The corpse as major character
the...@uwm.edu
lead to her death are interleaved with the current events in the lives
of the people involved in unraveling what happened.
Flashbacks are of course a common way of telling us the back story,
but I don't remember having read books before where the flashbacks are
completely unframed -- nothing in these interleaved chapters reminds
us that this story isn't something happening simultaneously with all
the other chapters, although it's always clear that it isn't. The book
is told from multi viewpoints.
Oh, the book is Benjamin Black's 'The Silver Swan'; I seem to be in
the minority around here, having enjoyed both 'Christine Falls' and
this one. I like his ambiguous, disturbing characters, the details of
whose lives are really more interesting than the mystery.
--thelma
Dorothy J Heydt
<the...@uwm.edu> wrote:
>I've just finished a book in which chapters on the corpse's life that
>lead to her death are interleaved with the current events in the lives
>of the people involved in unraveling what happened.
There's Vera Caspary's _Laura_, which is structured something
like that ... Laura's character is developed by the detective's
investigation into her murder.
Of course, she isn't really a corpse after all, as it turns out.
There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
An exemplary reader-grabber.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Dave in Toronto
> There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
> which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
> result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
> An exemplary reader-grabber.
>
> --
> Dorothy J. Heydt
Coincidently I have just finished a novel by Charles Williams called
_ MAN ON A LEASH_ but apparently there are two Charles Williams.
Amazon has that grouped together as one but let the buyer beware, both
are excellent in their own right (write) but they are very different.
Dave in Toronto
Dorothy J Heydt
Oh yes. I never read of the other one. The one I mentioned was
one of the Inklings and died, IIRC, around 1944.
Thelma
: In article <VNudndFEOvyeY57W...@speakeasy.net>,
: <the...@uwm.edu> wrote:
: >I've just finished a book in which chapters on the corpse's life that
: >lead to her death are interleaved with the current events in the lives
: >of the people involved in unraveling what happened.
: There's Vera Caspary's _Laura_, which is structured something
: like that ... Laura's character is developed by the detective's
: investigation into her murder.
Benjamin Black's victim,too is 'Laura', but in other folds of her
life, Deirdre. She isn't developed by anyone's investigation into the
murder: the investigation is too casual and the solution is revealed
by the murder's effect on subsequent events, and mostly by a direct
explanation by someone at the end. The interspersed chapters just
flesh out her story as it happened, and as I say, I didn't get the
sense of the usual flashback framing clues found in such chapters.
--thelma
Francis A. Miniter
> In article <04de11e9-0159-4744...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> Dave in Toronto <dmatt...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>> There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
>>> which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
>>> result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
>>> An exemplary reader-grabber.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dorothy J. Heydt
>>
>> Coincidently I have just finished a novel by Charles Williams called
>> _ MAN ON A LEASH_ but apparently there are two Charles Williams.
>> Amazon has that grouped together as one but let the buyer beware, both
>> are excellent in their own right (write) but they are very different.
>
> Oh yes. I never read of the other one. The one I mentioned was
> one of the Inklings and died, IIRC, around 1944.
>
Sometimes, television can be educational. I had never heard
of the Inklings until a recent Inspector Lewis show
discussed them.
--
Francis A. Miniter
Oscuramente
libros, laminas, llaves
siguen mi suerte.
Jorge Luis Borges, La Cifra Haiku, 6
Dorothy J Heydt
Francis A. Miniter <fami...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article
><04de11e9-0159-4744...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
>> Dave in Toronto <dmatt...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>>> There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
>>>> which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
>>>> result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
>>>> An exemplary reader-grabber.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Dorothy J. Heydt
>>>
>>> Coincidently I have just finished a novel by Charles Williams called
>>> _ MAN ON A LEASH_ but apparently there are two Charles Williams.
>>> Amazon has that grouped together as one but let the buyer beware, both
>>> are excellent in their own right (write) but they are very different.
>>
>> Oh yes. I never read of the other one. The one I mentioned was
>> one of the Inklings and died, IIRC, around 1944.
>>
>
>Sometimes, television can be educational. I had never heard
>of the Inklings until a recent Inspector Lewis show
>discussed them.
Oh, my.
Well, different people have different fields of interest.
(I, for example, don't know from Inspector Lewis. What did he
have to say about the Inklings?)
Francis A. Miniter
Inspector Lewis is the continuation of the Inspector Morse
Mysteries. The subject came up as a character in the story
- a writer at Oxford - was trying to put together a new
group of Inklings. I believe that they may have shot some
scenes at the pub where the original Inklings used to meet.
They also quoted some quips from the original Inklings
about each other's writings. One of them, I forget which,
at one point cried out about Tolkien's hobbits when Tolkien
described some writing related to the Lord of the Rings,
"Not more little people!"
Annie C
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:KtD2w...@kithrup.com...
Inspector Lewis is the successor to the Insp Morse series (based on the
Colin Dexter characters), recently showing on PBS TV.
The particular episode that featured allusions to the works of CS Lewis and
Tolkien and mentioned The Inklings was this one, "Allegory of Love" (that's
also a title of a non-fiction book CS Lewis wrote originally as a college
textbook) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/lewis/allegoryoflove.html .
Unfortuately, they have removed the 'watch again' option, otherwise you
could've viewed it...
There are some comments here that explain it a bit
http://live.hollywoodjesus.com/?p=4577
Annie
Dave in Toronto
> In article <04de11e9-0159-4744-bf80-3caf2ec4c...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> Dave in Toronto <dmatthew...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
> >> There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
> >> which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
> >> result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
> >> An exemplary reader-grabber.
>
> >> --
> >> Dorothy J. Heydt
>
> >Coincidently I have just finished a novel by Charles Williams called
> >_ MAN ON A LEASH_ but apparently there are two Charles Williams.
> >Amazon has that grouped together as one but let the buyer beware, both
> >are excellent in their own right (write) but they are very different.
>
> Oh yes. I never read of the other one. The one I mentioned was
> one of the Inklings and died, IIRC, around 1944.
>
> --
> Dorothy J. Heydt
...and my Charles Williams commited suicide in 1975.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0930241/bio
Dave in Toronto
Dave in Toronto
wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <04de11e9-0159-4744-bf80-3caf2ec4c...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> >>> There's also the opening of Charles Williams's _War in Heaven_,
> >>> which reads, "The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without
> >>> result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse."
> >>> An exemplary reader-grabber.
>
> >>> --
> >>> Dorothy J. Heydt
>
> >> Coincidently I have just finished a novel by Charles Williams called
> >> _ MAN ON A LEASH_ but apparently there are two Charles Williams.
> >> Amazon has that grouped together as one but let the buyer beware, both
> >> are excellent in their own right (write) but they are very different.
>
> > Oh yes. I never read of the other one. The one I mentioned was
> > one of the Inklings and died, IIRC, around 1944.
>
> Sometimes, television can be educational. I had never heard
> of the Inklings until a recent Inspector Lewis show
> discussed them.
>
> --
> Francis A. Miniter
>
I'd never heard of them either -(Newsgroups can be educational as
well).
http://www.mythsoc.org/inklings/
Dave in Toronto
A R Pickett
Boulevard, narrated by William Holden's character. One of our first views
of him is his dead body floating face down in a swimming pool.
--
A R Pickett aka Woodstock
"It's bad luck to be superstitious"
Paul Phillips, Colorado Rockies catcher
Read my book reviews at:
http://www.booksnbytes.com/reviews/_idx_ws_all_byauth.html
Now blogging!
http://www.journalscape.com/woodstock/
Remove lower case "e" to respond
family
Alibi for a Corpse by Elizabeth Lemarchand.
ggg
> "Dorothy J Heydt" <djhe...@kithrup.com> wrote in messagenews:KtD2w...@kithrup.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <he3lf9$jc...@news.eternal-september.org>,> >><04de11e9-0159-4744-bf80-3caf2ec4c...@j14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
From Wikipedia:
The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with
the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the
early 1930s and late 1949.[1] Its more regular members (many of them
academics at the University) included J. R. R. "Tollers" Tolkien, C.
S. "Jack" Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Christopher Tolkien
(J. R. R. Tolkien's son), Warren "Warnie" Lewis (C. S. Lewis's elder
brother), Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, R. A. "Humphrey"
Havard, J. A. W. Bennett, Lord David Cecil, and Nevill Coghill. Other
less frequent attenders at their meetings included Percy Bates,
Charles Leslie Wrenn, Colin Hardie, James Dundas-Grant, Jon Fromke,
John Wain, R. B. McCallum, Gervase Mathew, and C. E. Stevens. The
author E. R. Eddison also met the group at the invitation of C. S.
Lewis.
The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of
narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Although
Christian values were notably present in several members' work, there
were also atheists among the members of the discussion group.
"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a
club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both.
There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."[cite
this quote]
As was typical for university literary groups in their time and place,
the Inklings were all male. (Dorothy L. Sayers, sometimes claimed as
an Inkling, was a friend of Lewis and Williams, but never attended
Inklings meetings.)
Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the
principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,
Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, and Williams's All Hallows' Eve were
among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictional
Notion Club (see Sauron Defeated) was based on the Inklings.
Meetings were not all serious-- the Inklings amused themselves by
having competitions to see who could read the famously bad prose of
Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.[2]
Until today I didn't have an inkling that they existed, and I've used
the expression at least 60 years.
barry
Dorothy J Heydt
ggg <bmvo...@gmail.com> wrote:
[all about the Inklings]
>
>Meetings were not all serious-- the Inklings amused themselves by
>having competitions to see who could read the famously bad prose of
>Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.[2]
I see. The Eye of Argon of its day.
>
>Until today I didn't have an inkling that they existed, and I've used
>the expression at least 60 years.
Good puns, like good wine, mature well.