Don't Point That Thing at Me: The First Charlie Mortdecai Novel
Kyril Bonfiglioli
Mystery, humor
Upon the outer integument of this opus a statement is prominently plastered, averring it to be "The result of an unholy collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Ian Fleming". This doesn't quite whang the nail on the crumpet. I blame it on the New Yorker having a low taste for literary fiction, thus starving its writer johnnies of the oomph necessary for the Higher Criticism. Only a sadly underfed critical faculty could have lighted upon Fleming while fluttering past the clear thematic and semiotic debt to Leslie Charteris's "The Saint" canon. For myself, I should also have identified a smidge--perhaps even a modicum--of Fraser's "Flashman" epos; but this is a subject upon which reasonable chaps might non-concur.
There's some semblance of some kind of plotty thingamajob in this book. It might make what is termed "a lick of sense", but definitely not two licks, and a full serving is jolly well out of the question. Cavil not! Don't permit the pale cast of thought, or any color cast really, to sickly o'er your reading, and you'll be a better and happier person.
I always hate when a review says things like "It's like X meets Y!" since the only possible response is always "No it isn't."
ReplyDeleteWodehouse was irreplaceable, sui generis. No one else has written anything like his work. As Boswell said, "Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best — there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."
I often feel like reviewers are just picking half-remembered names so they can compare one author they haven't read with another author they haven't read. I once got a Terry Pratchett book as a present, and would have been delighted except that there was a blurb on the cover that quoted the single stupidest sentence by a reviewer I can think of offhand: "Think J.R.R. Tolkien, with a sharper, more satiric edge." That made me so angry I threw the book away and bought another edition that had a different cover.
Uh-oh. I do this myself when I think it's funny. Perhaps I should add a trigger warning.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, the Wodehouse comparison is both warranted and accurate. There are explicit Bertie Wooster references in the text, and the language is much in the same vein. No, it's not Wodehouse, but it's no less a useful comparison as (for example) pointing out that Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter are indebted to PGW.
The Pratchett-to-Tolkien comparison, on the other hand, has always vexed me. It demonstrates that the reviewer had no familiarity with fantasy literature whatsoever, and JRRT was the only author he could call to mind.
ReplyDeleteLONG-WINDEDNESS ALERT!
My god-daughter has been learning about story elements in school, and in helping her with her homework I've suggested she imagine, for example, what Princess Moana might do if she found herself in Queen Elsa's story.
In a similar vein, if Peter Wimsey were to appear in a Wodehouse story, it would be as a non-villainous antagonist -- someone like the leading lady's older brother who doesn't approve of the leading man. Wimsey takes himself too seriously to be a Wodehouse hero -- think of the scenes where someone throws a punch at Wimsey, and he crushes them with contemptuous ease. Also unlike any Wodehouse hero Wimsey is cold-hearted; for example, he thinks arranging things so a man commits suicide is an acceptable solution to a problem. As I would explain it to Sabine, Wimsey in Wodehouse would be the same character, but his role in the story would have to be quite different.
Honorably excepting Bonfiglioli, I don't like when authors just use "Bertie Wooster" as a shorthand for "rich, English, and stupid" without capturing any of Bertie's fun-loving and good-hearted qualities, and particularly his cheerful self-awareness, which are what make him the hero of the story and not the comic relief.
You know how you're out for a walk by yourself and you start having arguments about books with a made-up literary critic in your head? (If that's just me, let me keep my illusions of normalcy.) I was doing that the other day: a book I just read has a scene where the hero has learned some sketchy information about a man's background, and needs to explain things to the man's fiance, whom he doesn't know very well. Out on my walk, I thought about how most of the would-be Wodehouse imitators I've read would have the Bertie-figure stammer through a cross-talk farce punctuated with seven "I say!"s, whereas I think Bertie would confidently introduce himself and then say something like this:
"I propose to take you to a very expensive restaurant. And let me hasten to add, before a look of unworthy suspicion approaches your young eyes, that the only thing I ask in return is a receptive ear, for I have a long story to tell. I often have long stories to tell, in fact, and I've even heard some chaps at the Drones call me a "windbag" when they could pretend they thought I couldn't hear them, but unlike the general run of poor saps I've tempted to dare the brink of death from boredom by bribing them with lunch, you will be able to maintain a look of attentive interest without secretly poking your thigh with a fish-knife under the table, because what I have to say closely concerns you and your family's past, as well as your future prospects of happiness."