Mon 21 Jun 2010

6 Responses to “Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: B. A. PIKE – Campion’s Career.”

1. David Vineyard Says:
   June 21st, 2010 at 9:44 pm

   Campion is unique in the way the grows from book to book, and I don’t think that anyone can really argue that Allingham wasn’t the best writer of the four great queens of the Classical Detective Era, at least in terms of the writing itself.

   Of course considering her background from a family of writers it is no real surprise she proved the most deft with a pen — or the most playful. In her case there was perhaps too much talent at times, but from beginning to end her invention never fails.

2. Curt Says:
   June 22nd, 2010 at 12:28 am

   Her biggest literary failing is her tendency to “overwrite,” in my opinion. I think it afflicts The Fashion in Shrouds (she uses the “that/which” construction too much, i.e., “that certain x which a y always feels when a z….”). In her omnibus edition she later cut quite a bit of Shrouds, but I’ve never read the two versions to compare.

   I think that, knowing she was indeed a good writer, she couldn’t resist indulging herself a bit too much sometimes. She is the most evocative writer of the Crime Queens, though, I would agree. Christie, though a better writer than she is credited with being, is a bland stylist, sometimes even sloppy in that respect. Sayers is a witty writer, but not so colorful as Allingham. Marsh is quite good, but I think a sparer writer than Allingham. Among men, I think Innes is quite rich, at least his earlier stuff.

   Pike is a great Allingham fan. This is a good book, even if you don’t like Allingham quite as much as Pike.

3. David Vineyard Says:
   June 22nd, 2010 at 2:39 am

   Curt

   We largely agree here. I think Allingham could come closer to writing a serious book in the genre (and did in TIGER IN THE SMOKE) than any of the others, but at times she did fall prey to her own playfulness and abilities.

   I certainly agree about Christie, who I think is much better in general than she is given credit for — but only in the sense that for the most part she achieves exactly what she intends to — simple clear good writing that allows her to tell the story she wants and conceal the clues she wants to conceal. As you say she is no stylist (nor does she try to be), and sometimes even a bit sloppy, but generally she is in full control of her effects and her purpose.

   Sayers is indeed witty, but her brilliance sometimes seems forced. I have to confess GAUDY NIGHT seems to me a highly overpraised book and I much prefer THE NINE TAILORS, MURDER MUST ADVERTISE, or CLOUDS OF WITNESS, and I do think Wimsey suffers a bit (as do the readers) as she falls more and more obviously in love with him. I sometimes think I would be happier if she would let me admire him rather than telling me to.

   Marsh is probably the least of the four, but the most consistent. She is never quite as good as their best — or as bad as their worst, but her early books seem more assured and her later work doesn’t fall off quite as much. Save for the Brer Fox business she usually manages not to annoy. She seems to have hit a solid middle ground which she holds with little effort and enhances with a few surprises — or at least flourishes.

   I certainly agree about Innes and would add Nicholas Blake. Innes is often at his best when he is being playful — which is most of the time. And he is one of the few masters of the Classic Age who could do the thriller with real style and humor when he wanted to. His Buchanesque tales are often as good as his classical detection.

   Allingham is perhaps the most natural writer of the period. If anything the writing sometimes seems to come too easily to her, leading to some problems, but she is the only one of the major writers of the period whose sleuth changes and grows in stature over time (Wimsey does improve a bit), and though she wrote only a few non mystery novels they show a facility that I doubt the others would show (of course Innes wrote novels under his own name J.I.M. Stewart and Blake was poet C. Day Lewis) to handle other kinds of fiction equally well. There is a sense with Allingham she would have succeeded at whatever form of fiction writing she chose.

   I don’t hold she is the best mystery writer of the lot, only that she is the best writer (which are two different arts), and capable of some flourishes and effects the others seldom rise to. There is a richness to her works that suggests she was capable of taking the form farther, and in a handful of books she came close to doing just that.

   There are passages of simple good writing in Allingham that I don’t think have a parallel in Christie, Sayers, or Marsh, moments when she reveals something not with a mystery writer’s skill, but that of a first rate novelist. That’s not often found among even the best writers of the Golden Age.

4. Curt Says:
   June 22nd, 2010 at 3:22 am

   I find myself thinking of Sayers that she was clever, very smart and a very good essayist–what I often find myself seeing in P. D. James, who admires Sayers so much (though Sayers has humor). When she moved more in the direction of the “straight novel” however, I think we lost a lot the cleverness and gained not much in return. Sayers doesn’t seem to me a natural novelist, though she was a natural mystery writer. Of course I know the admirers of Gaudy Night will disagree with me, but I find it a very overrated book (like Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar).

   Allingham had a better feel for people and places, I find, though when she tries to get big ideas across, I don’t feel it really works. I feel like Sayers had the keener mind, but that Allingham had greater pure literary ability.

   When I wrote Christie could be sloppy, I meant in the sense purely of her style. It can be slapdash sometimes (her clueing never is in her heyday). But she is underrated as a novelist. P. D. James always says you get no sense of evil from Christie, something I disagree with utterly. And Then There Were None for example is a superbly conceived and executed dark masterpiece. Sad Cypress, Five Little Pigs, The Hollow–they all explore some darker places.

   Marsh is a superbly witty writer at her best and I rate a few of her late GA works–Artists in Crime, Death in a White Tie, Surfeit of Lampreys–very highly. The latter is perhaps the best “comedy of manners” detective novel of the period. The Lamprey family is brilliantly portrayed.

5. David Vineyard Says:
   June 22nd, 2010 at 3:41 pm

   Curt

   We are in almost complete agreement, and I cannot imagine P.D. James complaining there is no sense of evil in Christie. In many ways she is the moralist of the great four grand dames of the genre. If nothing else her Harly Quin stories contradict James, and Poirot and Miss Marple are always on about some aspect of evil in general. Even in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS she manages one character who is almost pure evil by anyone’s standard.

6. » Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: PETER WOLFE - Corridors of Deceit: The World of John Le Carré. Says:
   July 8th, 2010 at 9:05 pm

   […] and crime fiction. Preceding this one was Campion’s Career, by B. A. Pike. You can find it here. […]

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