Welcome to the first installment of our current reading group title, Dead Men’s Morris. Author Gladys Mitchell has conveniently separated the book into three sections, and I will use that grouping to order our discussions this month. First up: Fossder’s Folly, where we discover that Mr. Fossder, a fusty lawyer with a weak heart, is found dead on the towing path beside the river. A mysterious letter with money attached lured him to the spot where a ghost in a horse-drawn carriage is rumoured to haunt. Mrs. Bradley, visiting her nephew Carey Lestrange at his Oxfordshire pig farm, begins to investigate, and her timing is good, especially as another rustic death will soon occur…
There are four of us taking part in the dance this time around: Catherine, Martyn, Joyka, and me. As they have provided so many interesting observations, I will let them lead. We all are enjoying the book – it is more engaging than I remember it, and the working class dialects feel much more organic and less intrusive this time out.
Joyka considers theme in Dead Men’s Morris and observes that “this book is all about lasting relationships. We finally get to meet “the family.” What better time than at Christmas and what better present than a huge boar’s head that takes three men to strap into the car?” Indeed, that opening scene does seem perfectly in keeping with Gladys Mitchell’s warm but strange sense of humour.
Joyka considers theme in Dead Men’s Morris and observes that “this book is all about lasting relationships. We finally get to meet “the family.” What better time than at Christmas and what better present than a huge boar’s head that takes three men to strap into the car?” Indeed, that opening scene does seem perfectly in keeping with Gladys Mitchell’s warm but strange sense of humour.
Martyn Hobbs smartly spots in that initial scene a grander game playing out: “[It] is a beautifully crafted exchange, and in its formal play of negotiation, deference and reward, exemplifies something of ancient rules and order of the Morris dance.”
THE DANCERS
For me, nephew Carey Lestrange is drawn in an intriguing way that we haven’t often seen from Mrs. Bradley's friends and relations in the book series up to this point. From Joyka: “To be sure, he doesn’t sound all that attractive, with clothes looking like they have been slept in, nicotine-stained fingers, and paint-stained hands, but if Mrs. Bradley has both personal regard and respect for him, so then do I!”
Equally notable, Carey is allowed to show genuine physical and verbal affection for his saurian aunt, and that is rare to find in a Mrs. Bradley story. On several occasions, Mitchell describes Carey as taking the old woman in hand to aid her across the grounds or “placing his arm around her bony shoulders” in a bonhomous spirit. Carey’s loving attitude certainly adds to a slightly more human depiction of Mrs. Bradley, although I’m relieved to say that she still cackles harshly and can provide her relations with a display of knife-throwing when the mood strikes. (Catherine noticed this difference too; see her later comments.)
THE DANCERS
For me, nephew Carey Lestrange is drawn in an intriguing way that we haven’t often seen from Mrs. Bradley's friends and relations in the book series up to this point. From Joyka: “To be sure, he doesn’t sound all that attractive, with clothes looking like they have been slept in, nicotine-stained fingers, and paint-stained hands, but if Mrs. Bradley has both personal regard and respect for him, so then do I!”
Equally notable, Carey is allowed to show genuine physical and verbal affection for his saurian aunt, and that is rare to find in a Mrs. Bradley story. On several occasions, Mitchell describes Carey as taking the old woman in hand to aid her across the grounds or “placing his arm around her bony shoulders” in a bonhomous spirit. Carey’s loving attitude certainly adds to a slightly more human depiction of Mrs. Bradley, although I’m relieved to say that she still cackles harshly and can provide her relations with a display of knife-throwing when the mood strikes. (Catherine noticed this difference too; see her later comments.)
On relations, Joyka continues: “I feel GM must have created a whole raft of characters for this book with the express purpose of seeing who was going to make the final cut for the rest of her books. We have Carey (pig farmer extraordinaire and painter of posters and pictures), young Denis (scab but already a violinist), Jenny (whom Carey hopes Aunt Adela will like), Mrs Ditch (who can cook and serve pig for breakfast, lunch and dinner), our Walt, Lender [the family pronunciation of Linda], Ditch, and Priest. It is a cast of characters most promising.”
With the earthly setting comes some very earthy characters, and we see this in the delightfully drawn Ditch family and Carey Lestrange’s farmer neighbors, the fractious old man Simith and his unhappy nephew Geraint Tombley. Linda Ditch, with her catting around (I’m not sure of a more politic phrase), is a slight surprise to find in a Golden Age cosy mystery, but her nocturnal adventures are part of the plot. Her behavior also surprised Catherine, who writes, “I tend to fall into the trap of allowing the past to be painted with a brush of innocence, when I know people have always behaved in flawed and passion-driven ways. Mitchell doesn't hold back on her characters.” And Catherine notes Ditch’s response to her daughter’s wild ways:
"Nay, us'll just let her be. Her can make her a bed where she will. 'Tis her 'ave to lie on it later," said Ditch, with heavy philosophy.
It is true that Mitchell’s cast here is particularly earthy and vivid, and I am enjoying their company greatly. But we mustn’t (indeed we are not allowed to) forget exactly where we are, which is the muddy rolling lands where pigs outnumber the people five to one. Martyn offers this comment: “We soon learn that, while the environs of Oxford may have more than their fair share of toffs and gentlemen farmers, it is positively overrun by the swinish multitude; there are pigs galore! There’s no denying that pigs are widespread in Oxfordshire (predominantly free-range now – the traditional farmer Simith was absolutely right), but they seem to occupy a few too many conversations in the first six chapters. However, I have absolute faith that later on these pigs or boars will earn their time in the limelight.” Hold on until our future conversation about Section Three, and I think you will have your faith in the porcine population restored…
THE LANDSCAPE
THE LANDSCAPE
Joyka: “I know Gladys Mitchell gets criticism for her lengthy descriptions of villages, rivers, forests, et cetera. I really like it. Even though I have read these books many times, I never skip the background material. I feel if it was 1940, I would be able to find these exact places and enjoy them as much as she does.”
I agree: Mitchell can be a wonderful evocator of mood and landscape – 1935's The Devil at Saxon Wall nearly traps the reader into becoming a prisoner of its darkly primeval setting – and the wet, muddy pastures and pathways of Dead Men’s Morris become noticeably tactile. The author’s love of county ordnance maps is on prominent display here, with Mrs. Bradley referencing them freely as she treks around the countryside with Carey in tow.
I agree: Mitchell can be a wonderful evocator of mood and landscape – 1935's The Devil at Saxon Wall nearly traps the reader into becoming a prisoner of its darkly primeval setting – and the wet, muddy pastures and pathways of Dead Men’s Morris become noticeably tactile. The author’s love of county ordnance maps is on prominent display here, with Mrs. Bradley referencing them freely as she treks around the countryside with Carey in tow.
Martyn, an Oxford resident, is particularly well-suited to assess Mitchell’s use of the landscape. (GM was born in the village of Cowley, a suburb of Oxford.) He writes: “The journey into the heart of darkness of Oxfordshire is a cartographic metaphor for the confusion and misdirections that are to come. We pass from daylight and places (Chiswick, Hounslow) and roads (West Road, Bath Road) with proper names and respectable dimensions to dusk and winding wheel-rutted tracks and names (Egypt Lane, Roman Ending) that no-one can explain. George, the Londoner, will take a sociologist’s attitude to all this in his analysis of ‘the conditions obtaining in a small village community.’”
Martyn continues, “One of the joys of this novel so far is the contrast and clash of registers of speech – from the aristocratic polish of Sir Selby Villiers to the van man’s “‘Arf a mo, mate” and George’s occasional cockney (‘Some lout’s trick, sir. I’ll learn him if I lay my hands on him’); Pratt’s upper middle class prattle (‘One finds oneself well’) to all the oddities of Oxford pronunciation and dialect.”
THE DETECTIVE (AND THE CHAUFFEUR)
Martyn continues, “One of the joys of this novel so far is the contrast and clash of registers of speech – from the aristocratic polish of Sir Selby Villiers to the van man’s “‘Arf a mo, mate” and George’s occasional cockney (‘Some lout’s trick, sir. I’ll learn him if I lay my hands on him’); Pratt’s upper middle class prattle (‘One finds oneself well’) to all the oddities of Oxford pronunciation and dialect.”
THE DETECTIVE (AND THE CHAUFFEUR)
The group unanimously approved of chauffeur, bodyguard, and factotum George, who made a nice addition to the tale. "George is hot stuff – go George!" encourages Joyka. Martyn states that he sees "much promise" in the man, and mentions an exchange that amuses me as well: "His almost telepathic observation, ‘The Holbein portrait of his grace King Henry the Eighth, madam,’ when Mrs. Bradley is struggling to remember who Tombley reminded her of, is pure Jeeves and suggests unplumbed depths."
Catherine Dilts, whose own outdoors murder mystery Survive or Die I enjoyed and reviewed earlier this year, notes that Mrs. Bradley here “is drawn in a more pleasant light” than in other reading group stories. “Although the reptilian references remain, they seem gentler, and delivered in less frequent doses,” writes Catherine. She points to this wonderful line from Chapter Three:
Catherine Dilts, whose own outdoors murder mystery Survive or Die I enjoyed and reviewed earlier this year, notes that Mrs. Bradley here “is drawn in a more pleasant light” than in other reading group stories. “Although the reptilian references remain, they seem gentler, and delivered in less frequent doses,” writes Catherine. She points to this wonderful line from Chapter Three:
"Well," said Mrs. Bradley, with the loving smile of a boa-constrictor which succeeds in engulfing its prey with the minimum of hazard, "and so this is Mr. Pratt!"
Observes Martyn: “Mrs. Bradley is as hieratic and essentially alien as ever – she is an ‘alienist’ after all – and has added knitting and table tennis to the reading of modern verse as her pastime activities. Being likened to a sea-serpent was a new one for me.”
And Joyka’s well-chosen quotation from the inimitable detective can stand as the final word for this installment: “Murder is the applied mathematics of morbid psychology.”
Next time we pay a visit to Figure 2 and Shotover Simith (Chapters 7 to 12). The new post will appear on December 20. If anyone new wants to contribute, just send your comments by the evening of December 18 to Jason@jasonhalf.com . Thanks to Joyka, Catherine, and Martyn for contributing!
And Joyka’s well-chosen quotation from the inimitable detective can stand as the final word for this installment: “Murder is the applied mathematics of morbid psychology.”
Next time we pay a visit to Figure 2 and Shotover Simith (Chapters 7 to 12). The new post will appear on December 20. If anyone new wants to contribute, just send your comments by the evening of December 18 to Jason@jasonhalf.com . Thanks to Joyka, Catherine, and Martyn for contributing!
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