James' Expose of Ancestral Evil Nets a Coveted A
Whenever I talk about P.D. James' mystery writing it's at the risk of sounding redundant. Nevertheless, the Master Book List is growling to be fed, and intellectual honesty compels me to keep telling you about great books when I read them. I know, I know, you can never repay me, can't thank me enough, etc. But it's almost Christmas after all. Think of it as a gift under your e-tree. (Ba-duh-bum!) And now, as I hear voices pleading with me to get on with it, for the review.
If someone asked me why I routinely read at least one P.D. James mystery book a semester (while they last), I would try to describe James’s pin-point characterizations, the Dickensian way she sweeps large sections of society and history into her novels, her unflinching snapshots of human depravity, the bittersweet magnetism of Adam Dalgliesh, her main protagonist, and the Christian worldview which informs all of this.
I would throw in, by way of added incentive, the fact that James writes suspenseful page-turners that keep you awake when you should be studying Greek—and that this very fact can preserve your sanity—but I still wouldn’t feel like I had done her justice.
She would wake in the morning to the cry of gulls and step out into this cool white emptiness. Standing now she felt an extraordinary impulse which had visited her before and which she thought must be as close as she could ever get to a religious experience. She was possessed by a need, almost physical in its intensity, to pray, to praise, to say thank you, without knowing to whom, to shout with a joy that was deeper than the joy she felt in her own physical well-being and achievements or even in the beauty of the physical world. - Original Sin, 115
See how sobriety sneaks into religious chit-chat:
“There were a dozen different religions among the children at Ancroft Comprehensive. We seemed always to be celebrating some kind of feast or ceremony. Usually it required making a noise and dressing up. The official line was that all religions were equally important. I must say that the result was to leave me with the conviction that they were equally unimportant. I suppose if you don’t teach religion with conviction it becomes just one more boring subject. Perhaps I’m a natural pagan. I don’t go in for this emphasis on sin, suffering and judgement. If I had a God I’d like Him to be intelligent, cheerful and amusing.”
He said: “I doubt whether you’d find him much of a comfort when they herded you into the gas chambers. You might prefer a god of vengeance.” - Original Sin, 232
Since this post was ostensibly a review of Original Sin, I should mention a few specifics. As you might guess, central to James storyline is the way that ancestral sin continues to ravage the lives of later generations, and the reality that hidden evils are not allowed to remain hidden (“Be sure your sins will find you out”). Of course, ancient skeletons emerging from family closets are the stock in trade of most mystery writers—but few to none bring the shattering futility of revenge and human “justice” to light like P.D. James. This book nets a strong A grade.
Original Sin finds Adam Dalgliesh playing a quieter role; James doesn’t spare her protagonists the effects of realism, and Dalgliesh is aging. His character appears almost monolithic in the way that his supporting cast moves to accommodate him. Full allowance is made for both Dalgliesh’s genius and his eccentricities, and I came away wondering what it will take to jolt him from a well-worn path of solitude, cynicism, and self-sufficiency.
No doubt James has an answer.
Is it listed on the Master Book List, you wonder? Verily. This review also reclines, in edited form, in the Christian Book Lounge.
1 comments:
Frankly speaking, I did not think "Orginal Sin" is actually a detective story. It is a story of Revenge and the detectives just happened to be there in the story. The murderer plotted, the murderer murdered one after one, declared he has done so and then the murderer committed suicide.
Adam Dalgliesh looked lazy and seemed to give his assistants a chance. His assistants Kate & Daniel were always confronting each other and they did till the end. They were not doing very good too. Daniel could not get the truth out of a child and Dalgliesh had to intervene. Also searching the archives thoroughly was Dalgliesh's idea which brought the truth out. By then the Murderer had committed the 3 required murders.
The story can be considered to be a Good Human Drama but not at all a good detective story.
By the way, P.D. James referred to a book named "Murder under the Sun" by Agatha Christie in this book. There is no such book. There is however a book named "Evil Under the Sun" by her.
Post a Comment