JASON HALF : writer
  • Home
  • Full-length Plays
    • The Community Play
    • Kate and Comet
    • Sundial
    • Tulip Brothers
  • Short Plays
    • Among the Oats
    • Holly and Mr. Ivy
    • Locked Room Misery
  • Screenplays
    • The Ballad of Faith Divine
    • My Advice
    • Finders
  • Fiction
  • Blog

MITCHELL MYSTERY READING GROUP - Come Away, Death - Post #2

4/14/2019

0 Comments

 
As we explore Chapters Six through Ten of Gladys Mitchell's 1937 crime story Come Away, Death, our contemporary travelers in the reading group have lots of ground to cover. The dark clouds of Greek tragedy, simmering tensions between the characters, and Mrs. Bradley's relationship to reptiles are all points of interest…

ON GREEK TRAGEDY (AND WELSH MARTYRDOM)

Nick Fuller, who provided so much great information to me last time about the Mysteries of Eleusis and the Demeter/Persephone myth, calls our attention to the doomed figures in the House of Atreus:

"The gods ordered Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to summon a wind to bring the Greek fleet to Troy.  (In some versions, Artemis rescues the girl at the last moment, and brings her to her temple in Tauris.)  When Agamemnon returned from the Trojan Wars 10 years later, his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon in his bathtub.  To avenge his father, their son Orestes then killed his mother and her lover, with the help of his sister Elektra and his friend Pylades... Mitchell refers to Aeschylus's Oresteia - Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (Choephori), and The Eumenides; Mrs Bradley mistakes Megan on the battlements for Clytemnestra watching for the beacons at the start of Agamemnon."
​

Martyn Hobbs noticed Gladys Mitchell's winking juxtaposition of the tragedies found in the ancient and current worlds. He observes: "While the threat of murder hangs over Sir Rudri’s motley crew, there is a contrast between the rather petty enmities of the moderns and the tragic passions of the ancients, whose ruins they tread among:
"The legends of the Atrides hung brooding over the heavy, broken walls of the Lion Gate, and round the unguarded graves. The dark passion of Clytemnestra, the anguish of young Orestes, made heavy the lowering atmosphere, soaked beyond bearing already, with the heat of the dead air before a storm.

Sir Rudri was not [Mrs Bradley's] only source of anxiety. The little boys, bored, and tired… had been by turns listless and tiresome. Alexander Currie had been severely attacked by flies… Armstrong, too, was a perpetual menace… and Gelert had given up any attempt at cheerfulness…"

And, while far removed from the time and setting of Hellenic mythology, JF Norris of Pretty Sinister Books informs us of the Welsh inspiration for one of Mitchell's more intriguing character names. JF says that the following is "taken verbatim from the English inscription (it's also in Welsh) on a monument in Beddgelert in Wales":
"In the 13th century, Llywelyn, prince of North Wales, had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert "the faithful hound" who was unaccountably absent. On Llywelyn's return, the truant, stained and smeared with blood, joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince, alarmed, hastened to find his son, and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood. The frantic father plunged the sword into the hound's side thinking it had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry. Llywelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed but nearby lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. The prince, filled with remorse, is said never to have smiled again. He buried Gelert here. The spot is called Beddgelert."
JF concludes that "Mitchell's hotheaded Gelert is aptly named – quick to throw a punch, but always as a means to defend and protect just like his namesake." I add that knowing this background also makes clearer the author's descriptive choice of Gelert as like a lean and angular greyhound!

ON STORY SATISFACTION

Picture
Having delved into some historical background, what do readers make of this section? We approach the novel's midway point but, despite Cathleen's premonitions of death, some bitter professional rivalry, and occasional knife fights, we have yet to claim a murder victim. Examining the initial chapters, this delayed approach to a detective story was frustrating to some. I was heartened, then, to see JF's opening remark for the current section: "It’s picking up in intrigue and gaining my interest.  There is actual crime in this crime novel!"

Tellingly, Gladys Mitchell's choice to focus on character friction and conjure an uncomfortable, even hostile setting in this 1937 Mrs. Bradley story is exactly in keeping with her historical and contemporary fiction novels she wrote in this decade under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby. In my opinion, the Hockaby books are some of her most accomplished works, and they share many of the elements found in Come Away, Death. In the Hockaby stories, death, violence, and character conflict are treated as everyday and natural occurrences. There is something similar at work here: the characters are at the mercy of the land and the fates; animals such as vipers (and, later, hyenas and savage dogs) are mere extensions of the arid and inhospitable landscape; and murder, when it does occur, is a necessity of the world order rather than an obscene sacrilege against it, as most moral Golden Age mysteries present the act.

From Nick: "The Mycenae section is stifling and oppressive.  The attempted sacrifice is one of my favourite scenes in Mitchell; Mrs Bradley, "like some ancient prophetess", menaces Sir Rudri "with her hideous, leering lips".  Mitchell often hints that Mrs Bradley is more than mortal.  She's compared here to the Pythoness of Delphi; in other books, she's a witch (Tom Brown's Body), or the crone aspect of the Triple Goddess (The Whispering Knights)."

Our previous group of chapters ended with an act of violence against Armstrong, the photographer with blackmailing tendencies, and now, at the end of Chapter 10, there is another moment of impromptu violence, this one involving a knife fight between Gelert and an angry Greek man. Given that pattern, one can reasonably expect Chapter 15 not to end happily…

Speaking of which, JF is tracking the foreground villain's misfortunes: "I was delighted to watch Armstrong the vile sadist, way too vain and handsome for his own good, get beaten up by both Ian and Gelert.  Nothing more I like than to see bullies get a taste of their own medicine." He adds, "I peg Armstrong to be the murder victim. He certainly seems destined for a cruel Fate if not a cruel murder."

Another interesting detail is that Gladys Mitchell has purposely varied the size of her chapters here. (In most of her mysteries they are fairly uniform.) Martyn observes that "a formal pattern is suggested by the lengths of the chapters. Up to now, they have been long and leisurely, subdivided into numbered sections. Now, suddenly, in this tenth chapter, it is all over after just four pages. The preceding chapter also stretched to only six. Glancing ahead (without reading!), Chapter 11 reaches up to nine, Chapter 12 makes it to five at a pinch, Chapter 13 hardly gets to page 3, while Chapter 14 recovers to achieve a more familiar extent. Does this compression portend an acceleration of action, of significant events, of that long-awaited crime?"

More from Martyn: "The symmetry of the groups of five chapters and the succession of brief chapters suggest GM is playing with the structure of her tale. It reminded me (vaguely, because I read it long ago in the last century) of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones where the central chapters of his huge novel cover the shortest periods of time in his narrative – the opening and closing chapters extend over years but at the heart of the book they cover only hours. I may be wrong on the precise timings, but the pattern is definitely there."

ON THE SNAKES AND THE SLEUTH
JF gives us a thoughtful text analysis and ties the book's slippery snake imagery into a neat bow. "I’m very taken with the snake motif running throughout," writes JF, "and it started on Page One: the ship that brings Mrs. Bradley to the shores of Greece is the Medusa.  There is a section back in Chapter 4 where she talks about her affinity with the reptile world and how she is often likened to a lizard.  When she shows concern for the snakes Sir Rudri brought for his odd rituals, noting that they should be exercised, he asks if she is afraid of snakes and she replies: 'I am almost the incarnation of one' and goes on to describe herself as 'definitely reptilian', 'sometimes saurian', but at least 'one or the other'.  First time I’ve ever read the words from Mrs. Bradley's own mouth rather than being described as such by others."
​

He continues, "Later, when Mrs. Bradley is talking to Alexander Currie, Mitchell writes that 'she grinned disarmingly at him, as a cobra might possibly grin before it struck.' The section where all the snakes decide to curl up in bed with many members of the group as they try to seek warmth is one of the more surreal moments.  Mrs. Bradley even puts her hand on the snake in her bed as if it’s her companion!  I wish there was more of this in the book.  This is what I read Gladys Mitchell for – the eerie touches, the bizarre moments, the nearly supernatural events that defy logic."

Martyn adds on: "The short early morning scene with the boys and the snakes makes me feel that GM could have written some great adventure stories for children. Incidentally, Mrs Bradley displays perfect (and fitting) sangfroid in her dealings with the serpents, entering with one coiled about her skinny arm – they even share a similar grin."

My note to Martyn's children story mention: she did write some entertaining, if not too remarkable, adventure stories with young readers in mind. The closest in spirit with the boys of this book may be 1940's The Three Fingerprints, where a trio of curious lads finds themselves investigating Nazi spies and avoiding an alligator in the course of their travels!

Next week we look at Chapters 11 through 15. Fewer pages but closer to that inevitable murder...

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    BLOG

    Lots of book reviews and discussion of classic and contemporary mystery fiction. I welcome comments and continuing conversation.

    Subscribe below to receive updates!

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    19th Century Novels
    Andrew Garve
    Anne Morice
    Anthologies
    Anthony Boucher
    Appalachian Authors
    Bill James
    Book Review
    Catherine Dilts
    C. Daly King
    Craig Rice
    David Goodis
    E.C.R. Lorac / Carol Carnac
    Erle Stanley Gardner
    E.R. Punshon
    Freeman Wills Crofts
    French Authors
    George Bellairs
    George Milner
    Gladys Mitchell
    Golden Age Mystery
    Gregory McDonald
    Hardboiled Detectives
    Helen McCloy
    Henry Wade
    Herbert Adams
    Hugh Austin
    James Corbett
    J. Jefferson Farjeon
    John Bude
    John Rhode/Miles Burton
    Leo Bruce
    Maj Sjowall / Per Wahloo
    Margery Allingham
    Martin Edwards
    Michael Gilbert
    Michael Innes
    Mignon G. Eberhart
    Milward Kennedy
    Mitchell Mystery Reading Group
    New Fiction
    New Mystery
    Nicholas Blake
    Nicolas Freeling
    Noir
    Philip MacDonald
    Play Review
    Q. Patrick / Patrick Quentin
    Rex Stout
    Richard Hull
    Ross MacDonald
    Russian Authors
    Science Fiction
    Vernon Loder
    Vladimir Nabokov
    William L. DeAndrea
    Winifred Blazey
    Writing

    Mystery Fiction Sites
    -- all recommended ! --
    Ahsweetmysteryblog
    Beneath the Stains of Time
    Bitter Tea and Mystery
    Catherine Dilts - author
    Countdown John's Christie Journal
    Classic Mysteries
    Clothes in Books
    ​A Crime is Afoot
    Crossexaminingcrime
    Gladys Mitchell Tribute
    Grandest Game in the World
    In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel
    The Invisible Event
    Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog
    Mysteries Ahoy!
    Noirish
    The Passing Tramp
    Past Offences
    Pretty Sinister Books
    Tipping My Fedora
    Witness to the Crime
    

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Unless otherwise stated, all text content on this site is
​copyright Jason Half, 2023.