Weekly Geeks # 13. National Poetry Month

This post is dedicated to Mike Burden & the Weekly Geeks. It is based on Ruth Rendell, Put on by Cunning (1981) and a former post on Reg Wexford (see ´No More Dying Then´).

An inspector called Mike Burden

Vexed by bosses, crooks and scoundrels

Toiled and laboured in Kingsmarkham

Saving damsels, felling villains

Never lured a drink or lark him

Though so upright, smug and moral

No one offered him a laurel.

Husband, father and breadwinner

Married once, but lost to cancer

Wife and bliss in one fell swoop

Lost his heart, the poor romancer

Parted from his sense of judgment

Gobsmacked, in St Lukeses summer

Until Jenny came, a godsend.

Married twice, this time with Jenny,

Wonder, wife and paragon

Who excels at cleaning, cooking,

Teaches Burden nightly booking

Even plays the violin deftly

But who plays the second fiddle?

Is the reader´s constant riddle.

Smartly dressed in sheepskin jacket

Modernized with new horizon

With his great deductive powers

Newfound literary skills

Burden, full of flame and fire

Waits for Wexford to retire

Ready for chief Griswold´s call

Just a sidekick ever after

Or will Rendell budge at all?

Meet Chief Inspector Reg Wexford # 3.

While you are waiting for my Bait-in-the-Box review, here is a post which may appeal to Rendell lovers. It deals with three Rendell novels written in the 1970s. For my first post about the 1960s look here, and you can find the second one, covering the early 1970s, here.


8) Some Lie and Some Die (1973)
"But why here? Why do they have to come here?" asks DI Michael Burden. In spite of his exaspiration, Kingsmarkham has not been hit by ´a plague of rats´ as Wexford retorts, but something as unusual and exotic as a pop festival, including thousands of long-haired, jeans-clad fans. Amidst all this love and harmony, the body of woman is found by a courting couple, and the case can begin.

Of course Reg Wexford revels in a bit of change, in the idea that people are allowed to be young for a period before growing up. Burden is still easily recognizable as the ever-worrying parent and Wexford´s naive partner. "Wexford was always poring cold water on his flights of fancy and he never got used to it." Yet some signs of development are discernable, e.g. in the following quotation, "... the solitary love affair he had had since his wife´s death had slightly broadened his mind." And this time some of Burden´s romantic theories actually hit the mark.

In spite of the quite modern festival theme and the female victim, women are not really conspicuous in this novel. At one point, Wexford consults a young detective, Polly Davies, but on the matter of the victim´s red dress, clearly indicating what female staff members are there for. We are also reminded that Wexford has a family when a district nurse mentions ´Mrs Wexford and the girls´ so one could argue that Rendell´s use of Dora Wexford is not very different from the way Conan Doyle threw in Mrs Watson once in a while [Sherlock Holmes & Women # 1]


9) Shake Hands for Ever (1975)
Robert Hathall´s wife is found murdered in her own home. Chief Inspector Wexford dislikes the husband from their first meeting and soon makes up his mind that Hathall has murdered her. Hathall complains to Wexford´s superior, crying harassment, hereby ´forcing´ Chief Constable Griswold to take Wexford off the case, and from then on the story turns into Wexford´s personal, dogged chase of Hathall.

A determined, rather stubborn chief inspector is old news, but Wexford has lost three stone in the past year ´thanks to diet, exercise and the terror inspired in him by his doctor..´, and on the home front things also begin to happen: "Dora Wexford was too placid and too sensible to wait up for her husband, but she had been baby-sitting... although he had only parted from her four hours before, he went up to her and kissed her warmly. The kiss was warmer than usual because, happy as his marriage was, contented with his lot as he was, it sometimes took external disaster to bring home to him his good fortune and how much he valued his wife."

Another new side to Dora shines through when Wexford invites her to London. She immediately presumes that he has some sort of ulterior motive for going. "Wexford felt himself blushing. Why did she have to be so perceptive? It was almost as if she read his thoughts. But if she had been less perceptive, would he have married her? ´I´d love to, darling,´ she said blandly. ´When?´"

10) A Sleeping Life (1978).
The body of a middle-aged woman is found in Kingsmarkham, near her aged father´s house, a woman who has apparently lived in London for fifteen years without leaving a trace.

A recurrent theme in this book is Sylvia, Wexford´s elder daughter, and her recent engagement in Women´s Liberation. Her mother tries to explain to Wexford what it is all about, but none too sympathetically: "If Neil wants to bring a client home he ought to cook the meal. He ought to come home in the afternoon and clean the house and lay the table. She´s taken the children home for the sole purpose of getting him to put them to bed. And she´s taking care to stir them up on the way to make sure he has a hard time of it." - "She´s got a bee in her bonnet... You are the people, we are the others."

Yet Dora admits to understanding that her intelligent daughter is tired of chatting with her husband´s colleagues while the men discuss architecture. Soon after Sylvia leaves her husband, at least temporarily, when he refuses to pay for another woman doing her work while she ´trains for something´ which in his eyes can only be the massive unemployment of the period.

Dora and Reg love their daughter and try to support her as best they can, but know from experience that is best not to interfere. As a consequence of Sylvia´s rebellion, Wexford begins appreciating his reliable Dora who cooks his meals, waits quitly for him whenever he returns home, and generally makes his home a haven.

Sylvia being Sylvia, she is more engaged than diplomatic in her crusade against men so after an exchange of words which Dora takes quite personally she loses much of her mother´s sympathy: "´It´s not very pleasant,´ said Dora, not looking at him, ´to have your own daughter tell you a woman without a career is a useless encumbrance when she gets past fifty. When her looks have gone. Her husband only stays with her out of duty and because someone´s got to support her.´"

Wexford has been married long enough to tackle this crisis, though. "I often think if I were a bachelor now at my age, and you were single - which, of course, you wouldn´t be - I´d ask you to marry me." Furthermore, Neil and Sylvia patch up their marriage when Sylvia realizes that "it will take hundreds of years to change [men´s position in the world]".

Even though Reg and Dora Wexford do not exactly embrace women´s liberation, this book should probably be counted as the first of a long number of novels in which Ruth Rendell takes up a social issue. It is certainly possible to see the title not only as a reflection of the victim´s in some ways sad existence, but of women´s lives as such. And with my post about the early 1970s in mind, one can hardly escape noticing the dramatic changes in Wexford & Dora´s relationship.

Meet Chief Inspector Reg Wexford # 2.

See post 1 here.
This second post should have covered the 1970s, but as I am - apparently - unable to skim novels I like and write about them in a few words, I will begin with these three from the early 1970s.

5) A Guilty Thing Surprised (1970)
The ´lady of the manor´, Mrs Elizabeth Nightingale, is killed in a true Upstairs-Downstairs setting. Apart from old gardeners and loyal factotums another type of servant plays a certain role in this one: the au pair. Au pairs in British crime fiction of this period invariably come from Scandinavia or Northern Europe. Katje (called Catcher by the old housekeeper) is from Holland, and though slightly overweight, obviously very attractive. Her grammar is horrible, but this fact does not seem to prevent her from getting acquainted with the male part of the population.
Inspector Mike Burden concludes that Katje is immoral so why not criminal as well, while Inspector Wexford and her middle-aged employer do not quite know how to resist the youth and charm of "a young girl who enjoys anxiety-free sex." So Wexford finds himself struggling hard to keep a professional distance, "something between God and a robot, tempered with avuncular geniality."
Through the first hundred pages or so Wexford is his usual, occasionally spiteful self. Near the end of the book we see new sides to the chief inspector, however. "Wexford walked to church with his wife and left her at the gate. Without any religious feeling himself, he sometimes went to morning service to please her." What surprised this reader was not Wexford´s confessing to having no religious feelings, but this is probably the first time he has shown any consideration for his wife´s wishes.
Another new side (and quite amusing when re-reading it in 2009) is Wexford´s fear that Burden is taking over the case. Humbly, he quotes the Book of Job, "Our young men shall see visions, he thought, and our old men shall dream dreams." His feeling of inadequacy does not last long, however, as this conversation with Mike Burden proves.
"´Yes, you were right there and right about a lot of things,´ Wexford said, adding in a sudden burst of confidence: ´I don´t mind telling you, I began to think you were right in everything. I thought I was getting old, past it.´
´Oh, come, sir,´ said Burden heartily, ´That´s nonsense.´
´Yes, it is,´the chief inspector snapped. ´I´ve still got my eyesight, I´ve still got some intuition. Well, don´t stand hanging about there all day. We´ve got to make an arrest.´"

6) No More Dying Then (1971)
A little boy disappears on a hot October´s day, called "St Luke´s Little Summer" according to Station Sergeant Camb. The police react promptly as a girl who went missing a few months earlier has never been found.
Not long ago Inspector Burden lost his wife to cancer. This icon of bourgeois respectability tries to cope with his loss, but quite unsuccessfully. "Burden was so thin. The sharp high cheekbones jutted out of his taut skin and his eyes glittered nastily when you glanced at them but they were unbearable when you looked deeper." Jean´s sister moves in to look after his children and his home, and soon a snappy, swearing Mike Burden takes her for granted, neglecting his family completely while working frantically. Something must happen, so Burden loses his head over the missing boy´s beautiful, but disorganised and divorced mother, a wretched woman who clings to him for support. With the most unconceiveable partner in the whole Kingsmarkham area, Burden experiences a St Luke´s Little Summer of his own.
Chief Inspector Wexford has worries of his own. His friend and physician, Dr Crocker, has ordained diet and golf on account of Wexford´s skyrocketing blood pressure. "Wexford lapsed from his diet twice a week on average, but he didn´t greatly object to the golf... It got him out of going to church with his wife." Of course Wexford also worries about Burden who works like an automaton, irritable and distracted, and he even tries to probe into the matter, but when Burden refuses to speak, Wexford thinks to himself "You won´t get any more friendly overtures from me, my lad. Stiff-necked prude. What did he care about Burden´s dreary love life, anyway?" As we all know, Wexford cares quite a lot but as the narrator says, "An emotional scene between two normally unemotional men usually has its aftermath of deep miserable embarrassment."

7) Murder Being Once Done (1972).
In this novel Wexford and his wife are spending a few weeks with his nephew, Superintendent Howard Fortune, in London. Wexford is a convalescent, and Dr Crocker has put him on a cruel diet so we meet an unusually bored, starved and grumpy chief inspector. Furthermore his haughty nephew cannot be bothered to ´talk shop´ with the old country yokel so obviously, poor Reg Wexford is homesick!
After two desolate weeks, the body of a young woman is found at a cemetery, a discovery which leads to Howard and Reg Wexford realising how much they have misunderstood each other. Having cleared this away, Wexford rebels against his diet plus the women´s well-meant fuss, and begins enjoying life again.
In the midst of all this excitement, Wexford completely forgets to inform Denise and Dora about his whereabouts until they call the police station to report him missing. Upon his homecoming, they let him feel his misdemeanour. "Dora´s manner, when she came down, was injured and distrait, but the chief inspector had been married for thirty years and had seldom permitted petticoat government."
One can neither say that Dora Wexford plays a major role in this story, nor that this rather dull, bridge-playing shopper is the same woman as we meet in later novels. Still, we get her first name, and a real human being begins to unfold. The following dialogue when Dora wants to know more about a ´mysterious woman´ who phones Wexford is a good example of this new development:
"Oh, Melaine. Just a woman I´m having a red-hot affair with. You know all those times you thought I was over at Kenbourne with Howard?..´ He stopped, caught his wife´s eye. It was admonitory, yet faintly distressed. ´Dora!´ he said. ´Look at me. Look at me. What woman in her right mind would want me?´
´I would´.
´Oh, you.´ He was oddly moved. He kissed her lightly. ´That´s the blindness of love,´ he said. ´Excuse me. I´ll just give my mistress a tinkle.´"

Generally, Wexford feels insecure and physically weak together with Howard´s smart London detectives, but when the case breaks, his spirits rise: "According to Cocker and Dora and their gloomy disciples, he ought to have been dead by now, for he had broken all their rules. He had worked when he should have rested, eaten saturated fats when he should have fasted, gone out at night, worried and today forgotten all about his pills. Why not break one more and be hanged for a sheep?" So if we didn´t know already, we would see here that work is what makes Reg Wexford tick.

Even though Rendell´s whodunnits are hardly seen as hard-boiled by any standard, it is clear that new-fangled ideas about equality have not really hit Kingsmarkham yet, and Wexford´s attitude to his own wife could very well be called ´macho´, especially the remark about ´petticoat regime´. But let us see what happens in the late 1970s.

Meet Kalle Blomkvist aka Bill Bergson

Left: photo of the boy who played Kalle Blomkvist.
Right: photo of Stieg Larsson.

The other day my daughter came across two volumes of Astrid Lindgren´s Kalle Blomkvist series in an antiquarian bookshop (both published by Gyldendal in 1989).
Fortunately she bought them, giving me a chance to write a short introduction to the well-known Scandinavian boy detective who was an important source of inspiration when Stieg Larsson created his character Mikael Blomkvist.

Bill Bergson, Master Detective (first published in 1946)
"Blood! No doubt about it!
He stared at the red stain through his magnifying glass. Then he moved his pipe to the other side of his mouth and sighed. Of course it was blood. What else can you expect when you cut your thumb? That stain ought to have been the decisive proof of Sir Henry's doing away with his wife in one of the most horrible murder cases which it ever had been the happy lot of a detective to clear up. But, doggone the luck, it wasn't so!"

Thirteen-year-old Bill mourns his sad existence, not being born in London or Chicago, but in sleepy old Main Street in a sleepy Swedish town. His best friends are Anders and Eva-Lotte who laugh at Bill for seeing crime everywhere, until a newcomer to the town, Eva-Lotte´s uncle Einar, starts behaving mysteriously. Not only does he buy a torch in mid-summer, he even carries a picklock in his pocket! Finally Bill has an opportunity to try out his detective skills which he does in secret until the danger is so imminent that he is forced to involve his friends.

More than sixty years on, this wonderful children´s book feels anything but dated. What is most interesting, perhaps, is the girl Eva-Lotte. The boys do feel they should not be playing with a girl, but they are forced to admit that any adventure is more exciting when courageous Eva-Lotte takes the lead. She may be dressed in the skirts of her time, but this is just about the only feminine thing about Eva-Lotte. Well done, Astrid Lindgren!

So this was Stieg Larsson´s role model: a young, imaginative but in many ways ordinary middle-class boy who realizes that when it comes to the crunch, he needs help from his friends and family.

And where might Astrid Lindgren have found inspiration for her hero?













Mød Kalle Blomkvist.
Den anden dag fandt min datter to bind af Astrid Lindgrens Kalle Blomkvist-serie i et antikvariat (udgivet af Gyldendal i 1989). Hun købte dem heldigvis, og gav mig chancen for at skrive en kort introduktion til den berømte detektiv, som inspirerede Stieg Larsson, da han skulle skabe personen Mikael Blomkvist.

Mesterdetektiven Blomkvist (først udgivet i 1946).
"Blod! Der var ikke tvivl om den ting!
Han stirrede på den røde plet gennem forstørrelsesglasset. Så flyttede han piben over i den anden mundvig og sukkede. Naturligvis var det blod - hvad plejer der ellers at komme, når man skærer sig i tommelfingeren? Den plet burde have været det afgørende bevis på, at sir Henry havde taget sin kone af dage ved et af de uhyggeligste mord, det var faldet i nogen detektivs lod at opklare. Men desværre, sådan forholdt det sig ikke!"

Trettenårige Kalle sørger over sin triste skæbne, at være født i den søvnige Storegade i en søvnig svensk by, når man nu kunne være født i London eller Chicago. Kalles bedste venner er Anders og Eva-Lotte, selv om de gør grin med at han ser forbrydelser overalt, indtil Eva-Lottes hidtil ukendte onkel Einar dukker op i byen, og opfører sig højst mærkværdigt. Han køber ikke bare en lommelygte midt i den lyse sommer, han går sandelig rundt med en dirk i lommen. Nu har Kalle mulighed for at prøve sine detektivevner af i dybeste hemmelighed, indtil det bliver så farligt, at han er nødt til at bede sine venner om hjælp.

Skønt den er mere end 60 år gammel, forekommer bogen på ingen måde .... Det mest interessante i den forbindelse er måske pigen Eva-Lotte. Drengene tænker måske nok, at de ikke burde lege med en pige, men de må indrømme, at alting bliver lidt mere spændende, når friske og modige Eva-Lotte fører an. Selvfølgelig render hun rundt i den tids pigebeklædning, nederdelen, men det er noget nær det eneste feminine ved denne tidlige, kvindelige detektiv. Flot klaret, Astrid Lindgren!

Det var så Stieg Larssons forbillede: en ung, fantasifuld men på mange måder ganske almindelig middelklassedreng, som indser, at når det virkelig gælder, er han afhængig af hjælp fra venner og familie.

Og hvem kunne man så forestille sig, Astrid Lindgren er blevet inspireret af?

While we are waiting ...

Perhaps there are still visitors who want to try to guess this week´s bait so this post is just a commercial for a post which will be brought some day. Here are the six Wexford novels Ruth Rendell wrote during the 1970s. It will take some time to get through them, and I do not promise to read them all in detail.
Did you see my first post about him?


Mens vi venter ...

Måske er der stadig besøgende, som gerne vil prøve at gætte denne uges bog, så her bringes et reklameindslag for et fremtidigt indlæg. Her ses de seks Wexford-romaner Ruth Rendell skrev i løbet af 1970erne (de er formodentlig udgivet noget senere på dansk). Det vil tage lidt tid at komme igennem bunken, og jeg vil ikke love at nærlæse dem alle.
NB: så du mit første indlæg om Wexford?

Graph: the nationalities of my latest 100 visitors