Sun 14 Aug 2011
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: FREDRIC BROWN – Night of the Jabberwock.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[13] Comments
FREDRIC BROWN – Night of the Jabberwock. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1950. Paperback editions include: Bantam #990, April 1952; Morrow-Quill, 1984. British edition: T. V. Boardman, hc, 1951.
Based on two pulp stories: “The Gibbering Night†(Detective Tales, July 1944) and “The Jabberwock Murders†(Thrilling Mystery, Summer 1944).
I recently took a couple days to re-read the greatest book ever written in the English Language, Fredric Brown’s Night of the Jabberwock, which can’t be beat in terms of structure, action, characterization, or much of anything else for that matter.
The tale is of a night in the life of “Doc” Stoeger, middle-aged editor of a small-town weekly newspaper — the kind of publication now put out by a syndicate if it exists at all, in a town that nowadays has become a suburb or a fiefdom of Wal-Mart.
But back in 1950, the small town and its paper were vibrant, charming bits of Americana, just like Brown’s novel, which starts off with Doc putting his sleepy little paper to bed, sadly looking at the front-page news of a church rummage sale and wishing he could somehow just once break a major story.
What follows is a night of wonderland-style adventures and reverses, as a mysterious visitor initiates him into The Vorpal Blades, a select club devoted to serious study of Lewis Carroll, major stories fly into his lap like scattered playing cards, he becomes a small-town hero, a hunted fugitive, kidnap victim and kidnapper himself.
All this is tossed off with the deceptively easy style only Fredric Brown could do so well. And speaking of Tossed Off, someone should go through this book with a calculator and see how much Doc drinks during the course of an evening; every chapter is punctuated by him having two or three drinks, then sobering up, then drinking again, drinking more, sobering… at some point it gets a bit ridiculous, but somehow the humor only adds to the charm of this witty and elegant adventure through a looking-glass.
By the way, this sent me back to re-reading Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, books I hadn’t seen since childhood. And I have to say their charm was sadly lost on me.
There’s some excellent doggerel there, perhaps up to the level of Edward Lear, but in their hurry to get from one scene to another, the stories never seem to get anyplace; colorful characters never do anything interesting, and conversations all consist merely of people contradicting Alice.
Or am I missing something?
August 14th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
A very fast answer to my request! I like this book a lot, and I wish I could figure out how Brown manages to make it all seem so easy.
August 14th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
This is his best mystery. Brown may have been a genius.
August 14th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Jack Seabrook, who wrote the Fredric Brown biography, has been posting quite a few articles on the BARE BONES E-ZINE blog. Check out http://barebonesez.blogspot.com
August 15th, 2011 at 1:54 am
You’re missing a lot.
Get Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice and Annotated Snark to see what.
August 16th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
The normally astute editors at Popular Publications inexplicably passed on “The Jabberwocky Murders,” so it wound up at THRILLING MYSTERY, which was a helluva lot less interesting than any of Popular’s detective titles. As far as I’m concerned, “Jabberwocky” is the most memorable story ever to appear in the magazine, which is why that issue is the only one I’ve kept out of the several dozen I’ve owned over the years.
August 17th, 2011 at 10:32 am
Not only did I have problems reading THRILLING MYSTERY, but I ended up selling all my THRILLING pulps like THRILLING DETECTIVE and THRILLING ADVENTURES, etc. I never did bother with THRILLING LOVE and THRILLING SPORTS.
The only THRILLING title I have any respect for is THRILLING WONDER and only under the editorship of Sam Merwin and Sam Mines.
August 17th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
As I’ve written in THE BLOOD ‘N’ THUNDER GUIDE TO COLLECTING PULPS, all pulps in the Ned Pines-published “Thrilling” line suffer from creeping blandness: they’re not downright horrible, but they’re predictably mediocre (except the SF titles, THRILLING WONDER and STARTLING STORIES, which hit their stride just after World War II, as the whole field was beginning its long goodbye).
Only a couple issues after the one featuring Brown’s story, THRILLING MYSTERY changed its title to THRILLING MYSTERY NOVEL and reprinted detective yarns previously published in hardcovers. At that point the title is only worth collecting if you’re interested in Rudy Belarski’s GGA covers, many of which also adorned Pines-published Popular Library paperbacks.
August 19th, 2011 at 8:44 am
If Brown wrote a better book than Night of the Jabberwock, I haven’t read it.
August 19th, 2011 at 8:44 am
I remember reading this review, or one very similar to it, in The Hound of Doctor Johnson, and at the time thought I needed to read this, which has been on the shelf for ages. I didn’t, but my determination is now renewed. Thanks, Dan and Steve.
August 19th, 2011 at 9:48 am
I think THE LENIENT BEAST and HERE COMES A CANDLE are far better. I’m always in the minority with Brown. This book annoyed me. And I have called it “alcohol soaked” in a not so glowing review elsewhere on the web. Dan has astutely noted this aspect above. So many other reviews just gloss over that part. How can anyone miss it or ignore it?
August 19th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Brown is one of my favorite writers. I have read almost all of his mystery novels. NIGHT OF THE JABBERWOCK is one of my favorites. I don’t think it’s a great book, but it is probably Brown’s lightest and funniest mystery. John, I agree that THE LENIENT BEAST is very good; HERE COMES A CANDLE struck me as very interesting, but more as a stunt than as a novel.
I think Brown’s two best mysteries are MADBALL and THE WENCH IS DEAD. I recommend them both highly – but if the drinking in JABBERWOCK bothers you, THE WENCH IS DEAD will definitely not be your cup of rye…uh, cup of tea, that is.
August 19th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
It doesn’t look like there is any real consenus as to which is the best book by Fredric Brown. Everyone seems to have a different favorite. I like WHAT MAD UNIVERSE, MADBALL, and MARTIANS GO HOME.
WHAT MAD UNIVERSE is a special favorite with me since it was in STARTLING STORIES, one of the first pulps I read. Despite the sexy Bergey cover, I lent it to a girl I was dating and she actually liked it and returned it to me without ruining the condition.
August 21st, 2011 at 12:10 pm
@Walker
You should have married that girl!