Why All the Praise for P.D. James? Laurie R. King’s Better.
I’ve been on a mystery-reading kick recently, and since I’ve heard great things about British writer P.D. James—and since I loved Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, based on her non-mystery novel of the same name—I thought I’d give her a try. People seem particularly impressed with her theological insights. James is a professing Anglican, as many mystery writers seem to be.
I was not impressed with her theological insights (where were they?) or with her characterization or her construction of plot. I began with one of her more recent novels, 2001’s Death in Holy Orders. Since that one took place at an Anglican seminary, I thought, it would be perhaps more full of spiritual significance. Well, other than having the seminary setting, I didn’t see much spiritual import there. (By the way, I was greatly amused to see that the back cover of my American paperback described the setting as the “East Anglican coast.” No, silly copy-writer, “Anglican” is the denomination; Anglian is the geographical region.)
More than any deep pondering of humanity in relation to the divine or to the diabolical, the omniscient narrator (dare I say the author?) seemed almost pruriently obsessed with human sexuality. Not that there’s anything wrong with a religious writer exploring the role of sexuality in the human condition, but the details in Death in Holy Orders (not graphic details by any means, but ones unnecessary to the plot) seemed to be there simply for . . . shock value? An assumption that dirty deeds and secrets are necessary to the genre? Senility on the part of the author?
Because James was 81 when Death in Holy Orders was published, I decided to give her another chance with an earlier book, 1972’s An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. This novel was also the first she wrote featuring her female detective, Cordelia Gray. Death in Holy Orders was an Adam Dalgliesh mystery, and I don’t know if it was because she’s written so many Dalgliesh mysteries previously or not, but the novel didn’t seem to give us much reason to like or respect him, though it was obvious that we were supposed to.
Anyway, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman was much more interesting and satisfying, but still nothing to rave about. Other than Cordelia, the characters weren’t particularly interesting, and neither were the situations.
It may just be the two books I’ve read, but I can’t see the appeal in P.D. James. I still plan to read Children of Men, though it may be a while, as I’m currently number 6 in the queue for it at the public library. But, if any of you out there are James fans, could you tell me what else I should read and why you think it’s good?
Just after finishing my two James novels, I launched into an exploration of Laurie R. King’s mysteries. A friend had loaned me the first two Kate Martinelli mysteries, A Grave Talent and To Play the Fool, promising that I would love the latter.
I liked A Grave Talent, the first in the series, enough to start the second enthusiastically. Perhaps we don’t get a great sense of detective Kate Martinelli herself, but her character is very private, and so it’s appropriate. She’s a closeted lesbian at the beginning of the series (A Grave Talent is from 1993), and is unwillingly outed by events relating to her investigation. But our lack of access to Kate’s character is more than made up for by a central character in each novel. In A Grave Talent, this character is the tremendously talented and tremendously troubled painter Vaun Adams. Dealing with her past becomes the central mystery of the story, and her healing unfolds as the clues to “whodunit” would in a more traditional mystery.
In the second book, To Play the Fool, the main enigmatic figure is Brother Erasmus, a modern Fool who speaks only in quotations—usually from the Bible or Shakespeare, though occasionally he throws in Gilbert and Sullivan. As you can imagine, this makes for some frustrating interrogation sessions with the police. It also makes for some extremely touching moments, when he chooses a quotation that’s so gently insightful and appropriate that it hits you under the ribs.
I loved Brother Erasmus. I love Holy Fools. I was raised on the musical Man of La Mancha (“Maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!”) and was therefore quite disappointed to discover, in my adolescence, that the literary Don Quixote wasn’t the hero-Fool that the musical made him out to be. But Brother Erasmus is another man of La Mancha, teaching and redeeming the homeless and poking holes in the pretensions of the powerful on the streets of San Francisco.
Here’s just a snippet from one of the “research papers” about Fools that Kate reads during her investigation, to give you a sense of why the Holy Fool is so appealing. The paper discusses Old Testament prophets as Fools, and then continues,
“Jesus Ben Joseph fit right in, preaching to the poor, the prostitutes, the scum, scratching his lice and calling himself the son of God—and the ultimate absurdity, God’s only son strung up and executed with the other criminals: A royal diadem made from a branch of thorns, a king’s cloak that went to the high throw, his only public mourners a few outcast women with nothing left to lose. Then, to cap it off, Christ the original Fool is decently clothed in purple, his crown traded for one of gold, he is restored to the head of his Church, and the transformation is complete.
But what consequences, when the jester assumes the throne? Someone must take his place in the hall, lest the people forget that the essence of Christianity is humility, not magnificence, that in weakness lies our strength.”
That’s the kind of thing that makes me proud to follow Christ the Fool.
Anyway, as I was reading To Play the Fool, I started my own process of deduction about Laurie King’s religious affiliation and background. First clue? A hilarious passage describing Kate’s first encounter with an Anglican/Episcopalian church service. The description of juggling the hymnal and the Book of Common Prayer is something that could only come from someone willing to laugh from within the fold. So, I told myself, she’s Episcopalian, or at least has been in the past.
Second clue. The following description of the Old Testament notion of covenant, recited by a character who’s a religion professor: “In the most archaic forms, the symbolic recognition of a covenant is a split carcass, down the halves of which a flame is passed or the people walk. In fact, in the Hebrew language a covenant is ‘cut,’ not just made, which serves as a reminder that if one party goes back on his part of the agreement, he may be split down the middle as the carcass was.”
Now, I knew that tidbit of information, but only because I grew up with a father who obsessively reads Bible commentaries and shares his discoveries to anyone within hearing. I read that paragraph and said to myself, “This woman knows her stuff.” She’d clearly had some education in the Bible.
After I finished the book, I allowed myself to check my suspicions by visiting Laurie R. King’s web site. Sure enough, she has an M.A. in Old Testament studies. By the way, I recommend ferreting about on her site. There are some particularly interesting comments about the connection between religion and mystery-writing.
King’s subject matter of a lesbian detective and her life-partner may be off-putting to some Christian readers, even to many of King’s own denomination (which is, of course, likely to split over differing views of homosexual behavior). However, King is too good a writer to make a character into an agenda. Kate’s orientation is presented matter-of-factly, without a lot of fuss. I imagine that the lesbian characters in the book wouldn’t make a huge difference, even to readers who disapprove of homosexual activity, because most Christians, if they don’t restrict themselves to “safe” books from known Christian publishers, spend a lot of time reading about sexual relationships between unmarried heterosexuals—and, at least theoretically, this is the same. And of course it’s not necessary to approve of all a character’s actions in order to care about and respect him or her.
That said, To Play the Fool was the most spiritually uplifting book I’ve read in a while.
2 comments May 23rd, 2007