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Pointless book post
Feb. 14th, 2021 03:40 pmIn the virtual absence of a social life, I continue to entertain myself by watching a lot of Pointless and by reading a lot: sometimes these two things converge.
A little while ago, a round on Pointless required contestants to complete proverbs and saying about love (this post was not intended as a Saint Valentine's special, but if you'd like to view it in that light, be my guest). None of them was able to supply the 'best' (lowest scoring) answer on the board, it is not possible to love and be --, and neither could host Alexander Armstrong. No, agreed Richard Osman, I'd never heard it either.
Wait a minute, isn't he supposed to be a crime writer? And to read a lot of crime fiction? How can he not know Josephine Tey's To Love and be Wise?
Reminded of the book, I wanted to re-read it; and re-reading it, I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to post something here to say so. But part of that enjoyment was precisely the pleasure of the re-read, of seeing how thoroughly the author prepares the resolution of her mystery. It would be unkind to spoiler the first-time reader of what genuinely is a mystery, that "more or less" on the cover notwithstanding.
Alan Grant, Tey's recurring detective, is called in to investigate the disappearance of a young man has inserted himself into the community of artistic incomers in an English country village, and then vanished. The publisher's "more or less" reflects the absence of a body, but also the witty and light-hearted atmosphere of the book: it is posible that something terrible has takrn place, but it is also possible that it hasn't. The cover is not an accurate depiction of any one scene but it is not a misrepresentaation either: a shoe fished from the river is produced as a clue, a ballet dancer offers as a reasonable alibi that a sequence of steps occurred to him so he tried them out, just there, beside the river (the characterisation is, I admit, on the broad side at times).
What I would like to be talking about is that this book was published in 1950, and yet it does this thing (and also several other things, but this thing in particular) which it would be a massive spoiler to reveal. Which makes this post a bit pointless.
A little while ago, a round on Pointless required contestants to complete proverbs and saying about love (this post was not intended as a Saint Valentine's special, but if you'd like to view it in that light, be my guest). None of them was able to supply the 'best' (lowest scoring) answer on the board, it is not possible to love and be --, and neither could host Alexander Armstrong. No, agreed Richard Osman, I'd never heard it either.
Wait a minute, isn't he supposed to be a crime writer? And to read a lot of crime fiction? How can he not know Josephine Tey's To Love and be Wise?
Reminded of the book, I wanted to re-read it; and re-reading it, I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to post something here to say so. But part of that enjoyment was precisely the pleasure of the re-read, of seeing how thoroughly the author prepares the resolution of her mystery. It would be unkind to spoiler the first-time reader of what genuinely is a mystery, that "more or less" on the cover notwithstanding.
Alan Grant, Tey's recurring detective, is called in to investigate the disappearance of a young man has inserted himself into the community of artistic incomers in an English country village, and then vanished. The publisher's "more or less" reflects the absence of a body, but also the witty and light-hearted atmosphere of the book: it is posible that something terrible has takrn place, but it is also possible that it hasn't. The cover is not an accurate depiction of any one scene but it is not a misrepresentaation either: a shoe fished from the river is produced as a clue, a ballet dancer offers as a reasonable alibi that a sequence of steps occurred to him so he tried them out, just there, beside the river (the characterisation is, I admit, on the broad side at times).
What I would like to be talking about is that this book was published in 1950, and yet it does this thing (and also several other things, but this thing in particular) which it would be a massive spoiler to reveal. Which makes this post a bit pointless.
