Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read two different mysteries that featured bodies in the gymnasium of an all-girls school: Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons (1959) and Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes (1947). Otherwise completely different books— the Christie is one of her Poirot books, but arguably the story's real detective is the plucky teenage daughter of a former spy, and features more international intrigue and missing jewels than "murder mystery at an all-girls school" would suggest. The Tey is sort of an anti-detective novel— the titular Miss Pym, a visiting lecturer on psychology at a women's physical training college when tragedy strikes, not only stumbles across her clues by accident but has a tendency to absently pick them up and stick them in her pocket, miss their significance, or actively suppress their existence; you get the sense that a mystery narrative is doing its best to coalesce around her and she's trying equally hard to slither out of it.

I enjoyed both, but I suspect that Tey's will stick in my head for longer: among other reasons, because I love (as a literary dynamic) a good unhealthily intense, codependent friendship, and hoo boy does this deliver. Wealthy, beautiful, and charismatic "Beau" Nash and ambitious, aloof Mary Innes are described early in the novel as having a "David and Jonathan" friendship; while Miss Pym suspects that Innes caused the fatal accident which helpfully took out the student who had been given the "plum" posting everyone thought should have been hers, it turns out that Beau had killed for Innes' sake, but when confronted by Miss Pym, Innes sacrifices her future for Beau's, and it's just *chef's kiss* so pyrrhic.

I have a number of books currently in progress, but the one worth mentioning now is The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett; skygiants piqued my interest by comparing Peter Wimsey-as-Harlequin in Murder Must Advertise to Dunnett's Francis Crawford of Lymond. I'm always a sucker for charming rogues roped into geopolitical intrigue - see Megan Whalen Turner, Scott Lynch, and Lynn Flewelling - but Lymond is probably the most... intense... version of this trope I've encountered. So far, it's unclear what his motivations are, which has me feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop— the reader is supposed to root for him, right??? It's called the Lymond Chronicles, so one would assume, but he's just set his family castle on fire with his mother and sister-in-law inside and generally appears to be working against both the Scottish and English, so I feel like I'm missing something. I'm really liking this book, though!

Dracula Daily finally got me hooked into the story enough that I was too impatient to wait for the updates, so now I'm just reading Dracula.

Comments

[kore]

....what I got out of this is I need that Miss Pym book pronto.

Dracula!! ....well except when it gets to the later (SPOILER SPOILER) bits

[troisoiseaux]

I definitely recommend it! It's going to be living in my head rent-free for a while, I think.

By (SPOILER SPOILER) do you mean the asylum bits? I have been warned that they Exist but not in any particular detail.

[kore]

Nooo not the asylum bits, altho those are horrible and made me hate Jack Seward on the first reading and forever after.

[troisoiseaux]

...oh dear.

[kore]

Other people don't hate him this bad! I just totally associated him with that guy who told Virginia Woolf she couldn't read or write, wossname, who imprisoned other women with rest cures, I think it was this asswipe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Savage_(physician) or this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_Weir_Mitchell_(physician)#"The_Yellow_Wallpaper"

Which could very well be unfair! I just look at Victorian male psychologist types and gag.

[troisoiseaux]

Oh, no, my response was to the fact that there's apparently something worse than Victorian psychiatry coming, that I haven't been warned about :p

[kore]

....oh dear, yeah. (Do you want a warning? I am not sure how to do one without great big spoilers.)

[troisoiseaux]

No, but thank you for offering!

[stranger]

I'm not entirely sure one is supposed to be rooting for Lymond in the first book, although the ending is (I think) supposed to tend that way. There's Tragic Past, and More Tragic Past (just in the first book), and Extreme Generational Tragic Past if you stick around through the sixth book. In retrospect, Lymond is certainly doing his best to piss everybody off in every possible way, along with maybe redeeming himself, or not bothering to redeem himself, or something. Conflicted, that's it! He's conflicted, but complex, and fun to watch if you aren't invested in taking sides. The show he puts on is terrific.

This corresponds with Wimsey in that Peter is certainly performing his social persona, sometimes on several levels and often for detective or other purposes, and he isn't above grand emotional gestures, but the scale is less insanely grandiose. Peter is, after all, a proper Englishman, and Lymond is a wild and wily Scot.

[troisoiseaux]

He's conflicted, but complex, and fun to watch if you aren't invested in taking sides.

Good to know! I am definitely enjoying watching the plot unfold but I was curiously unable to twig what, if anything, the narrative wanted me to feel about Lymond.

This was the discussion about Peter vs. Lymond, if you're interested! The gist was that Peter's Harlequin persona in Murder Must Advertise is uniquely similar (vs. his general social persona) to Lymond's general insanely grandiose-ness.

[castiron]

I never had the Lymond love that so many Dunnett readers have; he's one of these people who I only end up rooting for because especially as the series goes on, the people he's up against are so much worse. But he's certainly a compelling character.

Also, my general PSA about the Lymond Chronicles is to not read Pawn in Frankincense if you have a blond toddler in your household. Learn from my mistakes.

[troisoiseaux]

I did come into this book with a predisposition to being charmed but by the second chapter my brain was like, ...hold up. Is he the bad guy? (Which definitely does not, in itself, prevent me from being charmed by him. It just did not compute with the impression I'd been given.)

That is a... concerningly specific warning? I am unlikely to find myself in that specific circumstance, for a number of reasons, but duly noted!

[sovay]

and it's just *chef's kiss* so pyrrhic.

This is the exact reason I have never read the novel despite liking quite a lot of other Tey, because I find that kind of tragedy excruciating, but I am unironically glad that you loved it!

I read Dracula for a class in college and honestly had a wonderful time.

[troisoiseaux]

That's fair!

I probably would not have picked up Dracula if not for Dracula Daily but I'm enjoying it! It's rather interestingly weird to read it with a. a 21st century pop culture knowledge of vampire tropes (like, "oh HO, he doesn't have any MIRRORS!") but b. absolutely no knowledge of the actual plot of Dracula. I've never even seen the movie with Winona Ryder. (I get the sense I should be worried for Lucy and/or Mina? A cowboy shows up at some point??)

[sovay]

It's rather interestingly weird to read it with a. a 21st century pop culture knowledge of vampire tropes (like, "oh HO, he doesn't have any MIRRORS!") but b. absolutely no knowledge of the actual plot of Dracula.

That does sound like an interesting tension!

I've seen more versions of Dracula than I always think and they're like Arthuriana: it is possible to pick up amazingly conflicting variations of the mythos just by pop-culture osmosis.

[lunabee34]

I thoroughly enjoy Dracula. And there's a fair amount of good fic too if that's your jam.

[troisoiseaux]

I suspect I will be reading all of the fix-it fic after this. I was just inadvertently spoiled about what happens to Lucy... :(

[lunabee34]

Ah, yes. :( It is a perennial Yuletide favorite, so I think you will find what you need.

But even in what happens to Lucy, I find some interesting aspects. IDK, it's probably just the literature professor in me that cannot be contained.

[chestnut_pod]

The one and only Dunnett I've read is King Hereafter, but I have to say, it sounds like your experience of Lymond-protagonist is pretty similar to my experience of Thorfinn/Macbeth-protagonist!

[troisoiseaux]

Well, at least she's consistent??

[regshoe]

I loved Miss Pym Disposes, especially the setting and doubly-especially the final twist! I totally agree about Innes and Nash.

[troisoiseaux]

It's so good!! As well as the setting and the *waves hands* *drags hands down face yelling* that is everything going on with Innes and Nash, I enjoyed Tey's use of Miss Pym as, if not quite an unreliable narrator, a biased POV character— she draws conclusions quickly, and sticks to them, and she's always wrong. (As she concludes herself: "As a psychologist she began to suspect she was a very good teacher of French.")

[whimsyful]

Cat Among the Pigeons was really fun! I really liked the Plucky Schoolgirl Who Gets Caught Up in International Intrigue and kinda wish she met Hilary Thorpe from the Wimsey books.

Ohohoho you're reading Lymond! I find him best in small doses, and kind of overbearing when the Grand Melodrama/Great Tragedy really kicks into high gear in the later books. But the books are very fun and super iddy, and you really do see where Dunnett was influenced by Peter Wimsey as it goes on.

[troisoiseaux]

I'm really enjoying it! I've just been introduced to Christian Stewart, who is probably my favorite character so far, and someone who may or may not actually have amnesia (and may or may not be Lymond?).

ETA: okay, I read another chapter and this guy has to be Lymond. I'm also pretty sure he was faking the amnesia but I'm 99% as opposed to 100% confident on that one??

[skygiants]

Oh, I'm so looking forward to your thoughts on Lymond! (Dunnett's favorite schtick is having Lymond do a lot of presumably-unforgiveable and/or inexplicable things as seen through outsider POV and then doing Grand Reveals of His True Motivations; very King of Attolia but much more over-the-top and it takes much longer to bring the reader in on the joke.)

[troisoiseaux]

Dunnett's favorite schtick is having Lymond do a lot of presumably-unforgiveable and/or inexplicable things as seen through outsider POV and then doing Grand Reveals of His True Motivations

In my defense, I am genre-savvy enough to figure out that this was probably how things were going to play out, but unfamiliar enough with Dunnett that I couldn't help squinting at the book like ....but will it, though? I think the difference with The King of Attolia is by the time you get to it, you're two books in and familiar enough with Gen as a character that you're clued into the fact there is a method to his madness. You're sitting there like "oh HO, he's up to something!" while everyone else in the book has no idea!! And it's great!

OH okay I think the metaphor I was looking for earlier vis-a-vis Dunnett is like... when you meet someone knew and they say something that's probably a joke but you don't really know their sense of humor yet so you're just kind of ???? about it.

Anyway, I'm definitely enjoying this book! Thanks for the rec!