Library Limelights 220

Thus continues the shut-in CORONOVIRUS TIMES reading. Random grabs from PAL library.

Carola Dunn. Heirs of the Body. 2013. USA: Minotaur Paperback, 2015.

My introduction to Dunn’s series of upper class England in the 1920s was a happy surprise. A random pick as I loaded up willy-nilly before our in-house library locked down. Love that cover! Daisy Dalrymple, literally to the manor born, habitually involves herself in cases her husband DCI Alec Fletcher investigates. But this time it’s her own family: her childless cousin Edgar, Lord Dalrymple of Fairacres, inherited the title and estates upon the deaths of Daisy’s father and only brother, hence a search begins for a legitimate heir to Edgar. Genealogists will recognize that primogeniture reigns; lawyer Tommy Pearson (and the College of Arms) must determine the descendant of the oldest son of the oldest son and so on, reaching back a century to untangle families with an abundance of sons in each generation. Tommy receives several claims to evaluate, wishing to make the big announcement at Edgar’s week-long house party where all will gather. Daisy spends the week at her old home doing her own evaluating, avoiding her widowed mother, the spiteful Dowager, as much as possible.

We meet the Dalrymple claimants: Vincent, a hotelier in Yorkshire, and his French wife Laurette; Raymond, the South African diamond merchant; Benjamin, the youngster from Trinidad, escorted by his stepfather Frank Crowley; Samuel, the Jamaican sailor, whose pregnant wife Martha preceded him to England. The protocol of life in a grand mansion with multiple servants is the perfectly portrayed background without detracting from the main action. Everything escalates rapidly with suspicious accidents, and then a death. Perhaps all the putative heirs are in danger. Alec is placed in charge; Daisy flits among the blitz of family guests, the more-or-less placid hosts, hoydenish children, impeccable servants, and one killer. The butler did not do it. Altogether delightfully entertaining. Well done, Ms Dunn!

[No thanks to some chocolate-eating reader who preceded me on those pages.]

One-liners:

▪ “You cannot suppose I have no interest in the man who is to take the place of my husband and my son?” (67)

▪ He gave the dowager a half bow, Daisy a nod, and stalked out, not waiting for butler or footman to be summoned to conduct him. (76)

▪ “He’s totting up whether it’s worth his while to inherit Fairacres.” (113)

▪ “Ben, do you mind them calling you Blackie?” (146)

▪ “Well done,” said Daisy, who had no moral objection to a little lawbreaking in a good cause. (204)

▪ “It’s not at all comfortable having one’s relatives attempting to do each other in.” (266)

Multi-liners:

▪ Why people insisted on confiding in Daisy she had no idea. Alec blamed her deceptively guileless blue eyes, which she considered very unfair. (101)

▪ “You didn’t bring the twins, Daisy. Belinda is a nice enough child, but after all, she’s only a stepgranddaughter ...” (109)

▪ “I was watching Lord Dalrymple this afternoon. I hadn’t realised there was so much to this ‘lord of the manor’ business. I’m coming to have considerable respect for Cousin Edgar.” (148)

▪ “You’re going to ask him to send in bobbies to watch everyone? That wouldn’t go down very well.” (166)

▪ “The young people didn’t ought to have been playing cards at such a time—not that I approve of card games at any time, seeing what they lead to. Gambling, and dicing, and horses!” she added darkly. (239)

The first Dalrymple candidate:

“If you have any more questions, Mrs. Fletcher—“ 

“They can wait until you meet at Fairacres in August,” Tommy interrupted. “Should you receive further documents from your relatives in France, Mr. Dalrymple, no doubt you’ll be in touch, and naturally I’ll let you know of any developments that affect your position. Thank you for sparing the time for this meeting.” 

“Oh, my time’s mostly my own these days. Good-bye, Mrs. Fletcher.” 

Daisy smiled at him and offered her hand. “Good-bye, Cousin Vincent. I look forward to seeing you at Fairacres.” 

He flushed—with gratification, she hoped―but before he could speak, Tommy hustled him out. 

Returning, Tommy closed the door firmly behind him and hissed, “’Cousin Vincent’! There’s no proof that he’s descended from Julian Dalrymple.” 

“I can always un-cousin him,” said Daisy, unrepentant. “Anyway, if he turns out to be a fraud, I won’t be seeing him again.” (31-2)

House party begins:

Daisy turned to the maid. “Are the other ... guests already here?” 

“Lord and Lady John will be staying at the Dower House, madam. There’s others as came yesterday,” she added in an ominous tone, “but who they may be, I’m sure it’s not my place to say.” 

She made sure they had everything they needed, then departed. 

“It sounds as if the servants don’t approve of the heirs of the body,” said Alec. 

“Darling, it sounds to me as if they strongly disapprove.” 

“They’re your relatives.” He was determined not to be drawn into Daisy’s family affairs. “I’m not going to get involved. I’d rather face a gang of thugs than massed Dalrymples, unless you’re by my side to protect me.” (96-7)

The toxic Dowager:

Time to change the subject. “How is Violet?” 

“If you ever came to see us, you’d know.” 

“I’ve been several times, Mother! Even though I’m rather busy helping Geraldine entertain her guests.” 

“What does she expect with such an ill-assorted, ill-bred party? I assume your husband hasn’t yet worked out who is Edgar’s heir.” 

“It’s not his responsibility.” 

“What’s the use of having a policeman in the family if he can’t separate the pretenders from the real?” 

“It’s Tommy Pearson’s job. The lawyer.” 

“If Edgar had had the sense to stay with the lawyers who served the family for centuries, all this nonsense would have been finished with years ago.” (225)

Salman Rushdie. Shalimar the Clown. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2005.

Rushdie is one of those authors one feels one should read at least once; my first experience comes from the sole book available to me. Shalimar is a morality tale, an often dark satire of human behaviour. It begins and ends in Los Angeles but with a central focus on love and hate during the vicious India-Pakistan wars in Kashmir. Pachigam is a Kashmiri village of born entertainers, a bandh pather that does traditional folklore performances, being hired for family and festival events. They also compete with nearby village Shirmal for food catering at celebrations and festivals, such as preparing the Banquet of Thirty-Six Courses Minimum. Shalimar Noman and Boonyi Kaul fall in love as teenagers, then marry; their story is as dramatic as any enacted by their troupe. Shalimar is content to continue as the region’s best tightrope aerialist but Boonyi wants more. She seduces the U.S. ambassador to India with her dancing, leaving Kashmir to become his mistress. Shalimar becomes a dedicated liberation warrior and assassin.

Ambassador Max Ophuls has his own story moving through WWII and the diplomatic service. His liaison with Boonyi ruins his career until he regains favour as a secret influence behind American politics. With no knowledge of her mother, Max’s daughter is raised by his bitter wife who names her India. In Kashmir, now fighting for freedom against two major powers, the tolerance and respect of yore are gone, with divisiveness and extremes becoming the norm. Real political figures appear among the fictional. Some of the wonderfully portrayed minor characters throughout include Boonyi’s father Pandit Pyarelal; the Indian colonel Kachhwaha or Tortoise; the lovable L.A. landlady Olga Volga; Peggy of the daring wartime exploits; all the Pachigam villagers.

A man betrayed will kill; India, now known as Kashmira, waits for him. Rushdie’s prodigious scope of language, of historical detail, of cultural dimensions, includes metaphor and magic. Long sentences, long paragraphs, an explosion of erudition; four hundred of the densest pages I’ve ever read, akin to being hit with an intellectual sledgehammer. Ahhh, only the faintest whiff of the iconic eponymous perfume.

India/Kashmira:

▪ He had been fifty-seven when she was born. He walked as if he were younger than that now. She loved him for that will, felt it like a sword within herself, sheathed in her body, waiting. (16)

▪ India was contemptuous of religion, her contempt being one of the many proofs that she was not an India. (18)

▪ “Tell her what she wants to know,” blind Bombur muttered spitefully, surrounded by smoke. “Then see if she’s happy she came.” (365)

▪ It was a grand life you took and you should know its grandeur. (373)

Boonyi:

▪ Kachhwaha didn’t know much about dancing but the dance was all perfume and the look of her was emerald. (101)

▪ The excess of Delhi deranged her, its surfeit of muchness, its fecal odors, its hellish noise, its anonymity, its uncaring crowd of the desperate fighting to survive. (201)

▪ “You can’t keep this little girl. She will drag you down and she will be the death of you and that will be the death of her.” (212)

▪ “Go up the mountain and die properly.” If that was her father’s message to her then she had no choice but to obey. (227)

▪ She felt the moorings of her sanity loosen and welcomed the comforting madness. (227)

Max:

▪ He knew the intimate connection between his own scandalous past and this grave unscandalous man who never laughed in spite of the creased eyes that hinted at a happier past, this man with a gymnast’s body and a tragedian’s face ... . (31)

▪ For a long moment Max slipped loose of all his different selves, the brilliant young economist, lawyer and student of international relations, the master forger of the Resistance, the ace pilot, the Jewish survivor, the genius of Bretton Woods, the bestselling author, and the American ambassador cocooned in the house of power. He stood alone and as if unclothed, dwarfed by the high Himalayas and stripped bare of comprehension by the scale of the crisis made flesh, the two frozen armies facing each other across the explosive borderline. (179)

Shalimar:

▪ After his first walk it proved impossible to keep Noman off the rope and gradually it rose higher and higher until he was flying at the level of the treetops. (56)

▪ Then in a low fast murmur she went on, “His brothers have taken him away, up to Khelmarg, to stop him from cutting off Pandit Gopinath Razdan’s fat head.” (109)

▪ But still every night in her dreams he came to her, walking the high wire, jumping rope in the sky, bouncing on air as if it were a trampoline, playing leapfrog with his brothers along the high thin line, pretending to slip on an invisible banana skin, windmilling his arms, saving himself, regaining his balance, then slipping on a second imaginary banana skin and falling in a skillfully chaotic tumble all the way to the ground, a finale that always brought the house down. (196)

▪ So if Shalimar the clown wanted to go off into the mountains with Anees and the liberation front fighters, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing on the whole, let the fellow go and do what he had to do, even if the liberation front was still a bunch of comedians trying to find out how to live up to their name. (250-1)

▪ “When a man is out of his mind other forces can enter that mind and shape it.” (385)

Pachigam:

▪ Her husband had offended her by dying without managing to leave her with so much as a single son to look after her in her declining years, which she considered the height of bad manners. (63)

▪ But when the thunderbolt hit Pachigam, it wasn’t Hindu-Muslim trouble that brewed up the storm. The problem wasn’t caused by the creeping madness of Tortoise Colonel or the latent danger of the iron mullah or the blindness of India or the accidental sweeps or the crescent shadow of Pakistan. (131-2)

▪ “I am sorry you see us in this condition,” Hasina Yambarzal said, offering her guests hot glasses of salty tea. “Once we were proud but now even that has been taken from us.” (365)

▪ So, to repeat: there was no Pachigam anymore. Pachigam was destroyed. Imagine it for yourself. (309)

Thomas King. The Back of the Turtle. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2014.

Another dystopian rabbit hole? What’s with my random choices? Nonetheless, Thomas King is sheer pleasure working a premise all too familiar. Dedicated scientist and head of Biological Oversight for corporate giant Domidion, Gabriel Quinn, has disappeared. Domidion’s powerful CEO Dorian Asher and his assistant Winter Lee are mystified. They won’t find Gabriel who—having listed the ecological disasters inflicted by Domidion and other profitable corporate interests―is at remote Samaritan Bay sluggishly trying to kill himself. He feels responsible for the accidental spill of a deadly compound that obliterated life here in the town and adjacent native reserve. Yet survivors find him; they revive his flagging spirit. Nicholas Crisp, guardian of the hot springs; Sonny, the unhinged lad; Mara the artist; Soldier, the prescient dog. They connect.

Even while Dorian Asher is shopping for expensive fripperies, Domidion experiences a media storm over more destruction of natural resources. Gabriel surveys evidence of “The Ruin” at Samaritan Bay; he had family here too, among the deaths and deserted homes on the reserve. Mara moves back into her family home. Crisp is a priceless character of nautical mannerisms, re-telling The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, a story they all know. Dorian finds the perfect culprit to blame for Domidion’s failures. Thomas King is a fluid author like no other—magic at its graceful best, universal humour when we need it. How can he make writing seem so easy to do?!

One-liners:

▪ Her mother and grandmother had begun each day in this manner, standing on the bank, touching the water, sprinkling tobacco on the current. (45)

▪ “But he was wrong,” said Crisp, “for it ain’t the vanities of physics what’ll do us in, but the vulgarities of our own greed.” (62)

▪ The surface of water, Gabriel discovered, would never take the place of a stretched hide, but he slapped out a rhythm anyway and sang the song. (235)

▪ Existence, Crisp reminded himself, was a game of Snakes and Ladders, where life twisted and turned with how you rode the dice and where you landed.

▪ Why do we ask the important questions after they’ve been answered? (337)

Multi-liners:

▪ Thicke was a breakfast buffet. Hash brown hair, egg yolk eyes, soft butter lips, and a short stack of pancakes for a chin. (89)

▪ In the world of applied physics, such a thing was impossible. One human being didn’t sing human beings up out of the water. Their appearance in the high tide was unexpected, but there was a scientific answer for every anomaly. (184-5)

▪ “Mud!” shouted Crisp, as he broke the surface. He held one arm aloft with his fist clenched. “The universal glue!” (234)

▪ “The truth.” Mara fashioned a smile. “If you’re not going to tell me the truth, at least try to make the story interesting.” (448)

His missing father:

Sonny knows that Dad isn’t terribly fond of curiosity. Sure, Dad is a proponent of free will, and Sonny is reasonably sure that curiosity is one aspect of free will, but Sonny also knows that curiosity can lead to questions, and Dad has been firm about questions. 

Questions, Dad has told Sonny on numerous occasions, are the consequence of uncertainty and can lead to doubt. Doubt can turn into confusion, confusion can foster disbelief, disbelief can provoke anger, anger can find its way to revolt, riot, and revolution, and from there the world will quickly fall into calamity and chaos.Sonny is sad when he realizes that he has fallen into curiosity, and he has to sit down and wait for the sorrow to pass. (54)

His critics:

The speech at the university had gone well enough. Winter had been right about a demonstration. Somewhat larger than anticipated, though not all that well organized. As Dorian watched the students mill about with their signs—“End Corporate Greed,” “Tax the Rich,” “Redistribution or Revelution,” “GMOs Have Got to Go”―he had had the inexplicable urge to push his way into the protesters and counsel them on how to organize an effective rally. Focus, he would have told them. Organize around a single theme. Send the scruffy folk to the back where the television cameras couldn’t find them, put some money into more professional-looking placards, and for God’s sake, learn to spell. (75)

Her missing family:

Over dinner one evening, she announced that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that she didn’t need her mother’s advice or her grandmother’s approval, for that matter. 

“Mara’s thinking about having sex,” her mother told her grandmother. 

“With whom?” her grandmother had wanted to know. 

Mara realized her mistake immediately. “No one,” she had said. 

“I’ve always wanted a great-granddaughter.” 

“I’m not having sex.” 

“She’s thinking of having sex,” her mother had corrected. 

“We could name the baby after your great aunt, Thelma.” 

“I’m not thinking of having sex.” 

“If you need any technical guidance,” her mother had said, “all you have to do is ask.” (71-2)

Home:

“I should be getting back,” said Gabriel. 

Crisp leaned against Gabriel and whispered in his ear. “Look around,” he said. “This is the back to which ye needs be getting. Look around. Ye are already here.” (436)