Wed 21 Oct 2009
A Review by Ray O’Leary: R. AUSTIN FREEMAN – The Stoneware Monkey.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
R. AUSTIN FREEMAN – The Stoneware Monkey.
Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1938. Dodd Mead & Co, hardcover, 1939. Paperback reprints: Popular Library #11, 1943. Dover, with The Penrose Mystery, 1973.
There wasn’t anything in my unread pile that got me excited, so I decided to reread something I haven’t read in probably 30 plus years. This was paired with Freeman’s The Penrose Mystery by Dover and sold in an oversized paperback for the grand price of $4, according to a sticker on the front.
The first two-thirds is narrated by young Doctor James Oldfield, a former student of Dr. Thorndyke, covering for a vacationing doctor in the village of Newingstead. Returning from a house call, Oldfield hears a police whistle, and, going to investigate, he comes across the body of a mortally injured policeman and is soon joined by another policeman and a diamond merchant named Kempster who has just been robbed.
The dying policeman had been hit over the head with his own nightstick, which has the left thumbprint of the killer who escaped by stealing Oldfield’s bike.
A few months later, Dr Oldfield has bought the practice of a deceased doctor in Marylebone, London and is called in when a pottery maker named Peter Gannet is suffering from stomach troubles. When he can’t discover the cause of Gannet’s illness, he seeks the help of his old teacher, Dr. Thorndyke, who diagnoses arsenic poisoning.
Suspicion falls on Gannet’s associate, Frederic Boles, who shares a studio with Gannet and who makes, in Oldfield’s opinion, some ugly jewelry. Gannet recovers after a brief stay in the hospital, invites Oldfield to drop by the studio and even teaches him about pottery making.
After witnessing a pretty nasty blowup between Gannet and Boles, Oldfield stops going around to the studio until Mrs. Gannet calls upon him. She has just returned from a two week vacation and her husband has disappeared. She has been afraid, however, to go into the studio and asks Oldfield to do so.
He soon realizes that someone has recently used the kiln and then discovers a small bone that he recognizes as human. Since Mr. Boles has disappeared around the same time as Gannet, it looks like murder. And when the police discover a left thumb print that matches the one of the dead policeman’s nightstick on a piece of Boles’ jewelry, they are more than eager to get hold of him.
The last third of the novel is narrated by Thorndyke’s associate Dr. Jervis, and covers Thorndyke’s investigation of the crime and how he comes up with the solution.
Well, you can’t call Freeman a colorful writer, though he manages to make the two narrations sufficiently different so they seem to be by two different persons.
He also takes some amusing pot-shots at what was then Modern Art. The plot twists won’t come as much of a surprise to readers who have read a lot of classic detective stories, but it was an enjoyable re-read. The title, by the way, refers to an ugly piece of sculpture that plays a big part in the solution.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I’ve always thought Freeman,like Defoe, employed dull brilliantly. The thrills in the Thorndyke tales are all intellectual, but they are there nonetheless.
And it shouldn’t be forgotten that Freeman created on paper many of the techniques that are used by CSI investigators today, including the evidence box.
Thorndyke is also the only great sleuth whose real life model, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, came along ‘after’ the fictional version. It is hard to believe that Spilsbury, who is so much like Thorndyke in so many ways, is just a coincidence and not the model for the sleuth, but Thorndyke’s fictional career predates Spilsbury’s actual one (though just barely).
And, of course, no mention of Freeman or Thorndyke is complete without mentioning he created the ‘inverted’ form of the classical detective story.
Both Freeman and Thorndyke are too little known today, a real shame. I’ve spent many a pleasurable hour in their company, and often revisit.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 am
If you are fan of Spilsbury, you should definitely read the book by his great rival
Sir Sidney Smith “mostly murder”
includes a fascinating chapter on Dr. Bell and Sherlock Holmes. 🙂
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:42 am
I’ve enjoyed most of the Freeman I’ve read. He was a giant in the field of mystery fiction and it is a shame that few read him today. THE EYE OF OSIRIS is perhaps the best mystery/detective story I’ve ever read. Freeman’s somewhat dry and formal writing style may at first seem off-putting but sticking with it for a few chapters (or a for a few short stories) quickly acclimates a reader and then the pleasures just continue to mount. Though one doesn’t read Freeman for humor (unlike say Joyce Porter, Stuart Palmer or Rex Stout) humor (or satire) is present more often than one would think. Freeman’s pre-Thorndyke stories revolving around the rogue Romney Pringle are also worthwhile searching out. I’ve always wondered if Freeman’s making Pringle an ersatz literary agent (Pringle never actually works on or places any manuscripts) speaks to his opinion of any literary agents he may have used.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:58 am
Bob
For whatever reason or reasons (all bad) I haven’t thought of Romney Pringle in years. Thanks for the reminder! When I was younger, I enjoyed the stories he was in more than those with Dr. Thorndyke, though maybe that would change if I were to read them both again now.
— Steve
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
green
Yes, I’ve read Smith’s great book and the standard bio of Spilsbury, who worked on everything from the Bath murders to Crippen and Christie, and even contributed to Operation Mincemeat, The Man Who Never Was. In fact Spilsbury is featured in the film version, played I think by Andre Morell.
Bob
I agree about The Eye of Osiris, but I prefer Mr Pottermack’s Oversight by a little, and historically The Red Thumb Mark (1907) is of interest since Freeman took the then new science of fingerprints and turned it on it’s head (I always wondered if Raymond Schindler had read Freeman when he proved the bloody fingerprint in the Sir Harry Oakes case was planted).
Bob and Steve
I’ve reread a few of the Romney Pringle stories recently. They hold up very well, and I’ll either have to dig out my copies of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes or the Oswald Train editions and read them again. They are quite charming and different from Thorndyke. In many ways I prefer them to Hornung’s Raffles stories.
As for Thorndyke, he was once the equal of Holmes and Father Brown in the public eye, and though the books and stories aren’t quite as accessible as those about Holmes and Father Brown, their pleasures grow on you, and the thick complete collection of Thorndyke’s short adventures is one of the best anthologies ever printed. Hours of entertainment.
Dorothy L. Sayers admitted to having a bit of a crush on Thorndyke, whom she called the most handsome of all detectives, and Raymond Chandler went out of his way to compliment Freeman (albeit backhandedly) in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder.”
Two of Thorndyke’s cases were dramatized on the BBC series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, with John Neville playing Thorndyke in the first season and Barry Ingram the role in the second. He was the only sleuth to get two outings on the series, though two of Arthur Morrison’s stories were adapted featuring different sleuths.
Although I don’t know if it is still true, for many years the evidence box used by British police to gather evidence was green in honor of the green bag Thorndyke carried to crime scenes which became the model for modern scientific investigation techniques.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:59 am
Chandler much preferred Freeman to the Crime Queens, which is understandable, given his own aesthetic predilections. His letters say some kind things about Freeman too.
I think the case could be made that Freeman is the greatest British writer of detective short stories after Doyle, though Chesterton makes a good claim to that spot. They are so different! I think the science in Freeman often is fascinating and I don’t find the short stories tedious at all. The novels do vary, however.
Why it’s better to quote Dryden or Donne in a mystery novel that to perform scientific experiments, I don’t see. And this is from someone who took a lot more lit classes than science! Freeman is often more interesting to me than, say, Michael Innes; and I would much rather reread As a Thief in the Night than Gaudy Night!
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
For Curt,
If I was ever asked which books I would choose (if I could only have three) on a desert island—I would choose:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
The Complete Father Brown
Dr Thorndyke, His Famous Cases
For David,
Those Oswald Train editions of Romney Pringle stories are wonderful. Especially good are intros by August Derleth and Norman Donaldson in the “Further Adventures”. Curious that Train did not provide an intro for “The Adventures”
I’ve heard that those old BBC Rivals of Sherlock Holmes episodes are available on DVD. If so, I’m going to have to get them.
As to Freeman’s dry, understated humor I must confess I, well, sort of paraphrased a sentence from a Dr Throndyke story and used it as the concluding sentence for one of my own stories. To date, it is the only one of my stories that ever saw publication.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Dull was probably a bad choice of words for Freeman’s Thorndyke stories. The action in the books is mostly cerebral, but watching Thorndyke, and knowing that the science (unlike Holmes or Craig Kennedy) is not only state of the art but innovative adds to the value. Thorndyke probably does more with the summation of the case than any other tec. These can be dull in even some of the better writers, but they seldom are in Freeman’s books.
As for where he fits with Chesterton in the stakes for second place for me it is a tie, but I imagine the general consensus would put him in a solid third place.