Fri 2 Jun 2017
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: KYRIL BONFIGLIOLI – Don’t Point That Thing At Me.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[12] Comments
William F. Deeck
KYRIL BONFIGLIOLI – Don’t Point That Thing At Me. Charlie Mortdecai #1. Weidenfield & Nicolson, UK, hardcover, 1972. Published in the US by Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1973, as Mortdecai’s Endgame. Later published in the US under the British title by International Polygonics, paperback, 1990. Reprinted several times in various editions. Film: Mortdecai (2015), with Johnny Depp.
For the many who may have spent sleepless nights wondering what sort of novel P.G. Wodehouse might have produced had he tried his hand at a depraved, unwholesome, im- or amoral tale — that is to say, a novel wholly about aunts of the vilest antecedents — Don’t Point That Thing At Me will give you a good idea what the master might have written.
Describing the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai, sometime art dealer, is a difficult task, but there can be no doubt that he is one of the great antiheroes of the literature. Perhaps if you were to remove most of his good points from Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy — including his sexual drive, if that’s a good point — and make Frank McAuliffe’s Augustus Mandrell a coward and a sybarite, and then merge the two characters, you might have Mortdecai, or then again you might not.
In this, Mortdecai’s first recorded adventure, he and his thug Jock, a sort of reverse Jeeves whose surname Mortdecai doesn’t recall but thinks it is probably Jock’s mother’s, have in their possession Goya’s “Duquesa de Wellington†and a scheme to smuggle it from England to the United States. The scheme involves a bit of blackmail, which gives rise to all sorts of nasty goings-on, or going-ons , if you prefer.
Everyone, with the exception of a few minor characters, is thoroughly despicable, with Mortdecai and Jock having a few redeeming virtues, if one could only think of them. Mortdecai himself says that he has, like the Woosters, a code, but he doesn’t tell us what it is.
Much mayhem, some torture, and as little sex as is possible — Mortdecai seems to lead a celibate life, although he is capable of indulging with a female, reluctantly — are contained herein, as well as some Lovejoyian asides on art. Torture, of course, isn’t funny, but somehow it produces laughs in Bonfiglioli’s hands.
(This novel won the John Creasey Memorial Award in 1974.)
The Charlie Mortdecai series —
by Kyril Bonfiglioli:
Don’t Point That Thing at Me (1972)
Something Nasty in the Woodshed (1976)
After You with the Pistol (1979)
by Kyril Bonfiglioli & Craig Brown:
The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery (1996)
June 2nd, 2017 at 5:36 pm
This is the kind of review that sells me on the book.
June 2nd, 2017 at 6:07 pm
This doesn’t sound like the kind of book that Bill would like, nor me, either, but since he did, there may be a chance for me.
June 2nd, 2017 at 6:17 pm
Here’s a review of the fourth book in THE GUARDIAN, finished after Bonfiglioni’s death. Wodehouse is once again referred to often, ending with:
“Bonfiglioli’s style may be an amalgam of previous examples – Wodehouse, of course, but also Firbank, Chandler, and EW “Raffles” Hornung – but the psychopathology is all his own. And did I mention that, when on song, he is gloriously, infectiously funny?”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/02/crimebooks.shopping
June 2nd, 2017 at 10:08 pm
Do not blame the books for the bad film MORTDECAI. The books are a much better strange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW_sfxUnbZA
June 2nd, 2017 at 10:29 pm
Thank you for the link, Michael. I had never heard of the movie, but I will add it to the credits at the top of the review. I think when I see the name Johnny Depp, my mind turns off.
Here’s the first paragraph of the review in the NEW YORK TIMES:
“Mortdecai†might as well be called “The Johnny Depp Movie,†because its preening star, wearing an ascot and a walrus mustache that becomes a tiresome running joke, is the whole show. And what a frantically dull spectacle this vanity project is. “Mortdecai,†directed by David Koepp from a screenplay by Eric Aronson, would never have been made without Mr. Depp’s enthusiasm for the source material, the first of the 1970s trilogy of farcical novels by the British author Kyril Bonfiglioli, in the P. G. Wodehouse tradition of sophisticated silliness.
June 2nd, 2017 at 10:19 pm
Here is a detailed review of the character from the Paris Review. It does well in identifying those who will love the books and those who won’t.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/20/something-nasty/
June 2nd, 2017 at 10:41 pm
All of of this discussion is bringing back a memory of having tried reading this book and getting absolutely nowhere with it.
June 3rd, 2017 at 5:33 am
Ditto. I kept meaning to get the books for years, but when I finally did, I found them unbearably insufferable.
June 3rd, 2017 at 9:03 pm
I love this series, though I confess I have not read the fourth. For that matter, I also confess that I didn’t know there was a fourth.
Wodehouse is the obvious nod, but to my mind there is a lot more G. M. Fraser (“Flashman”) and Roald Dahl (esp “Uncle Oswald”) in the literary DNA here. Bonfiglioli is a long long way from Chandler and Hammett, but my tastes are rather catholic and do at times lean Anglophilic.
As they say, YMMV. But I found the Mordecai saga great fun.
June 4th, 2017 at 10:45 pm
Worth checking out, I love a good anti-hero.
June 10th, 2017 at 9:58 am
I loved the original three Mortdecai books. I also didn’t know there was a fourth until very recently — I bought a copy but haven’t read it yet.
There is also a very good sort of prequel, about one of Mortdecai’s ancestors, ALL THE TEA IN CHINA.
These are some of the funniest books I have ever read.
June 10th, 2017 at 10:47 am
After all this discussion, my sense is that either you love his books or you can’t stand them.