Saturday 28 September 2013

The Neglected Mother of Detective Fiction



Everyone's heard of Edgar Allan Poe, the so-called father of American mystery fiction. Everyone is familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation Sherlock Holmes, arguably the most well-known detective in literature. Of course we all know who Agatha Christie is, so why is the author Anna Katharine Green, who was a major influence on both Doyle and Christie's writing, so unknown today?

Green is the author of The Leavenworth Case, which was the first detective novel ever written (Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue was the first to have a detective hero) TLC was published in 1878, nine years before Sherlock Holmes appeared on the literary scene. In her books Green established many of the genre conventions that are still used to this day. At the time her book was a bestseller. Critics predictably claimed that a novel which displayed such a detailed knowledge of the criminal system couldn't possibly have been written by a woman. Unlike Poe, Doyle and Christie's books, TLC has slipped into obscurity, along with the many other novels she wrote.

Green was a prolific writer, penning a book a year for five decades, spanning two centuries. Many of these books are now available for free on Amazon, which is how I discovered this badly neglected author. I downloaded a copy of The House of Whispering Pines, and from the opening page I knew I was in the hands of a master storyteller. When I did a bit of research on the author I was truly shocked that I'd never even heard of this woman who has had such a major impact on mystery and detective fiction. So what is the reason for this neglect?

Some reviewers have claimed that her books are too wordy and old-fashioned for contemporary audiences. I disagree with this argument. Other classics from the same era which are much harder to read are still enjoyed by many. My feeling is that because of her obscurity Green just hasn't reached the audience that will appreciate her work. There are several editions of The Leavenworth Case on Amazon and the highest number of ratings for any edition is seventeen. All of her other books have only a handful of reviews. Goodreads is  little better, where reviews number in the hundreds for TLC and two other books have over one hundred ratings, but this is a mere drop in the ocean compared with Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue which has nearly five thousand ratings for one edition. Most of Green's books on Goodreads have less than fifty reviews.


There's something very wrong with this picture and I don't think it's just a coincidence that Green, a woman who wrote the first fully-fledged detective novel ever, has conveniently been erased from literary history. Sure Agatha Christie was, and still is,  an extremely popular female mystery writer, but it's one thing to be a great author in a particular genre, and another thing to actually play a key role in establishing that genre.

Have you heard of Anna Katharine Green? I'm willing to bet that most people reading this haven't. To help rectify this situation, I urge you to go to her Amazon page and download some of her books. They're free so you've got nothing to lose. And spread the word about this author who deserves a lot more recognition than she's received. I can't put it any better than Michael Mallory who wrote in his article The Mother of American Mystery: "If any American writer is due for a major rediscovery, even if only on the basis of historical importance, it is Anna Katharine Green. While largely forgotten today, her novels paved the way for…well, for just about everybody working in the mystery genre." I for one am thrilled to have discovered this forgotten author with a very large body of work to immerse myself in.

Saturday 7 September 2013

A Poetic Response to the Syrian Crisis


Obama-Osama -Bin Laden-Barack
Prime your dogs of war for another attack
Rain down your brand of terror on another hapless land
Not all great Neptune’s oceans can wash the blood clean from your hand
Spread your lies of mass deception, though they’re faded and threadbare
Continue beating the same old drum: fair is foul and foul is fair
Unleash your vaulting ambition, uncheck your black desires
Let the milk of human kindness burn up in their scorching fires
And when you close your eyes at night, tell yourself it’s all okay
You’re in blood steeped so far now that there is no other way
But I and many others no longer dream of electric sheep
For we did hear a voice cry out ‘Obama murders sleep’


 
 

Thursday 30 May 2013

Why I Don't Like Blacks and Gays



In the wake of television presenter Eddie McGuire's spectacular foot-in-mouth blunder recently when he suggested on national radio that Indigenous football player Adam Goodes could be used to promote the musical King Kong, I thought now would be a good time to get something off my chest.

Firstly though for those who don't live in Australia (or have been hiding under a rock), McGuire's comment came after an incident a couple of days earlier when a young girl called Goodes an ape during a football game and he used it to draw attention to the issue of racism in sport. What made the whole thing with McGuire so bizarre was that he had played a big role in apologising to Goodes and taking a stand against racism, so many people were left going WTF when he said something so seemingly racist and offensive. I'm no Eddie McGuire fan, but I do think he was trying to make a joke about how this incident could be cynically used by the promoters of the musical to gain publicity, he just wasn't smart enough to pull it off or extract his foot from his mouth after his attempt at humour went down like a lead balloon. Instead he just panicked and made things so much worse.

But I digress. Back to why I don't like blacks and gays. Before you get too up in arms I have to be fair and admit that I hate whites and straights too, as well as coloureds and ethnics and refugees (although asylum seekers are okay). For some reason I have no problem with Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Jews and I don't mind African-Americans or Asians. If you haven't worked out yet that I'm talking about the terms, not the people they refer to then go to the bottom of the class.

The words 'blacks' and 'whites' have such negative connotations for me. They bring to mind race riots and the darkest days of the apartheid regime. They imply that race is the single characteristic that defines a person and they make everything seem so.....well, black and white. It's the same reason I don't like gays and straights, these terms reduce people to their sexuality alone. I'm much more comfortable referring to gay people or straight people. I read a book recently about a person with a disability, and I know that many in the paraplegic community are happy to refer to themselves as 'paras' while able-bodied people are 'ables' but I have problems with these terms as well, although I really have no right to.

For some reason religious labels don't worry me nearly as much even though they reduce people to a single thing, maybe because they don't have such a history of being used in a derogatory way.....except they actually do. Jew has a long history of being used as a term of abuse and Muslim has received a real beating in the media over recent years. Nationalities don't worry me either, except when a word like 'Leb' (Lebanese) becomes a term of racial abuse as it has in Australia. I like Indigenous because to me it has a real gravity to it and is so much better than 'Abo' which makes my skin crawl.

Classifying people on the basis of gender is so naturalized that it's not even noticeable, but the very first thing we do is divide people into male and female by referring to them as a boy, girl, man or woman. The gender division is so deeply ingrained in culture that to question it seems ridiculous, but this ignores the fact that many people don't fit neatly into gender categories or roles, and find them stifling (update: This article which I came across the day after I wrote this post is so interesting). I believe that in a more enlightened society gender wouldn't be as important as it is now, but sadly the world seems to be moving backwards in this regard. Just walk into any department store and witness the sea of pink clothes, dolls and accessories available for girls to get an idea of the identities they have to choose from - princess or skanky Bratz girl (seems a lot like the old virgin/whore division)

It's interesting that apart from words like rich, poor, working-class, middle-class, pleb etc, which aren't used that much to categorise people,  there are no terms to show where a person stands in the social order. Maybe it's because people like to pretend that class doesn't exist and we're all equal or it's harder to pin down someone's social class in the same way you can tell what their gender, race and even nationality are.  One thing I am sure of is that these are very good things to think about when writing if you want your characters to be multi-faceted and complex. This is where character profiles come in handy because you can develop a whole background which will give your characters depth and make them more realistic by considering their race/ethnic background, social class, religious beliefs, gender and feelings about gender roles, sexuality and disabilities and any discrimination they may have experienced in their lives. So many conflicts can emerge from these things alone that thinking about them is bound to generate plot ideas.




Friday 3 May 2013

Pitch Perfect: A Review


First of all I have to admit that I'm a huge fan of good musicals, and not-so-good musicals (except Mamma Mia which was a step too far, even for me). Pitch Perfect is definitely not perfect. In fact many of the jokes fall flat and some of the humour is questionable, but overall I really enjoyed this movie!

When I started watching it my expectations were pretty low. After a shit day at work I needed a pick-me-up and was ready to forgive a lot of its sins if the music was good. The music is very good, and the audtion sequence with Kelly Clarkson's Since You've Been Gone is gold. Another stand-out scene is the improvised rif- off between the rival acapella groups. In a lot of ways this is Glee / High School Musical type of film, but at the same time it pushes the boundaries in a really clever way that will not alienate fans. It's both a parody and a tribute.

What elevated it for me was that some of the humour comes straight out of left-field and is completely unexpected. Most of the characters are weird and over-the-top, but they work, and Rebel Wilson's deadpan delivery of her lines is one of the highlights of the films (although I am getting sick of seeing her play exactly the same role in every movie she's in. Makes me wonder if she has any range beyond the funny fat chick). Anna Kendrick was perfect in the lead role and Skylar Astin is great too. (he's way too young for me to perve on but what a cutie).

The only sour note was the depiction of the predatory lesbian character who takes any opportunity to grope women. In this day and age it's disappointing that homosexuality is even an issue. The vomit scenes were pretty disgusting, but the scene were the women are all struggling to get away from Aubrey as she blows chunks is like something straight out of a horror movie. It's very funny, at least for a few seconds, but the "vomit angel" took it a bit too far. Both my husband and I agreed that the Treblemaker's performance at the end was actually better than the Bella's, but this is a mnor thing. Do I recommend this film? Most definitely woth a look.




Monday 7 January 2013

A Tale of Two Formats


To kick the new year off I decided to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  Now I know I have 2-3 copies of this book floating around on my bookshelves and in the boxes of books scattered throughout my house. After half-heartedly scanning a bookshelf I decided to search for it online and I was thrilled to discover it was free. I knew some of the classics were free, but until I searched for this book I had no idea that so many of them were available. It truly blows my mind that the greatest books ever written are available at our fingertips for absolutely nothing. Have a look here for yourself if you don't believe me. It was like Christmas all over again and I spent a couple of hours merrily downloading everything I hadn't read (the only downside is that my TBR list has now grown dramatically when I was supposed to be reducing it this year!).

After I'd finished my downloading spree I was suddenly hit with a wave of nostalgia for all of my books mouldering away on shelves and in boxes. I'd always assumed that one day I'd resurrect these faithful friends and read them all over again. Most of them already came from second hand bookshops and their yellowing pages and musty smell only enhanced the reading experience in my opinon, but after I'd seen them online these most treasured of possessions began to look more like relics from a bygone era. In the past when people argued about ebooks vs hard copies I always claimed there was room for both, but after this experience I began to wonder if hard copies really are on their way out. I felt saddened by the thought of homes of the future with no bookcases or dog-eared novels lying around on the coffee table to be picked up and browsed through at leisure.

Fast forward a couple of days and I was reading my Kindle in 40 degree heat when it suddenly just gave up and conked out. I had to put it down to rest in a dark, cool room and even then it took a couple of hours to revive.  Nothing like this would ever happen to a 'real' book, which is made of much sterner stuff. Hard copy books laugh in the face of extreme temperatures and electricity black outs. They can be read by candlelight, dropped, thrown around the room and jammed into boxes without even leaving a mark. Kindles on the other hand can't even handle something as simple  as being accidentally sat on (as I can attest to after losing my first Kindle in a tragic accident which still brings tears to my eyes).

The moral of the story is don't throw away your old books just yet. Ebooks are convenient and great in their way, but technology is fallible, and it always pays to have a back up plan. I look at my bookshelves with renewed respect and I'm going to make an effort to pick up a 'real' book every now and then just to remind myself of how good it feels to hold something solid and tangible that has proven it can stand the test of time.