thrillers

“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” (Groucho Marx)

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I’m not a big reader of crime fiction (outside of the golden age), but Susan’s review of A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson (2020) piqued my interest. At the time I bought a copy for my Dad’s wife, and then when I saw the paperback in a charity shop recently I swooped. It turns out Miranda Emmerson has adopted Wales as her home country, living in south Wales with her family and completing a PhD at the University of Cardiff. Which means the month of Reading Wales aka the Dewithon, hosted by Paula at Book Jotter, is the perfect time to pick this up!

Set in 1960s Soho, Emmerson brilliantly evokes the area before the gentrification and chain stores that characterise the area today. Anna Tredway works as a dresser in the Galaxy Theatre with faded and disillusioned actors. She lives alone above a café and is missing her partner Aloysius who is in Jamaica following a family bereavement.

“Anna had her neighbourhood. Covent Garden for raspberries and carrots – even at five o’clock in the morning. Seven Dials for rags – shift dresses and corduroy skirts and a hundred shades of polyester blouse. Monmouth St for coffee bars – so many coffee bars – musicians and actors and students out on dates. The city thought itself a monument to pleasure, but its citizens knew better.”

Anna is drawn into a very different side of London society when a male sex worker, fleeing a police raid, is found dead in Waterloo Gardens, in the grounds of the Hellenic Club. The Hellenic is one of the men-only clubs around Pall Mall, and its members include Richard Wallis, an MP who has just managed to hang onto a seat despite being caught up in a previous scandal with another sex worker:

“He was still a little staggered by the way in which influence could appear in someone’s life. Power, really. And, then, how quickly it could disappear. What he felt now were the ripples of something he used to have.”

Anna knows Nik Christou from the café. A young, vulnerable sex worker, gentle and intelligent, far away from his home in the north of England.

“Nik liked to notice mistakes in things. He loved to sit in the pictures and watch the same film over and over again. Thinking about the people in it and if it all made sense. If the guilty were guilty and the innocent, innocent.”

When Nik is arrested for the murder, Anna can’t let it go. She works with DS Hayes, a policeman with whom she has a spiky relationship, to fight Nik’s corner.

They make an enjoyable and recognisably human team. It became apparent that I’d missed a previous book with these characters (Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars) but it didn’t matter. A Little London Scandal can stand entirely on its own and the characterisation was strong enough for those of us that missed the first instalment.

Anna is well-meaning but uncertain and aware of her limitations. Hayes is not a typical 1960s policeman but managed not to seem anachronistic:

“He couldn’t banter. His dirty jokes would have seemed tame in the mouth of a 12-year-old. He never physically hurt a suspect and he refused – uncomfortably and with an enormous amount of embarrassment -to take bribes. Every day he was a policeman and every day he somehow failed at being a policeman.”

I also really liked the portrayal of Wallis’ wife Merrian, stuck in the role of a perfect MPs wife – domestic, supportive and silent – and failing to perform:

“Merrian sat for a while in the hall and watched the dust motes move in the shadow of the stained glass above the door. She felt calm when she sat in darkness. When the house was still, when she was alone, no one could get at her.”

Emmerson weaves this disparate cast together expertly. The situations never feel forced and the societal pressures on them all  – at a time of change when things aren’t changing quite fast enough – are evoked believably through the characters’ experiences rather than using them as clunky pawns to hammer home certain points.

“The memory of not knowing what to do in certain places. The fear of getting it wrong. It infects people, like a cold.”

The crime/thriller aspects were well-paced and not predictable. But it was the characters and societal commentary which kept me reading. I was really rooting for these flawed, sympathetic people to find some peace.

“Sometimes that whole world turns out to be exactly what you thought it would and still it’s just a bit shocking.”

To end, a 1960s song about Anna:

“Never despise the translator. He’s the mailman of human civilization.”(Alexander Pushkin)

/ madamebibilophile / 29 Comments

This week I thought I’d use Kaggsy and Lizzy’s #ReadIndies event to focus on one indie publisher, and finally get to four books that have long been languishing in the TBR. Pushkin Press “publish some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed and brilliant authors” and they are one of my favourite indies, ever-reliable. Which hasn’t stopped four from their Collection series remaining unread by me for far too long!

Today I’m starting with The Buddha’s Return by Gaito Gazdanov (1949-50, transl. Bryan Karetnyk 2014). Gazdanov was a Russian writer exiled in France and this short novel, described by the publishers as “part detective novel, part philosophical thriller, and part love story” is set in Paris, as much as it is set anywhere – reality is not a consistent concept in this story at all.

The narrator is a student who is experiencing prolonged periods of hallucinations. He tells us from the start that he is an unreliable storyteller:

“Nowhere was there any logical pattern in this, and the shifting chaos clearly failed to present even a remote semblance of any harmonious order. And so, accordingly, at that point in my life, which was marked by the constant attendance of chaos, my inner existence acquired an equally false unwavering character.”

We slide back and forth between a recognisable reality of his poverty-stricken life in Paris and his disturbing, disorienting visions, without always knowing which is which. Early on in the novel he falls to his death from a sheer mountainside, later he is arrested and interrogated by the Central State. The government’s accusations of treason are entirely surreal and illogical, yet this is also what makes them horribly believable.

There is political commentary running through the novel, but the kaleidoscopic nature of the narrative means it is not a sustained satire on any particular country, ruler or party, but rather a wider condemnation:

“The ignorant, villainous tyrants who so often ruled the world, and the inevitable and loathsome apocalyptic devastation apparently inherent in every era of human history.”

Around halfway through, more of a plot emerges as Pavel Alexandrovich, an older man whom the student befriended, is murdered and his golden statuette of Buddha stolen. As the last person to see Alexandrovich alive, the student falls under suspicion. The real-life interrogation by the investigators has shades of the surreal fantasy interrogation by the Central State:

“If we can find the statuette, you’ll be free to return home and continue your research on the Thirty Years War, the notes on which we found in your room. I must say, however, that I completely disagree with your conclusions, and in particular your appraisal of Richelieu.”

As that quote shows, there is humour in The Buddha’s Return and this lightens a tale which has a lot of dark elements: visceral war scenes, squalor, and of course murder.

Apparently, The Buddha’s Return was originally published in instalments and I can see it would work well in this format. I enjoyed it but for me the more plot-driven second half arrived at just the right time, when I’d started to feel it was losing momentum. As it was I enjoyed this consistently surprising tale which still had enough recognisable humanity in it to be involving, and I’d be keen to read more by Gazdanov.

“I have a suspicion that you just dreamt the whole thing up. It’s because you read too much, eat too little and spare hardly any thought for the most important thing at your age: love.”

“All fiction is about people, unless it’s about rabbits pretending to be people.” (Margaret Atwood)

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This is my first contribution to Kaggsy and Lizzy’s wonderful #ReadIndies event, running all month. The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen (2021, transl. David Hackston 2021) is published in the UK by Orenda Books, who describe themselves on their website as: “a small independent publisher based in South London. We publish literary fiction, with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and roughly half the list is in translation.”

The Rabbit Factor is the first in a trilogy about actuary Henri Koskinen, which had somehow completely passed me by until I read Annabel’s review of the final part, The Beaver Theory. A little while later I saw The Rabbit Theory in my local charity bookshop and took it as A Sign. (As I have mentioned before, I’ll take pretty much anything as A Sign in that shop, and it always results in me buying more books 😀 )

Henri is a man who likes a well ordered, predictable life: “At the age of forty-two I had only one deep-held wish. I wanted everything to be sensible.”

His job as an actuary suits him, using mathematics to predict risk. Unfortunately, what doesn’t suit him is the modern workplace – open plan, noisy and full of corporate-speak about self-actualisation. He is forced into resigning by his boss who hides his bullying behind pseudo-beneficent jargon.

Not long after, Henri is told his brother Juhani has died and he has inherited YouMeFun, an adventure park (not an amusement park) in Vantaa. Unfortunately, before he died his brother inherited their parents’ chaotic approach to life and so Henri finds himself faced with:

“An unbearable lack of organisation, staggering maintenance bills, unproductive use of man hours, economical recklessness, promises nobody could keep, carts that quite literally moved at tortoise speed? I raised my fingers to my throat and checked the position of my tie. It was impeccable.”

Juhani was also in hock to gangsters, two of which – Lizard Man and henchman AK – keep turning up to menace Henri with horrible regularity and conviction. No less threatening, but considerably less violent, is police officer Osmala who similarly seems very interested in YouMeFun and Henri. And so Henri finds himself under enormous pressure and with only his maths skills to fall back on.

“I resigned because I couldn’t stand watching my workplace turn into a playground. Then I inherited one.”

I think maybe this novel passed me by because it can be classified under Nordic-noir, and I don’t read a great deal of that. What I read I enjoy, but I choose carefully because I am a delicate flower and not really in the market for gruesome crimes. Now, there are gruesome deaths in The Rabbit Factor, but I managed these fine. The details aren’t dwelt upon and they are surrounded by such surreal silliness that the focus is more on the ridiculousness of Henri’s situation than violence.

The tone is also not noirish. One of the blurbs in my edition mentions the Coen brothers, and this is a good parallel: while there is darkness to the tale, there is also humour and humanity. Henri’s unlikely colleagues include Esa, the US-marine obsessed security officer; sweet Kristian who is unable to see that his total ineptitude is what prevents him from becoming general manger; Minttu K who seems to know about marketing if she could only stop self-medicating with alcohol; Venla who never arrives for a shift; and quietly efficient Johanna who runs the kitchen and actually seems able to do her job.

There is also Laura Helanto, manager and frustrated artist, who causes feelings to arise in Henri that he doesn’t fully understand. It’s a confusing time for him all round…

“But recent events have taught me that what once seemed likely, as per the laws of probability, is more often than not in the realm of the impossible. And vice versa: what once I would have been able to discount through a simple calculation of probability ratios and risk analysis is now in fact the entirety of my life.”

I really enjoyed The Rabbit Factor. The deadpan narration of Henri is so well-paced that it manages to also be completely engaging. His focus on detail grounds the ridiculousness of his situation so it remains believable, carrying the reader along on Henri’s absurd journey.

“Even as a child I saw mathematics as the key. People betrayed us, numbers did not. I was surrounded by chaos, but numbers represented order.”

The characterisation is equally finely balanced. Henri and his colleagues could so easily be caricatures but instead you end up rooting for these disparate individuals. Tuomainen isn’t remotely sentimental but he is kind to the people he creates. The humour is derived from the situation, never laughing at the people themselves. They change under Henri’s stewardship, and he in return finds himself behaving in ways that surprise him more than anyone:

“I say something I could never have imagined hearing myself say. ‘This doesn’t make any sense. But it has to be done.’”

Last year I decided I would buy one book a month from an independent publisher or bookshop. I think Henri would agree that the probability of my next two purchases in this regard being his adventures in The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory are pretty high…

To end, I was so tempted to choose Chas & Dave’s Rabbit, as I absolutely loved that song when I was little (it was released when I was four years old, and I thought they were singing about actual rabbits). But alas, my adult sensibilities prevent me from adding a song about silencing women to the blog 😀 So instead here is a literature-inspired song about drugs rabbits:

“Killing Me Softly” (Roberta Flack)

/ madamebibilophile / 46 Comments

Hello bookish blogosphere! I’ve been away for what feels like a long time. June and July were a big pile of pants and I needed a step back from things. I want to say thank you to the lovely bloggers who contacted me to ask if I was OK, when I really wasn’t. Your kindness genuinely meant a lot.

I’ve only just started reading again after about six long weeks of being unable to digest a single written word. Some very strange things have happened to my reading; I couldn’t deal with fiction for a while so I finally got round to reading some of the biographies that have languished in my TBR for aeons. Then having got back to fiction I’ve started with a subject about as far from my usual fare as its possible to be: serial killers. Except neither novel is really about serial killers…

Firstly, My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2017). This made quite a splash when it came out and I remember large, eye-catching posters on the tube, back when commuting was a thing. It’s a quick read and it was that reason that made me pick up this debut, thinking it was a good way to try and get back into reading.

My logic worked well, and I whizzed through this tale of a murderous sibling, narrated by Korede, a young successful nurse whose talent for cleaning comes in handy when helping her sister Ayoola cover up her deeds.

The novel starts in media res as Ayoola contacts Korede to ask for help having killed her third boyfriend in self-defence. Ayoola is completely oblivious to the seriousness of her crimes and seems to feel no remorse. Although Korede loyally helps her, she is beginning to have doubts as to the nature of Ayoola’s self-defence.

“ ‘Do you not realise the gravity of what you have done? Are you enjoying this?’ I grab a tissue and hand it to her, then take some for myself.

Her eyes go dark and she begins to twirl her dreadlocks.

‘These days you look at me like I’m a monster.’ Her voice is so low, I can barely hear her.

‘I don’t think you’re – ‘

‘This is victim shaming you know.’”

The novel isn’t graphic and the details of the killings are not dwelt on – thankfully, if you’re as squeamish as me. Instead what Braithwaite explores is a complex relationship between sisters and the impact of patriarchal systems on young women. It’s set in Nigeria but the themes certainly resonated with me as a UK reader.

Korede and Ayoola grew up with a violent father and it his weapon that Ayoola uses:

“ ‘The knife is important to me Korede. It is all I have left of him.’

Perhaps if it were someone else at the receiving end of this show of sentimentality, her words would hold some weight. But she cannot fool me.”

No-one questions Ayoola because she is beautiful, no-one pays attention to Korede because she is average looking. Both women suffer under a society that commodifies women, even though Korede is successful in her career as a nurse and Ayoola is a talented clothes designer.

A doctor where Korede works, Tade, seems to be decent but even he follows the predictable path of not noticing what Korede can offer and falling for Ayoola’s looks, projecting his fantasies onto her.

“ ‘She is beautiful and perfect. I never wanted to be with someone this much.’

I rub my forehead with my fingers. He fails to point out the fact that she laughs at the silliest things and never holds a grudge. He doesn’t mention how quick she is to cheat at games or that she can hemstitch a skirt without looking at her fingers. He doesn’t know her best features or her…darkest secrets. And he doesn’t seem to care.”

Ayoola dating Tade adds tension to the narrative – will she try to kill him? Will Korede try to save the man she has feelings for? Who will succeed?

Sometimes satire can leave a bitter taste, but MSTSK avoids this with it’s dry humour and lack of preachiness. It doesn’t attempt crass psychology as to why both women are as they are, it simply presents their lives and upbringing and leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions. This light touch means it raises serious issues about contemporary society without losing sight of characters or plot. An impressive debut.

Secondly, Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu (2008, trans. Marina Sofia 2020) which was sent to me by the lovely Marina Sofia who blogs over at Finding Time to Write. She has translated this novel under Corylus Books, the publishing house which she has founded with three others.

MSTSK used a serial killer to satirise patriarchal systems, and Sword uses it in a similar way to satirise political systems. Set in Romania, it forms another stop on my Around the World in 80 Books Reading Challenge, hosted by Hard Book Habit who sadly don’t seem to be blogging any more.

Someone is killing Roma people in Bucharest using the titular weapon. There is no apparent motive – except presumably a racist one – and the murders have a competence to them which means the police investigation has very little to go on. This isn’t a police procedural though, and very little of the story is given over to the murders themselves (again, thankfully…) aside from the first. Instead Teodorescu uses the murders to explore the power systems in place in Romania and how this exposes the weaknesses and motivations of those within.

If that sounds dry, it really isn’t. The story whips along and the portrayals of power players feel authentic (Teodorescu is a political analyst). Early on, the petty concerns of Istrate, Head of Comms and Press Relations at the Presidential Office, demonstrate the disregard that the deaths receive. He only likes the social side and travel associated with his job, and the President hates him and so has set up another press office.

“He was briefly tempted to write a report complaining about the lack of professionalism in his team. Instead of getting reports about major problems, the international situation, global crises that could destabilise the Balkan region, an in-depth political analysis, he had to put up with silly homicide stories! He gave up reading the press summary, but resolved to complain about it the next time he met the President.”

The government is concerned, but only in trying to balance appealing to those who might welcome vigilante justice represented by Sword (as the press have nicknamed the killer) because he only kills criminals, and how it will look internationally that they haven’t caught him. The advice given to the Minister of the Interior suggests how to manage the situation in a pre-election year:

“A few heads rolling at all levels in the police force should demonstrate the government is taking things seriously. Admittedly, it also demonstrates how incompetent the police are, but no-one worries about that too much.”

Despite such machinations, the murders continue to rack up and tensions in the country between various groups escalate. The context of Romania finding its place in international capitalist systems after the fall of communism is evoked well but it doesn’t take much imagination – if any – to see parallels across different political systems. I felt this could just as easily be Westminster. There’s something depressingly universal about someone with integrity being forced aside for political expediency:

“ ‘It’s not anger. It’s profound sadness. Because you’ve proven to me yet again that it’s not good enough to be qualified, professional, well-intentioned and to work your socks off… it still won’t get you the respect you deserve.’”

Sword is incisive and uncompromising in its portrayal of corruption and the powerless victims of such systems, but its not depressing. Instead I found it a compelling read and I’d definitely be interested to read more by this author.

Writing this post was difficult as I’m so out of practice, but to end it’s business as usual with an obvious late twentieth century pop choice 😀

Novella a Day in May #16

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The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan  (1981, 100 pages)

The Comfort of Strangers was Ian McEwan’s second novel, and details a holiday taken by Colin and Mary in an unnamed European city (probably Venice).

They have been together for many years but do not live together. McEwan expertly establishes a couple who share a certain co-dependency and claustrophobia – at least during this holiday – but seem to lack intimacy.

“Colin stood in front of the mirror, listening, and for no particular reason began to shave for the second time that day. Since their arrival, they had established a well-ordered ritual of sleep, preceded on only one occasion by sex, and now the calm, self-obsessed interlude during which they carefully groomed themselves before their dinner-time stroll through the city. In this time of preparation, they moved slowly and rarely spoke. They used expensive, duty-free colognes and powders on their bodies, they chose their clothes meticulously and without consulting the other, as though somewhere among the thousands they were soon to join, there waited someone who cared how they appeared.”

They get lost that evening and are rescued by Robert, a forceful man who tells them a tale from his past. They end up staying with Robert and his wife Caroline in their villa, and the other couple’s relationship emerges as complex and disturbed.

“Caroline spoke cautiously, her face tensed as though she expected at any moment a loud explosion. ‘I hope you don’t mind, there’s something I should tell you. It’s only fair. You see, I came in and looked at you while you were sleeping. I sat on the trunk about half an hour. I hope you’re not angry.’

Mary swallowed and said, uncertainly, ‘No.’”

I can’t say more for fear of spoilers, but will say that McEwan’s considered, cool style lends itself well to a tense, dark tale.

The Comfort of Strangers was adapted into a film in 1990. Having viewed this trailer I’m not sure I’ll be watching it, but I do recommend the trailer itself which is hilarious, enjoy!

Novella a Day in May #14

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The Panda Theory – Pascal Garnier (2008, trans. Gallic Books 2012, 143 pages)

This is the first Pascal Garnier I’ve read, and while I’ve heard he can be a bit read-one-read-them-all, I enjoyed this quick, noir read.

Gabriel arrives in a Breton town and begins to get to know the locals, without revealing very much about himself or why he is there.

“a completely nondescript town…the sea was far away, its presence unimaginable. There was nothing picturesque here.”

Jose owns the local bar and is struggling while his wife Marie is in hospital. Gabriel can cook and so takes on this domestic duty while Jose flounders.

“With his elbows on the table, Jose hoovered up his meal. The tomato sauce ran from the corners of his mouth, to his chin and down his neck. Like an ogre.”

Gabriel wins the titular stuffed toy on the shooting range at the fair, and gives it to Jose for his children, but it stays in the bar, its impassive gaze surveying the customers, arms outstretched.

Gabriel attracts the interest of lonely, cat-obsessed Madeleine, and befriends lonely drug-addict Rita.

“ ‘I love you, Gabriel. It’s stupid but it’s true.’

The blind man turned a corner. The sound of his stick gradually faded away before disappearing completely. The town lay still, bathing in dreams in which everybody was a hero. He had to sleep. Sleep.

‘I’m going back to the hotel, Madeleine. It’s late.’

She’d never been as beautiful as she was then. Much more beautiful than her geranium.”

Gradually we learn about Gabriel’s family and why his wife and children are no longer with him. It also emerges why he is in the town and what his purpose is. The Panda Theory doesn’t hold any great surprises but it’s a well-paced, atmospheric tale that builds effectively to its conclusion. I would happily read more by Garnier, even if it is more of the same.

“Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one” (Jules Verne)

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Despite not thinking of myself as a remotely patriotic person, there was a 3 part programme on TV recently that was probably the most British thing ever, and I am so sorry it’s ended. Paul Merton travelling around the island by train (is it me or is he turning into Ian Hislop?), only getting off at request stops and chatting to those he meets. That’s it. Result: pure brilliance.

I share Mr Merton’s love of trains, and so this week I thought I would look at novels where they feature heavily.  This also enables me to fulfil the requirement of the Around the World in 80 Books reading challenge hosted by Hard Book Habit, to include a book about travel.

Firstly, Compartment No.6 by Rosa Liksom (2011, tr. Lola Rogers) which I was alerted to by Sarah’s review at Hard Book Habit and also by bookarino, where I was sure I had read a review but now I can’t find it on her blog – bookarino, if you reviewed please leave a link below!

The novel details the journey on the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Mongolia undertaken by the two inhabitants of the titular compartment. Liksom describes the landscapes they pass through simply but evocatively, and succeeds in capturing a sense of place and of travel:

“An unknown Russia frozen in ice opens up ahead, the train speeds onward, shining stars etched against a tired sky, the train plunging into nature, into oppressive darkness lit by a cloudy, starless sky. Everything is in motion: snow, water, air, trees, clouds, wind, cities, villages, people, thoughts. The train throbs across the snowy land.”

The atmosphere in the compartment is intimate and oppressive:

“All of Siberia slowly brightened. The man in his blue tracksuit bottoms and white shirt did push-ups between the bunks, sleep in his eyes, his mouth dry and smelly, the mucousy smell of sleep in the compartment, no breath from the window, tea glasses quietly on the table, crumbs silent on the floor.”

The man Vadim is repugnant: misogynistic, violent, anti-semitic, anti anyone who isn’t him. His attitudes and behaviour are repellent. Yet as they are forced together, a comradeship builds between him and the female traveller. She is presented a step removed: we never know her name, her direct speech is given only once and then she is quoting. Yet this works brilliantly at evoking the girl’s slightly numb, detached state as she runs away from her troubles and works her way back to facing them, with the help of the dreadful Vadim.

 “The girl looked out of the window at an entirely new landscape…she thought of that July day when she came back from her summer vacation in Finland and Mitka was at the station to meet her. She thought about how they had gone to the boarding house, run up the nine flights of stairs hand in hand, how the hallway had been filled knee-high with the fluffy heads of dandelions, how they’d run up and down the hallway like children, the dandelion fluff drifting in and out of the windows.”

Compartment No.6 is a short but haunting novel which will undoubtedly linger long in my memory.

Secondly, Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith (1950), which was adapted only a year later into the famous Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, albeit with several changes.

Strangers_on_a_Train_-_In_the_dining_car

Sadly my commuter train doesn’t look like this, despite being full of people hatching murderous plots

Successful architect Guy Haines meets bored, spoilt alcoholic Charley Bruno on a long haul train journey. He is reluctant to engage in chat, but Bruno is insistent, and Guy ends up telling him that he is travelling to meet his wife to ask for a divorce. Bruno meanwhile, hates his father and wants his inheritance.

“Bruno could be violent. He could be insane, too. Despair, Guy thought, not insanity. The desperate boredom of the wealthy…it tended to destroy rather than create. And it could lead to crime as easily as privation.”

It is Bruno who comes up with the idea that they swop murders, Bruno killing Guy’s estranged wife for Guy killing his father. Guy doesn’t agree, but Bruno goes ahead anyway. Needless to say, he is a sociopath:

“whether Guy came through with his part of the deal or not, if he was successful with Miriam he would have proved a point. A perfect murder.”

“So long had he been frustrated in his hunger for a meaning of his life, and in his amorphous desire to perform an act that would give it meaning, that he had come to prefer frustration, like some habitually unrequited lovers.”

Bruno ends up stalking Guy, entirely obsessed with him, and it is this, rather than the murders or closing net of the investigation that provides the thriller element of the novel. Bruno is completely unstable and there is no telling what he might do as he exerts increasing pressure on Guy. Yet Bruno is vulnerable too, childlike and confused, and never admitting that it is sexual desire which draws him to Guy.

“Guy! Guy and himself! Who else was like them? Who else was their equal? He longed for Guy to be with him now. He would clasp Guy’s hand and to hell with the rest of the world! Their feats were unparalleled! Like a sweep across the sky! Like two streaks of red fire that came and disappeared so fast, everybody stood wondering if they had really seen them.”

There are definite overlaps with Tom Ripley, the sociopathic protagonist of several Highsmith novels. Bruno is a much less attractive character than Ripley, but there is the desperation and loneliness of the sociopath, the thwarted gay desire, and the doubling between characters, which Guy realises, much as he is reluctant to admit it:

“And Bruno, he and Bruno. Each was what the other had not chosen to be, the cast-off self, what he thought he hated but perhaps in reality loved.”

Strangers on a Train worked well for me as a thriller, but without any glorification of murder or murderers.  Like The Talented Mr Ripley, what I was mainly left with was a sense of sadness at the destruction that desperate human beings can wreak on one another.

To end, a quick clip to shamelessly indulge my love of Buster Keaton:

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” (Mark Twain)

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Happy 2016! How are your New Year’s resolutions going? I excelled myself this time around, by abandoning mine before I’d even begun.  My internal monologue went thusly:

“I’m going to not buy any more books until I’ve read all those I already own.

… except playtexts (they’re so small they barely count).

…and Persephones.

…and green Viragos.

…and anything else that I really, really want.”

*Sigh* Useless. Even Paul Newman has lost all faith in me.

GIF-give-up-look-down-Paul-Newman-resigned-sad-GIF

OK, so that was just an excuse to put a picture of Paul Newman in the post and if we’ve learnt one thing, it’s that I am incapable of exercising any sort of self-control, especially regarding books and gifs, and cheese, and single malts, and watching inane  detective shows, and…..

So if you are a fellow willpower-free zone, I have an answer for you. Surround yourself with people who are worse than you in some way, and you’ll realise you’re not so bad after all. Now is not the time for aspirations, it is a time for resignation and another fistful of chocolates 🙂  This week I thought I’d look at anti-heroes, and two characters who will make you feel like the most virtuous person alive.

Firstly, Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955).

Matt Damon as Tom Ripley in the 1999 film

Matt Damon as Tom Ripley in the 1999 film

 Tom Ripley is approached by the father of an acquaintance in a bar, who has mistaken him for a decent human being:

“Judging [Tom] from that night, Charley could have told Mr Greenleaf that he was intelligent, level-headed, scrupulously honest, and very willing to do a favour. It was a slight error.”

An understatement to say the least. Tom agrees to go to Europe to try and persuade the prodigal son, Dickie Greenleaf, to return home and join the family business, not for any altruistic reason but because he’s worried a petty scam he’s been running is catching up with him. Dickie is a golden boy, rich, idle and good-looking :

“Tom could not help feeling that Richard was not very intelligent, or else he loved to be photographed and he thought he looked best with his mouth spread from ear to ear, which was not very intelligent of him, either.”

Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie, wanting to be all that he is and have all he has:

“Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn’t that worth something? He existed.”

Tom’s slippery notion of himself, identity and existence is the driving force of the novel as he dissolves the boundaries between him and Dickie, eventually *SPOILER* killing him and stealing his identity.  The remainder of the novel sees him dodging authorities and Dickie’s friends, spinning lies and manipulating everyone in his path: “He was himself and yet not himself. He felt blameless and free, despite the fact that he consciously controlled every move he made.”

Tom is a sociopath of course, and the real strength of the novel lies in the study of his character rather than the thriller elements, well done as they are.  It is Tom’s character that spawned four sequels and really gets under your skin; as a reader I felt drawn in by him, creating a weird ambivalence through empathy and disgust.  Tom is a powerful but sad character – he knows something is missing in him, something that makes him entirely alone:

“It struck Tom like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, that he and they were in complete harmony and were alike.”

The Anthony Minghella film adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley is widely known, but I also recommend a French adaptation from 1960, Plein Soleil starring an unnervingly beautiful Alain Delon as Ripley:

Secondly, Joe Lampton in Room at the Top by John Braine (1957).

Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton in the 1959 film

Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton in the 1959 film

I expected this story of social climbing to have dated but surprisingly, it wasn’t so. The references to northern mill towns being a hive of industry is sadly past and the rigid social classes, worry over a relationship’s ten year age gap and Joe’s lover’s concern that she is ancient at the ripe old age of 34, seem less relevant. However, as a portrayal of greed for material acquisition and the mistaking of such as being a purposeful life, Room at the Top is as incisive as ever.

Joe leaves the poverty of his home town of Dufton to move to the more prosperous Warley:

“I was going to the Top, into a world that even from my first glimpses filled me with excitement: big houses with drives and orchards and manicured hedges, a prepatory school to which the boys would soon return from adventures in Brittany and Brazil and India or at the very least an old castle in Cornwall, expensive cars – Bentleys, Lagondas, Daimlers, Jaguars –parked everywhere as a kind of ostentatious litter as if the district had dropped them at random as evidences of its wealth”

Joe rooms at the top of one of the large houses, takes a job at the local town hall, but has ambitions far beyond his current circumstances:

“I saw myself, compared with him, as the Town Hall Clerk, the subordinate pen-pusher…I wanted an Aston-Martin, I wanted a three-guinea linen shirt, I wanted a girl with a Riviera suntan – these were my rights, I felt, a signed and sealed legacy.”

Joe joins the local am-dram society and is drawn to young, rich Susan: “I’ll marry her if I have to put her in the family way to do it. I’ll make her daddy give me a damned good job. I’ll never count pennies again.” Thus begins a double life, one where he is with Susan, determinedly climbing the slippery pole, “I was manoeuvring for position all the time, noting the effect of each word; and it seemed to devalue everything I said” and one where he is with Alice, his older lover, able to be authentically himself.

Joe is an intriguing character, utterly reprehensible in his machinations but painfully self-aware and never self-justifying: he wants what he wants and he sets out to get it. There is no sense that he is any better or any worse than those who surround him, and so Room at the Top, while an intimate portrait of one man, is also a damning portrait of post-war society.  I didn’t wholly dislike Joe, but  Braine doesn’t shy away from the emotional fall-out of using people in this way and we are not expected to excuse Joe’s behaviour.

 “I felt choked with my own selfishness as nasty as catarrh; there was nothing in my heart to match the lovely sweep of the moor and the sense of infinite space behind it and a million extra stars above.”

Joe’s punishment is a terrible one: he gets everything he wants.

Room at the Top was a huge success and quickly adapted into a similarly successful film with Simone Signoret winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Alice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH8mKDs2Q1Y

So take it from me, Tom Ripley and Joe Lampton: even if you’ve failed in all your New Year resolutions, you’re doing OK 🙂