Purpose

On Tuesday, Margaret D, host of the remarkable HistoricalNovels.info site, asked a pertinent question: why even bother with a historical novel? Meaning, the historical aspect should have some sort of point. My pile of five novels do pretty well by that standard. It's the contemporary mystery that turned out to be pointless.

Here's where I say nice things about Victoria Thompson and Murder on St. Mark's Place. I didn't like it that much, but I understood why she chose the story she did. In this novel, so-called "charity girls" are being beaten and killed. "Charity girls" are immigrant girls, factory workers, mostly, who pick up men at dance halls. They're not prostitutes, they insist, because they don't take money, just gifts.

The detective is a New York midwife, now living in a working class area, but actually from an old, wealthy Dutch family. She is independent, tough, a typical literary "strong female character." The world of young women who go dancing every night and go to hotels, or worse, with strange men is completely unknown to her. She's an outsider who can fill the reader in on all of the shocking details. This is how we get out to Coney Island, by the way, to see that Elephant Hotel - that's a place where men take their dates.

I thought this was all pretty interesting. The novel is not merely about violence against women, but also about the social changes of the past one hundred years. Some things have improved enormously for women in this situation - their incomes are dramatically different, for example. But the fear of violence, if not the risk, from men, strangers or otherwise, remains.

So Thompson's then/now comparison has some power, a resonance that the mystery itself, standard genre business, lacked. The novel has plenty of problems, but it has a meaningful purpose.

I'm pretty sure that Michael Pearce's A Dead Man in Trieste has a serious purpose as well. I just didn't understand the argument he was making. Something about the role of the individual in larger events, or the role of the artist in guiding history, or something like that. Avant garde art is a necessary but futile protest against the march toward war? So disappointing, because Trieste is such an interesting city, and it was fun to see the author play with Marinetti and Futurism. But I'm not sure that it amounted to anything more than play.

The Carlo Lucarelli and Owen Parry novel both investigate the compromises necessary for justice. Few ideas are more common in mysteries now, but the question is a big one, and worth pursuing from different perspectives - the unjust world of fascist Italy, the righteous cause of the fight against slavery.

Neither of those novels has an especially original purpose. Steve Hockensmith's On the Wrong Track has no purpose at all, besides good clean fun. Mostly clean - there are a few descriptions of gunshot wounds that are bizarrely gory, well out of character. Some misguided attempt at realism? A trivial book, I'm afraid, but not a disappointment. It is what it is.

And what book isn't, but that won't keep me from complaining about John Banville's The Lemur. I learned one thing from this book, namely that Banville can simplify his style when he wants to. Stylistically, The Lemur is Banville-lite, but still elegant, finely polished. No clichés in the prose. Why then, are the characters and plot nothing but clichés? Gee, that character is just like John Huston in Chinatown, I was thinking, just before John Huston strolls onto the page in a cameo! So Banville knows. Everything is borrowed. Calling it a pastiche or homage (to whom?) would be a kindness. It's a completely hollow novel. Why did he bother?$?$?$

Voice

Of the five historical mysteries I read over my summer vacation, I liked three of them enough to consider reading more in the series.* The little Banville novel is something of an exception, since I've already read all but a few of Banville's books. I'll really lay into Banville tomorrow, so let's set that one aside.

Maybe I'll set Carlo Lucarelli aside, too. The greatest interest there is thematic. Plus, it was so short, you read all three books in the series, and you're not even close to 300 pages. Easy reading.

In two other novels, the great appeal of the writing is the voice of the narrator. Steve Hockensmith is playing with the Sherlock Holmes type of mystery, so the narrator has to be Dr. Watson. But in this case, Watson is a burly cowboy named Big Red. Holmes is his older, smaller, smarter brother, Old Red. Old Red is illiterate, so Big Red has to read him the latest Sherlock Holmes stories. Also, the signs on the bathroom doors. The comedy can be a bit broad. Funny, though.

Watson \ Big Red is folksy and sees the homorous side of things, so the tone is almost always comic. I don't think I ever actually laughed while reading this book, but that's a matter of habit:**

"Someone cleared his throat, and I glance across the aisle to find a fortyish sport in a checked suit giving me the eye in a friendly, amused sort of way. He had a face as flat and pink as a slice of ham, and atop his head was a pompadour of such impressive proportions I wouldn't have been surprised had I spotted the great explore Sigerson attempting to climb it with a team of native guides." (p. 33)

That's pretty good. If its not quite characteristic, that's because of all the dialogue and plot fuss, most of which was all right. The book has many short chapters, which unfortunately often end with irritating false climaxes - this is my main stylistic complaint. They do work, though - I always wanted to keep going.

Hockensmith's narrator has a typical comic voice. Owen Parry created something more original for his Civil War mysteries. Abel Jones, our hero, is Welsh, a veteran of wars in India, a wounded veteran of Bull Run, and a Methodist teetotaler. He is earnest and self-righteous, full of prejudices (against the Irish, the rich, cavalrymen). And he's scared of horses, "great stupid things," "four-legged demons."

The comedy of the book, which in many ways is a quite serious piece of work, comes from the narrator's inability to suppress his judgmental scolding, even while telling the story of a murder investigation, or a battle. Mostly, he's a driven man on a mission, but he continually pauses to zing his superiors, scold his inferiors, and praise his own virtue. An example of the latter: he does not drink, of course, but he'll buy whiskey for other people, in order to get them to spill secrets. But then he tells us that he feels bad about it.

Maybe this isn't meant to be funny, but I think it is, because it works so well. It deepens the character - in some ways he's a very narrow man, while in other ways he's an abyss. It keeps me guessing, at least - just what will he be capable of, this strange fellow.

My only real disappointment with the book is that the answer is: whatever is necessary to fulfill certain plot and genre expectations. But let that bide, as Captain Abel Jones always says when he suspects he's gone a bit too far.

By the way, neither of these narrators, both of whom are supposedly writing their stories, sound remotely like they actually would have, telling their own stories at the time. But, fortunately, I don't care about accuracy.

* In the right situation - trans-Atlantic flight, for example - I'd read more of any of them. I just wouldn't go out of my way for more Victoria Thompson or Michael Pearce.

** The Parry and Hockensmith books are both quite funny, but my only audible laugh came from the Michael Pearce novel, the one set in Trieste. The angry, drunken Irishman, suspected of murder, turns out to be James Joyce, which is funny enough. Wait, I thought, Italo Svevo lived in Trieste, too - I wonder if Pearce can work him in. About two pages later, there he was, under his real name, smoking one of his last cigarettes (see The Confessions of Zeno, Ch. 1). That's where I laughed.

All this week: I am mystified by historical mysteries

What I Read on My Summer Vacation. Mysteries, all mysteries, all new authors to me. Maybe you'll see a pattern.

In order of declining preference:

Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue (1999), 337 pp. A Civil War mystery by columnist and all-around military expert Ralph Peters. Series: #1 of 6, I think. Narrator: 1st person, with an original voice. Cameos: Abraham Lincoln, General George McClellan, Allan Pinkerton.

Carlo Lucarelli, Carte Blanche (1990), 94 pp. A murder investigation set in 1943 Bologna. The Gestapo lurks everywhere; the Americans are coming. My understanding is that this author is hugely popular in Italy now. Series: #1 of 3. Narrator: 3rd person, plain, all business.

Steve Hockensmith, On the Wrong Track (2007), 290 pp. A comic mystery, with two cowboys on a train between Utah and San Francisco in 1893. One of them wants to be Sherlock Holmes. The series is called Holmes on the Range! Har har. Series: #2 of 4. Narrator: 1st person - Watson narrates, of course, not Holmes. R. T. reviews the first novel in the series over here.

Michael Pearce, A Dead Man in Trieste (2004), 188 pp. A British policeman in 1906 Trieste. Series: #1 of 6, maybe. Narrator: 3rd person, understated, repetitive. Cameos: Franz Lehar, Marinetti - the climax of the novel occurs during the first Futurist Evening. James Joyce! Italo Svevo!

Victoria Thompson, Murder on St. Mark's Place (2000), 277 pp. A midwife solves murders in 1896 New York City. The second-worst novel I've read, for quite a long time.* Series: #2 of 11. Narrator: Third person, sometimes quite clumsy, although fortunately not always. Cameo: New York Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt, offstage.

Most of these were recommended by the friendly owner of a mystery book store. I wanted historical mysteries, he delivered. Here's one more book that does not fit the pattern:

John Banville, The Lemur (2008), 134 pp. A typical Banville narrator becomes tangled in, and then somehow solves, a murder. This one is the worst book I've read in a long time. Series: Stand-alone, thankfully. Narrator: It's Banville, and not about the history of science, so it must be first person. Cameo: John Huston.

I included page lengths because every one of them is too long, except possibly the tiny Lucarelli novel.

This is my raw material for the week, as I try to figure out how these books function, what worked well and what didn't, and why anyone bothers writing or reading them.

I don't read too many mysteries, so I'm likely to showcase some first-rate ignorance as the week progresses. My thoughtful readers can help me out.

* Sounds sorta harsh. I'm going to say some nicer things about the book later. And, to the author (http://victoriathompson.homestead.com/), if you stop by, please look around the site. You will see that I am comparing you to Flaubert and Chekhov and the like.