Randomness x3

[lizbee]

Randomness 1: I've been trying to figure this out.  It took me a while to figure out what the author was actually saying (sentence construction: a lost art), and when I did get the gist, I was inclined to call troll.  On the other hand -- actual journalist in actual (well, Murdorch-owned) newspaper.

Randomness 2: Last night I dreamed that Stephanie Meyer wrote a book about a teenage girl who breaks into prison to kill the man who raped her, only instead she falls in love with him.  To prove that he's not the right man for her, he breaks out and murders her father.  When I woke up, I spent a good few minutes wondering if (a) that had been written yet and (b) if my subconscious had come up with the next great teen novel. 

Randomness 3: I tried to read the first Elizabeth George novel, because people kept recommending the Lynley series for Wimsey fans.  For some reason, the comparison led me to think George's books would be good.  I frankly feel a little cheated; I already have one sleuthing aristocrat in my life (*tips hat to Lord Peter*), I don't need two.  In any case, Lynley is a pale copy, and eccentric aristocrats are lovely in the Thirties, slightly embarrassing in the Eighties.  (I kept getting sidetracked wondering how he managed to be so rich, and have a vast estate, what with forty years of death taxes and all.  Lynley probably voted for Thatcher.)  It was a bit like reading about Princess Diana fighting crime, although I'd actually read that, whereas I dropped this one as soon as a better book came along.

Comments

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Keeping in mind that we've already established that our respective tastes in books are very, very different - I really enjoy Elizabeth George's books. I haven't read the first few (which I think confuses me later on with certain plot elements in Lynley's life): the first one I read was A Traitor to Memory which I personally found to be brilliant. (I went back and read the one set in a boarding school - because, well, boarding school - and thought that she'd certainly improved in her writing since then.)

On the other hand, Lord Peter has never appealed. I love Gaudy Night, but that has limited Peter and a great deal of Harriet.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Personally, I thought A TRAITOR TO MEMORY was part of George's slide downwards: it had a character behaving in such an illogical way as to render the whole book unbelievable.

SPOILERS, rendered in white font, swipe to read: [START] [END]

Personally, my favourite George is DECEPTION ON HIS MIND, closely followed by PLAYING FOR THE ASHES. But I also enjoyed WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER, FOR THE SAKE OF ELENA and MISSING JOSEPH - all in all, she's done some terrific work. Shame about some of her most recent stuff (I couldn't get into WHAT CAME BEFORE HE SHOT HER, for a petty personal reason described here (http://randomsome1.insanejournal.com/29237.html?thread=201013#t201013)).

I assume you know and adore Josephine Tey?

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I assume you know and adore Josephine Tey?

Were you asking me or lizbee?

I've only read Daughter of Time, and hated it. It has put me off ever reading anything by Josephine Tey ever again.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was asking you!

And, oh dear! What was it that you didn't like? I thought DoT a remarkable demonstration of historical investigative techniques. (My favourite of her works is MISS PYM DISPOSES, should you ever consider giving her another chance.)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Well, the first thing to say is that I am not a Ricardian. It's not like I think Shakespeare is gospel or anything like that, but I'm not about to see Richard III as a wingless angel, as the Ricardians seem to want to do.

Given that, Tey seems to be hitting her point rather hard with a rather large (and biased) sledgehammer. As a book it was slow and dull, although the concept (detective needs something to do while in hospital) was interesting enough. As pro-Ricardian fiction, I enjoyed Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendor more. In terms of historical technique, I agree that Tey was pretty good on that, except for her sledgehammering - and if I'd agreed with her position, I probably wouldn't have had so many problems with it.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

Well that's understandable! I've read Alison Weir's THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER, and if the analysis of the bones found in the Tower is accurate then the Princes were killed during Richard's reign, not afterwards. Yes, I know: "if". Many Ricardians have problems with those bones, which is why I'm right up here on the fence on the Ricardian issue, getting splinters in an unmentionable place.

That said, I think DoT should be given to all kids studying history as a guide to the level of scepticism one should apply to historical documents. She's made academic study accessible, even enjoyable. I didn't find it "slow" or "dull" - in fact, on first reading I found the whole "And how old was Thomas More when Richard succeeded? He was five" sequence amusing and memorable.

Were you able to stomach Elizabeth George's I, RICHARD? (I wasn't a great fan of it, but that was because, as with the carer from TRAITOR, she portrays a character too dumb to function in the real world. [SPOILERS] [END SPOILERS])

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Tey was writing before the discovery of the Mancini manuscript, too. Which is one of the reasons that I'm on that same splintery fence.

I haven't read I, Richard. And having seen many, many stupid people, (or perhaps having a very low opinion of my fellow humans), I am perfectly willing to believe that there are people who don't know about violins. (Most of the people I went to school with, for example). Checking out a document, perhaps not so much, but like I said... the levels of stupidity of the human race always seem to be even more (?less) than I would think possible.

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

*checks out Mancini manuscript* Ah, another bit of hearsay! We'll never know, will we?

I grant your point about human stupidity often being boundless, but to my mind fiction has to operate at a higher level than average human interaction.

For example, I get your point about a carer perhaps not knowing what a Strad was (even though I think I may have first read about the concept of valuable musical instruments in the Beano or Dandy - well, Dennis the Menace has to have fresh trouble to land in every week!) but even so, would a carer really believe that it was all right to smash up someone else's property for them? Wouldn't such a carer give the hammer to the boy and urge him to do the deed, as a kind of therapy, rather than surprise him with his own property smashed to splinters?

Fiction doesn't have reality's "get-out clause" of "it's dumb, but someone really did do it".

[kerravonsen]

would a carer really believe that it was all right to smash up someone else's property for them?

Yes, they would, sadly.

No, I have absolutely no idea of the incident of which you speak, not having read the book in question, but I'm thinking of an incident that happened with a former house-mate of mine. She was a night-nurse, and thus could be put into the "carer" category. She was used to autocratically looking after people.
Anyway, there were three of us sharing house, and we'd each contributed different bits of furniture. I had two lounge chairs, and someone else had a sofa. So one day, because it was a bargain, she had both the chairs and the sofa re-covered... without asking.

So, yes, I can believe that a carer would be capable of interfering with someone else's property "for their own good".

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

That is just appalling! You certainly have my sympathies.

The context for the stupidity demonstrated in the George book is that [SPOILERS] [END SPOILERS]

You may not choose to swipe and find out the context of that fictional carer's insensitivity, and if you don't, fair enough!

[cedara]

RE: #1

By the end I didn't remember she started talking about Doctor Who in the first half of this. What a waste of letters.

[naewinter.livejournal.com]

Or doctor's companion, I think these women prefer companion.

What is this? It asks at the end of the article. It's a piece of crap, that's what that is.
Paid for or not, a troll is a troll.

I had an epiphany ... Want to hear what it was? Not really.

Did you know that Marvel were going to make a comic about how Princess Diana was a mutant and superhero. Thankfully I think someone smacked some good sense into them. Not before some really bizarre covers were drawn though.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't like E. George's books, but the BBC series with Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small are excellent fun.

I kept getting sidetracked wondering how he managed to be so rich, and have a vast estate, what with forty years of death taxes and all.

I think this is really due to George being an American, but sharp accountants make up for a lot :( Presumably trust funds were involved, and giving another painting to the National Gallery every time an earl died...

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I only ever mock Billie's teeth while trying to get banned from the OG. Maybe that's what the writer was aiming for?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Er, possibly. gunderpants reckons the Courier Mail is the fanficrants of the Australian media.

[kerravonsen]

Re: #1. Total waste of space. Total waste of time to even bother reading. The only place in the world where there will be good press about Doctor Who is the UK.

[thucyken.livejournal.com]

Have you read the Martha Grimes Richard Jury novels? They have an interesting structure- Jury is the policeman and Melrose Plant is an ex-aristocrat and really has nothing to do with his time, so he occasionally ends up helping Jury solve crimes. It sounds cliched, but the characters are very real, very three-D, I guess, and there's a gentle humour about the books that I enjoy.

[tree_and_leaf]

Possibly a daft question, but how on earth can you be an ex-aristocrat?

[thucyken.livejournal.com]

He gave it up! (I really wanted to end that sentence with "for Lent.") As I recall, he did it mostly to piss off his aunt, who he quite dislikes. So he renounced his titles.

[sajee.livejournal.com]

Re: #1.

I'M SORRY WHUT

[penwiper337.livejournal.com]

#1 That was practically incoherent. Good to see journalistic standards still apply.

#2 I think you've hit a winner there. Seriously. Sounds like the sort of thing they lap up with a spoon.

#3 Haven't tried those, but have had plenty of similar experiences. However - have you tried Dorothy Dunnet's Lymond chronicles? I'm on the second one, and enjoying them quite a lot. They were written about fifty years ago. They're not mysteries, more adventure/intrigue, set in just pre-Elizabethan era Scotland, England, France, etc. Normally I avoid historical sagas like the plague (they tend to suffer from Gone-With-the-Wind-itis), but these are actually quite good - well written, and full of interesting and likeable characters. And Lymond's a fascinating protagonist - sleek, blonde, intelligent, decidedly overeducated and given to liberal use of quotations - something of a more ruthless Wimsey-type.

[copracat]

Randomness 1: Tony from Brisbane kind of makes my day.

It was a bit like reading about Princess Diana fighting crime

If she were alive today what do you reckon the chance of her being on a Doctor Who Christmas special? No really, Rusty likes his blonde pop culture princesses and she the most princessly of them all.

although I'd actually read that

Me too. What a hoot that would be. I've got "The Uncommon Reader" on my to be read list and I loved HRH in Ben Elton's book about Idol. I'm so sad...

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

I grabbed one of George's books from the library, and it turned out to be one without Lynley, where his poor working class partner is going to some island and does stuff (my memory, watch it fail). Thought that was pretty neat and borrowed another bunch of her books.

Blech. You mean the rich handsome suave guy is the (annoying and slightly sleezy) main character? What about... what's her name, Barbara I think, the one with some actual conflict in her life? (And no silly and pseudo-angsty wife either)

[aligoestonz.livejournal.com]

I've not read the books, but Havers is the main reason I bother to watch the TV show.

[melengro.livejournal.com]

1. That writing depresses me. It's...really, really bad. 'A perky wait person's outfit'?

2. That...sounds like something she would write, actually. ALL HAIL OUR NEW CREEPY-STALKER-RELATIONSHIP-OBSESSED OVERLORDS.

3. It's fine for Thomas Lynley to be rich, but he acts like Lord Peter. To a tee. As you said, once you get past the Second World War that becomes more than a little out-of-place.

[infiniteviking]

Re 1: The line She reminds me of those old cartoons where Sylvester had a piano dropped on his head and when he opened his mouth he had piano keys instead of teeth gave me, in the context of a comment on things relating to Doctor Who, some very interesting mental pictures indeed.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

All I know about the Inspector Lynley Mysteries is from the TV series, which I like in the vague capacity that I come across them. I'm actually a bit surprised to hear there are books of these. Hmm...