Wed 19 Nov 2008
TMF Review: by William R. Loeser – ARTHUR W. UPFIELD: An Author Bites the Dust.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
by William R. Loeser
ARTHUR W. UPFIELD – An Author Bites the Dust.
Angus & Robertson, Australia, hardcover, 1948. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hc, 1948. Many reprint editions, both hardcover and soft, including Angus & Robertson, UK-Australia, hc, 1967; and Scribner’s, US, ppbk, August 1987 (both shown).
The most under-rated writer of detective fiction is certainly Arthur Upfield. His books provide levels of characterization and description of places exceptional in the mystery. Most importantly, his half-aborigine Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte can and does detect.
Moreover, Mr. Upfield did not, to my knowledge, write a bad book. For the first few chapters, though, of An Author Bites the Dust, I thought he had; for Mr. Upfield had difficulty breathing life into the dry husks of the coterie of colonial litterateurs led by the soon-to-die Mervyn Blake, who see their purpose in life as shaping the future of Australian literature.
Fortunately, other characters appear and Bonaparte is able through questioning to make some of the remaining writers come to life. It turns out the unenviable Blake met his death from poisoning by coffin dust (i.e. ptomaine spores latent in the dust we all become — would it work?) for a motive so well-wrought, all-encompassing, and completely literary that description would take pages.
Let my “fair play” in not disclosing the murderer serve as an additional incentive for those of you who have not, to read this excellent book. Cat fanciers will want to know that the clue that starts Bony on the path to success is delivered to him by a cat.
Other thoughts: I wonder if the mystery writer Clarence B. Bagshott who appears here in a minor role was an intended or sub-conscious self-portrayal of the author? I wonder also if the American compositor and proofreader thought the “De Cameron” (p. 18) was a clan of Scots who emigrated to France?
Most of all, I wonder — as I’ve wondered while reading each of Mr. Upfield’s books — how a half-caste named Napoleon Bonaparte could move through the generally upper-middle-class society of Australia of the 1930’s and 40’s with so few comments about his name (one here) and without a snub due to his ancestry (In this book he even poses briefly as a South African (!) journalist.)
November 19th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I’ve read this one!
An Author Bites the Dust is unusually full of references to crime and mystery writers. Upfield mentions Joseph Conrad, John Buchan and S.S. Van Dine, all admiringly, in Chapter 5, and the Australian Rogue writer Guy Boothby in Chapter 12. The book also refers to G.K. Chesterton. There are signs that An Author Bites the Dust is Upfield’s homage to S.S. Van Dine. It takes place against the sort of group of intellectuals that often populate Van Dine novels, in this case a group of literary writers, and it centers on an obscure poison, like such Van Dine books as The Casino Murder Case (1934).
An Author Bites the Dust (1948) and its predecessor The Devil’s Steps (1946) include a (fictional) detective novelist among their characters, Clarence B. Bagshott. He is one of the many detective novelist characters included in detective stories, by such authors as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Mignon G. Eberhart, Lenore Glen Offord and Bill Pronzini. The name Clarence B. Bagshott contains the same rhythm as Arthur W. Upfield. One wonders if the character is to a degree a self-portrait, like Agatha Christie’s Ariadne Oliver.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Mike
That’s interesting about Clarence B. Bagshott showing up in another Upfield novel. I’ve always liked the gimmick of a detective story writer showing up as a character in a mystery novel, starting with Ellery Queen, I guess, thinking back to the very first mystery authors I ever read.
I’ve never read An Author Bites the Dust, and I’m now doubly convinced that I should!
— Steve
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
You mention how Bony navigates the racism that he surely encounters in the real world of his time, but I always had the feeling that his invincible ego meant he held himself so above everyone else he may never have noticed. A frequent theme of the books has Bony pretending to be some low life drifter and then revealing himself to be the great Inspector. Certainly his ego could go toe to toe with Sherlock Holmes, though he generally wins everyone involved over with his genius and skills.
I think Upfield just decided to ignore the racism where Bony was concerned (he certainly deals with the tension between whites and aborigines elsewhere in the books) rather than risk showing Bony as either a victim or a martyr. Bony is based on a real tracker Upfield knew, and I’ve always wondered how the real Bony fared in those terms. And too, keep in mind Upfield was English, not a native Aussie, and may have held a different view. And it is always possible he just wanted to portray his adopted home in a better light than reality. And after all it isn’t as if Erle Derr Biggers or John Marquand really had Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto face the racism they might in the real world. It’s not really until John Ball and Virgil Tibbs that an ethnic detective actually faces racsim as a key part of the plot. Even Ed Lacy’s Tousaint l’Overture sort of skates around the subject, though Chester Himes had taken it on headon.
I supect Upfield just didn’t want that to dominate the books so he just pretended it wasn’t there, rather like the way the Old West shown in the Cisco Kid always seems a great deal more liberal and accepting than the real thing ever was. After all, Upfield was writing detective stories more or less in the classical mode and there was no real pressure for the genre to reflect the real world save to the extent it couldn’t be ignored.