clinical stuff in contrast to the heat of the first murder case.
Ackroyd talks of the Duayne family during the drive. The father and founder, Max (deceased); the sons Marcus, retiring from Civil Service; Neville who garages his E-type Jaguar on the property.
All the motives for murder are covered by the three "L 's": Love; Lust; Lucre: Loathing, says PD James through dalgliesh's thoughts. And the most dangerous is Love.
Hmmmm. Who loves whom? Who is in love with what?
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
The Players
Adam Dalgliesh -- Commander, Scotland Yard
Conrad Ackrod -- eccentric editor of PaterNoster, a book review
____Nellie, wife
Max Dupayne -- founder of the museum of the interwar years
Neville Dupayne -- son
Marcus Dupayne -- son, retiring from govmt service
____Alison, wife -- sophistocated, unfaithful, urbane
Caroline Dupayne -- principle of Swathling's Finishing School for Girls, London
Tally (Tallulah) Clutton, b 1938 (64 years old) -- house keeper of Dupayne Museum, a London-phile, nice woman, lives at the museum in a cottage (which makes this mystery set in 2002)
____Jennifer (daughter) & Roger Crawford; grandchildren Clive and Samantha
Ryan Archer -- young man, gardner at Dupayne Museum
Muriel Godby -- librarian of Dupayne Museum
Emma Lavenhan -- professor, English, Cambridge; love interst of Dalgliesh
Clara Bechwith -- friend of Emma, university friend, lesbian, financial analyst, London
Lady Swathling -- founder of Swathling's Finishing School for Girls, London
James Calder-Hale -- b 1947, 55 years old, curator of Dupayne Museum, cancer reoccured & 6 months to live?, determined to finish his history of the gap years
Mrs. Faraday -- volunteer at the museum, gardening
Mrs. Angela Faraday -- PA of Neville Dupayne, lover of ND
Selwyn Faraday -- son of Mrs. Faraday the elder, developmentally disabled, husband of Angela
Major Arkwright -- Maida Vale, homosexual, sponsor of Ryan Archer
____Mrs. Perrifield -- downstairs neighbor of the Major
Stanley Carter -- mechanic, Duncan's Garage in Highgate
Mrs. Strictland -- a frightenly competent elderly volunteer. 80-something years old, birth mother of Neville.
Kate Miskin -- Detective Inspector
Piers Trannant -- Inspector
Benton-Smith -- Inspector
Conrad Ackrod -- eccentric editor of PaterNoster, a book review
____Nellie, wife
Max Dupayne -- founder of the museum of the interwar years
Neville Dupayne -- son
Marcus Dupayne -- son, retiring from govmt service
____Alison, wife -- sophistocated, unfaithful, urbane
Caroline Dupayne -- principle of Swathling's Finishing School for Girls, London
Tally (Tallulah) Clutton, b 1938 (64 years old) -- house keeper of Dupayne Museum, a London-phile, nice woman, lives at the museum in a cottage (which makes this mystery set in 2002)
____Jennifer (daughter) & Roger Crawford; grandchildren Clive and Samantha
Ryan Archer -- young man, gardner at Dupayne Museum
Muriel Godby -- librarian of Dupayne Museum
Emma Lavenhan -- professor, English, Cambridge; love interst of Dalgliesh
Clara Bechwith -- friend of Emma, university friend, lesbian, financial analyst, London
Lady Swathling -- founder of Swathling's Finishing School for Girls, London
James Calder-Hale -- b 1947, 55 years old, curator of Dupayne Museum, cancer reoccured & 6 months to live?, determined to finish his history of the gap years
Mrs. Faraday -- volunteer at the museum, gardening
Mrs. Angela Faraday -- PA of Neville Dupayne, lover of ND
Selwyn Faraday -- son of Mrs. Faraday the elder, developmentally disabled, husband of Angela
Major Arkwright -- Maida Vale, homosexual, sponsor of Ryan Archer
____Mrs. Perrifield -- downstairs neighbor of the Major
Stanley Carter -- mechanic, Duncan's Garage in Highgate
Mrs. Strictland -- a frightenly competent elderly volunteer. 80-something years old, birth mother of Neville.
Kate Miskin -- Detective Inspector
Piers Trannant -- Inspector
Benton-Smith -- Inspector
A Chance Meeting on the Curb of Dacre Street
PD James is the Author of The Murder Room.
This is a weblog as I read the book.
This begins Book One: The People and the Place that sets up the murder mystery that takes place at the Dupayne Museum, Hampstead, London.
A chance meeting coming out of the St James Park Station onto Broadway (London), on the curb of Dacre Street, Adam Dalgliesh, Commander of Scotland Yard, meets an old and eccentric friend, Conrad Ackroyd.
Lady James begins by telling us that Dalgliesh visits the Dupayne Museum one week before the first murder. "The visit was fortuitous, the decision impulsive ..." If you have read Lady James' other Adam Dalgliesh Murder Mysteries, you will recognize that an impulsive action by Dalgliesh will be interesting indeed.
When we find that the impulsive action is to drive an old friend to a museum so he can continue his reasearch on murders in the "gap years" between the wars (WWI and WWII), I think how ordinary it would be to bump into a friend and be easily talked into dropping him off. But having lived in London, I know that it is also a generous gesture because Dalgliesh lives in a flat on the Thames and Conrad wants to go to Hampstead. It is going out of his way.
I live in Wash Park in Denver, so lets say that I meet an old eccentric friend at The Market, downtown. "Take me to The Cabrini Shrine," he says. "I am seeking to uncover the spiritual history of Denver and find that this saint of the orphaned and the abandoned speaks clearly to the mystical founding soul of Denver and the beauty of its 'better angels'."
My friend has to tempt me with the presentation of his quest. And so Conrad does with Dalgliesh.
This is a weblog as I read the book.
This begins Book One: The People and the Place that sets up the murder mystery that takes place at the Dupayne Museum, Hampstead, London.
A chance meeting coming out of the St James Park Station onto Broadway (London), on the curb of Dacre Street, Adam Dalgliesh, Commander of Scotland Yard, meets an old and eccentric friend, Conrad Ackroyd.
Lady James begins by telling us that Dalgliesh visits the Dupayne Museum one week before the first murder. "The visit was fortuitous, the decision impulsive ..." If you have read Lady James' other Adam Dalgliesh Murder Mysteries, you will recognize that an impulsive action by Dalgliesh will be interesting indeed.
When we find that the impulsive action is to drive an old friend to a museum so he can continue his reasearch on murders in the "gap years" between the wars (WWI and WWII), I think how ordinary it would be to bump into a friend and be easily talked into dropping him off. But having lived in London, I know that it is also a generous gesture because Dalgliesh lives in a flat on the Thames and Conrad wants to go to Hampstead. It is going out of his way.
I live in Wash Park in Denver, so lets say that I meet an old eccentric friend at The Market, downtown. "Take me to The Cabrini Shrine," he says. "I am seeking to uncover the spiritual history of Denver and find that this saint of the orphaned and the abandoned speaks clearly to the mystical founding soul of Denver and the beauty of its 'better angels'."
My friend has to tempt me with the presentation of his quest. And so Conrad does with Dalgliesh.
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