TWICE! |
I chose
these two mediocre novels by James Hilton
in the warm glow of
the first two of his
novels I read—Lost
Horizon and Random
Harvest. Had it
been Goodbye,
Mr. Chips and Was
it Murder? first, and were
Lost
Horizon not so famous, I likely
would as yet be unread of anything by James Hilton. I'm
glad it worked out this way, although I do not have much enthusiasm
for writing about the two lesser books. I find no pleasure in panning
books I should have exercised more self-discipline than to read at
all. In
fact it embarrasses me. So I will take a tip from British custom and
try muddling on through with a stiff upper lip, whatever the hell
that is.
I could say the very narrow
nostriled pip pip Britishness of the characters irritated me into a
bad mood, which certainly is part of the problem--I'll give some
examples, especially from Murder.
But the more I've
thought about it the more I've come to believe it was story that made
the difference.
In Chips,
which Hilton wrote in a week and is only 25 pages, we follow the
mediocre career of a teacher named Chipping in a mediocre private
school (which the Brits call “public”). Chipping, called “Chips”
by everyone, is an introverted fellow whose plodding determination
and a bit of good luck eventually endear him as a personal
institution. In overdoing Chips's habit of breaking up his speech
with hmphs,
Hilton succeeded in annoying me to the point I would cringe whenever
poor Chips started talking. I might even have shouted at least once,
“OKAY, WE GET IT, HMPH!!”
Chips
nonetheless caught the sentimental eye of Hollywood, which turned out
several successful adaptations, one of them a musical with Peter
O'Toole and Petula Clark.
Two years earlier one of
Hilton's first novels—and his only detective novel--then titled
Murder at School,
was published under a pseudonym. The title was later changed to Was
it Murder?, and even later, back and forth between the two
titles. I learned all of this from an excellent review posted five
years ago by my friend Sergio on his blog Tipping
My Fedora. Safe to say that had I seen his review before
reading Was it Murder?,
I would have passed on the novel. Sergio gave it only 2.5 tips of his
hat out of a possible 5, albeit he's tough to please—I cannot
recall any of his reviews I've seen receiving 5 tips.
As I've frequently confessed,
my tendency to identify with protagonists compromises my critical
faculties, meaning I probably shouldn't be reviewing any fiction
whatsoever. And I don't, really. I write about what I like or don't
like, based solely on the effect a novel or story has on me. I have a
vague familiarity with such terms as “Golden Age” and “modern”
and “post modern” and perhaps “post post modern,” if such
exists, but those distinctions are out of my purview. Were I a
British public school “old boy”, though, such terminology would
bloody well be de rigueur,
don'tcha know.
As to my identifying with the
main characters, Chips made me queasy, his growing old in passive
mediocrity. I have enough stubborn Norwegian DNA in me to resist so
meek a surrender. With Colin Revell, the amateur detective in Murder,
I squirmed with embarrassment. This, from the get-go:
A mystery always attracted
him. Anything attracted him, in fact, that brought with it the
possibility of being drawn into some new vortex of interest. His soul
yearned with Byronic intensity for something to happen to it. He was
almost twenty-eight, and so far he seemed to have done nothing in
life except win the Newdigate, give a terrifying study of the Jew in
the O.U.D.S. production of The Merchant of Venice, publish a novel
(of course he had done that),
and rake in an unexpected tenner for inventing the last line of a
limerick about somebody’s chewing-gum.
Of course,
he had published a novel...grrrr...
I'd hoped, when I read that paragraph, that Murder
might turn out to be satiric, and that the fop “detective” would
entertain me in the manner of, say, Peter Sellers in his Pink
Panther Inspector Clouseau disguise. Alas, 'twas not to
be, despite the occasional glimmer of what may have been Hilton's
random attempts at drollery. Apparently wit was absent from among the
tools in his skill set—unless, of course, his humor was so
precisely British it sailed untouched over my artless American head.
Then there's this, which I include especially as a caveat for my two
faithful female readers: “A
man might have done it, if ever a man had had her type of genius to
begin with. But her nerve was only a woman’s.” That's a Scotland
Yard detective speaking, Yvette and Tracy, and he's no Fat Ollie
Weeks parody of Archie Bunker, at least not in this brief role. It's
a straight, dispassionate line, provoking nary an arched eyebrow from
Revell or the conversation's other Scotland Yard detective.
Good ol' boys all three,
plus their literary creator.
Then
again, Murder
was written in 1931, when females were deemed too delicate to open
screw-top jars when a handy male was present.
As
we have arrived at the place where I'm to give you some idea of the
plot, I'm going to skimp, leaving you to read Sergio's account, right
here.
I shall say mostly what I didn't like about it:
Too simple, for me, and unnecessarily complicated in Revell's
unlikable mind. He spends may too much time agonizing over theories
and doing precious little detecting. Scotland Yard's entry to the
case adds some ballast, but as we're viewing things from Revell's
arrogantly callow, i.e. aggressively gullible, perspective, the real
cops seem more adjunctive
than in charge. There are too
few suspects. Even I, who's
easily stumped by mysteries even the least Sherlockian of readers can
solve, had this one figured out while Revell's theories were still
still roiling about in his Walter Mitty imagination. Had he
been Walter Mitty
I might now be stifling
laughter whilst gushing my enthusiasm on the page.
If
you're wondering how a fop like Revell got into a murder
investigation, I can give you a clue:
The school's headmaster
invited him to look into the strange death of a student. His name had
come up as an alumnus of the boy's school with a reputation at Oxford
for solving mysteries. The only mystery Revell mentions involved
recovering a stolen document from the college library. As to what
else our boy detective might have been up to during his school days,
I leave you with this little ditty he's just finished writing, which
kicks off this pretentious, muddled
excuse for a novel:
Pilate might well have added:
“What is youth?”—
And so the modern father too
may wonder,
Faintly remembering his own,
forsooth,
But feeling it would be an
awful blunder
To tell his sons a tenth part
of the truth
About the sex-temptations he
came under.
Therefore, in England now, on
every hand,
This proper study of mankind
is banned.
My gratitude to you for having
read this far. Please accept my sincere and heartfelt apology.
[For
more Friday's Forgotten Books check the links on Patti
Abbott's unforgettable blog]