A Work in Progress

Almost Blue by Carlo Lucarelli

Carlo Lucarelli's Almost Blue is a short, intense, noirish crime story, which I very much enjoyed.  It's quite different than the usual mystery-fare that I've been reading, and in some ways a refreshing change.  Although this is a detective story of sorts, Lucarelli relies more on action to move the plot than an excess of description, endless discussion of the crime and clue gathering to tell his story (though there is a bit of all that as well).  For me this was much more a case of showing than telling (which is a good thing, right).  It took a while for me to get a sense of what the characters were like, particularly Grazia Negro, but the characters' personalities are shaped by their actions and reactions and often through the eyes of other characters.  The sparse prose and the fast clip at which the story moves is fitting for the story Lucarelli tells--dark and melancholy just like Chet Baker's famous jazz song "Almost Blue".

Ispettore Grazia Negro is a rookie detective from Rome who has been called in on a case involving the murders of several students in Bologna.  She is part of a fledgling unit dealing with serial crimes.  She and her boss, Commissario Capo Vittorio Poletto, are trying to convince the Questore that the murders are related and need to be treated thus in order to find the killer.  Each case was closed but no one was ever charged in any of the deaths, but certain aspects of the crimes are similar--violent deaths and each victim was stripped of their clothing. 

Vittorio allows Grazia to head up the investigation because he trusts her "fierce animal instinct", which proves wise as she quickly discerns a pattern when another body is discovered.  A person of interest at the scene of the crime happens to look just like the previous victim.  How does a dead man show up at the victim's apartment?  And the next break comes from an unlikely source.  A blind man who spends much of his time listening in on conversations on the radio, telephones and online by way of his scanner.  Blind since birth he has a uniqe way of seeing the world--using colors but not because of how they appear, but how the word sounds.  Because of the 'r' green sounds harsh, it's something that scathes and burns, but blue is the color of beauty.  Simone inadvertently taps into a chat room where the killer is selecting his next victim.  His voice is green and frightening.  It scares Simone so he tunes out and listens to Chet Baker's "Almost Blue" instead, which always has a calming effect on him.  And soon another student is dead. 

Simone, for me, is the most interesting character in the book and the best developed.  He tells his story in first person, but the reader only sees Grazia through an unknown narrator's eyes.  She's smart and beautiful, has a crush on her boss despite hating that he always calls her sweetheart.  She doesn't smoke, though everyone else does and it clings to her bomber jacket.  There is a third narrative thread, and this one slightly chilling and very creepy.  The killer also has his say.  It's obvious he is damaged in some way.  The reader gets even less a sense of what he is like though a portrait is certainly formed.  Somehow it seems best not to spend too much time in this character's head.

This is a violent and sometimes bloody story, but not in a gratuitous way.  Lucarelli gives just enough detail to paint a picture, but otherwise leaves it up to the reader to fill in the rest.  But he is very good in giving a strong sense of what Bologna is like.

"The light changes quickly in April.  When the sun starts to go down, the shadows under the porticoes turn reddish, then, streaked by the few orange rays of sun that make their way through, they slide down the walls.  It hurts your eyes to stare at the puddles of burning, reddish light that form at the base of the columns.  When the sun goes behind the rooftops and the light becomes more opaque, darkened by the violet filter of the lowering clouds, then the shadows under the porticoes turn light gray.  Then the color of steel.  Then a deep, rich, ferrous, chrome-tinted color--almost blue.  The entire piazza goes through a complete transformation.  At a quarter past seven it's an entirely different place than it was fifteen minutes earlier."

**********

"The city isn't like others, Matera had said.  It's not only big.  It's complicated.  It's contradictory.  If you look at it from a pedestrian perspective, it seems like there are a lot of piazzas and porticoes.  But if you fly over it in a helicopter, because of the courtyards and gardens between the buildings, it looks like there's a forest below.  And if you go beneath its surface you'll find that it's a city built on water and canals, like Venezia.  It's freezing cold in winter and tropical in summer.  It has Communist ideals and millionaire cooperative organizations.  It's run by four different mafia groups that, rather than shoot at each other, help each other recycle Italy's drug money.  Tortellini and satanic cults.  This city isn't what it seems, Ispettore; it's always hiding something."

Carlo Lucarelli has written a number of crime novels, but very few, it seems, have been translated into English.  There are at least two Grazia Negro novels, and his De Luca Trilogy is available from Europa Editions.  Oonagh Stransky's English translation of Almost Blue is smooth and seamless.  I first came across it via Fleur Fisher.  It has also been reviewed at Petrona and Crime Scraps.  

And if by chance you've not heard Chet Baker's "Amost Blue" do take a listen! 

More from 'The Lotus Singers'

Since I enjoyed last week's stories so much I decided to continue on with The Lotus Singers, edited by Trevor Carolan.  I've been rationing the stories, just a few each week, but since I'm on a little roll I might just keep going and read straight through.  I love reading about other cultures and other places and imagining what the country must look like, whether the people are vastly different than those I know here and whether the problems we deal with are the same and the things that make us happy are as different as our languages and cultures.   

Once again I've read the next three stories in the anthology.  Two were written in English and the third in Urdu.  I've never read anything written in Urdu before, so I feel like I am expanding my horizons just a little bit.  The stories I read were set in Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan respectively.

Kunzang Choden is Bhutan's best known writer internationally.  She's published a book of folktales as well as a novel, The Circle of Karma, which is semi-autobiographical and has been translated into several languages; it was "acclaimed by critics abroad for its rich portrayal of daily life in this beautiful, remote part of the globe".  Her work deals with social and women's issues as reflected in her story, "I Won't Ask Mother". 

Eighteen-year old Yeshimo yearns for a life she was cheated out of since she is an only daughter who is needed at home to take care of her younger brothers and sickly mother.  Yeshimo was granted one year of education when she was very young before her mother became ill.  How can boys be expected to do a woman's work and take care of a sick mother, Yeshimo is asked.  She is a loyal daughter who listens to her mother, but is stuck in a situation with no opportunities.  Yeshimo has few pleasures save listening to the radio while working in the garden (until it becomes too much of a strain on her mother) or watching TV at the house of her friend.  She remains at home cooking and cleaning while her neighbors and friends go off to their office jobs--dressed in heels and lovely clothes where they work on computers and office machines.  The only machine she knows how to run is the family rice cooker.  It is only by looking inward that Yeshimo will find a sense of empowerment to better her life.

Nepalese author and filmmaker Sushma Joshi has been published in Utne Reader, Ms. Magazine, and Kyoto Journal and is the founder and editor of the online journal Reproductions, which is affiliated with Harvard University.  She has also written a book of art criticism and a short story collection, End of the World which was longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Award.

In "Law and Order" Bishnu looks out of his window overlooking a garden which is filled with earthly delights.  Literally.  After a failed attempt, and the loss of both his front teeth, at joining the British Gurkha Army (a job which would have offered him both distinction and security), he becomes a policeman in the small community of Naxal.  The recruits are given small living quarters called cells but not very generous helpings at mealtime.  As a matter of fact there are only three ways to supplement their food rations: stealing from the officers' mess, intimidating shopkeepers or hoping your family will send food from home.  Bishnu begins dreaming of food and of the beautiful daughters who live in the house below, combining the vegetables in the garden with the women in the house in rather fanciful combinations.  If only there wasn't a wall keeping him in the police precinct and a wall keeping him out of the garden!

Hasan Manzar (Syed Manzar Hasan) is a physician, but has published several collections of short stories as well as a novel, all in Urdu.  However, his work also appears in English in The Penguin Book of Classic Urdu Stories.  "Manzar's style is noted for its social realism.  His literary concerns reflect the current social and political influences, as well as the ambivalence human beings can demonstrate when confronted with moral dilemmas."  His story "Emancipation" is translated from Urdu by Muhammad Umar Memon.

On a return journey from the Holy Ganges a woman is placed in an unwelcome situation.  She had made a pilgrimage to the Ganges in the hope she might be able to conceive a child.  As her husband dislikes the idea of women traveling in the same compartment together with their husbands she sits alone and is accosted by the ticket collector when he makes his rounds.  Only by pulling the cord and stopping the train does she stop the man before he can rape her.  Her pious visit to the Holy Ganges changes the course of her life, and her accusation drives a wedge between herself and her husband and in-laws.  "No matter how the court ruled, as far as they were concerned I was no more than a beautiful, expensive glass object, which, once broken, is allowed to remain at home, but which can scarcely be used again."  This is a story that most decidedly deserves a reread.

I've been very impressed so far by the stories I've been reading and am interested in seeing which themes pop up over and over again--religion, race, class, caste, social and ecological issues.  The stories have been told by a variety of perspectives by both men and women as well as young and old.  I'm looking forward to reading more and will tell you about them next week.

August 7: Reading Notes

Have you ever read Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffanys?  It's a wonderful story.  Slightly different than the movie version, but equally as good (maybe even better as is so often the case).  Holly Golightly is the quintessential girl about town looking for love and success in her own eccentric way.  Despite the shiny party-girl veneer about her there is a sadness that lies beneath.  She doesn't just have the occasional blues--which is your common garden variety of bad day happenings, rather she has the mean reds.  Lately I think I've been having a case of the mean reds myself (ie my black mood).  I think my problem is that I am in a rut.  One so deep I don't know how to get out and am feeling so claustrophobic that even my books aren't keeping me from wanting to climb the walls to get out.  Only at the moment there's nowhere to go.  So you'll have to excuse my occasional moody posts as I try and work my way out of this moodiness and decide what exactly I want to do with my life and how I am going to get there. 

Books do help, despite it all.  Lately I just can't seem to focus on one for too long, so my reading pile is a little taller than usual (is that possible?).  And as you can see I have a few new books to add to it.  Do you see a trend here (see photo)?  I want to learn to speak Italian, only I can't find anywhere in town that offers lessons.  I don't think I have the dedication to try and do it on my own with a book and tapes--for me that loses some of the fun of the process.  I've picked up La Bella Lingua by Dianne Hales, subtitle: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, as the next best thing (for the moment anyway).  It only came in the mail yesterday, so I've only just started reading and will let you know how it goes.

Along with that the box contained 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go by Susan Van Allen.  Now that's quite a tall order, but one I will happily fulfill given the time and money.  Until then I guess I'll just read about those places.  And thanks to someone's wonderful suggestion (sorry I need to go back through the comments to remind myself who) I also ordered War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944.  It was written by an American woman who had married an Italian and was living and raising her family in Tuscany during the war.

And a few other recent finds.  I've been wondering lately if with so few bookstores around these days whether I'll have to start book shopping at the supermarket.  It sounds a little funny, but that is where I picked up Juliet by Anne Fortier.  I always look at their book racks but never find anything I'd like to read, so this was a pleasant surprise.  It's one of those parallel stories novels set in contemporary Virginia and Italy as well as medieval Siena.  It is a retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and it is a thriller.  That should make for interesting reading, but I'm open to just about anything that's set in Italy lately.  I think I already mentioned Lucretia Grindle's Villa Triste--it's here!  This is a mystery that reaches back to Italy's WWII past about two sisters who were involved in the Resistance.  And last but not least is Carlo Lucarelli's Carte Blanche, in a lovely Europa Editions edition.  It is the first in the "De Luca Trilogy"--yet more Italian crime, and this one set directly during WWII.

The point of this post was meant to be a short rundown of a few of the books I'm reading at the moment, but now I've run out of steam.  I will mention two in any case, both novels by Italian authors (how could I stray at this point?).  I'm nearly finished with Carlo Lucarelli's Almost Blue, a mystery featuring Grazia Negro who is tracking down a serial killer in Bologna.  It's an unusual mystery and one I am enjoying very much, which includes a character who is blind yet associates voices with colors--very interesting.  I'm also reading away on Elsa Morante's History.  This is a chunky doorstop of a book about one average woman during the war who happens to be half-Jewish and terrified of being caught out and then is raped by a German soldier.  It was a slow starter but the more I read the better it gets--and hopefully it will continue to be so.

Smelly in the Stacks

Sorry, no lost in the stacks post today.  I did look, and I had four very different books in my hands but I couldn't decide on one, and since I've been in a black mood of late I put them back.  If I can't talk myself out of my mood I might take a little blogging break, but if I can I'll be back after the weekend (can't really leave a post called 'smelly in the stacks' hanging out there for days on end, can I), but at the moment it could go either way.

So Slyvia Thompson is not really lost in the stacks.  She is a new addition to my own personal library.  I borrowed this a while back through interlibrary loan.  It had to go back half read, so I decided I could afford a nice inexpensive, used copy in order to finish reading.  The first book I ordered went missing, but this second copy arrived this week.  It's in pretty good condition for being 85 years old.  I hope I look this good at that age, but I certainly hope I smell better!

The Hounds of Spring must have been sitting in someone's attic or basement as when you crack open the cover you are assaulted with the vintage aroma of must.  I do like that old book authenticity, but I'd prefer not to read this one with a hanky dipped in lavender water pressed to my nose and mouth for 300+ pages.  Any ideas of how to tone the musty smell down?  I'm trying to air it out, but surely there must be a better solution?

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle

Although I've yet to find an author who can in any way replace Jane Austen, I think part of the reason I find Georgette Heyer's books so enjoyable is that she wrote stories that remind me of Jane Austen's world.  Regency (most of the time) settings, sparkling wit and an entertaining banter between hero and heroine like Austen, often the stories are comedies of manner but Heyer also wrote the occasional adventure story or stories that verge on the farcical.  They are usually frothy fun and nearly always end happily.  Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is even more Austen-like as there is a definite nod in the direction of Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  I wouldn't call it a retelling, but Sylvester reminds me just a tad of Mr. Darcy and Phoebe just a tad of Lizzie Bennet, but no worries as in the end they are their own characters full of foibles and shortcomings but essentially decent and likable.

If you've read Georgette Heyer you'll know that her stories are generally very romantically inclined yet also very chaste.  It's all about the getting together rather than the what comes after (though there are a few exceptions to that rule).  Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is one of Heyer's more romantic romances.  With each insult (however kindly spoken) that is uttered, and each conversation which is miscommunicated the lovers are wrenched further apart, and that means they'll fall even harder when they do decide they really are in love.

Phoebe Marlow isn't exactly who comes to mind when the Duke of Salford, that would be Sylvester, is making his list of qualities he finds attractive in a prospective wife.  He has indeed made a list: clever and with some degree of beauty, and with the same elegance which his mama is graced with.  No hen-witted ladies as he doesn't want to hoist a fool on his mother.  He narrows the ladies within his acquaintance who are so endowed down to five and then asks his mother to choose!  For Sylvester this is simply an arrangement and love need not come into the picture, however much the Duchess prefers Sylvester make a love match or none at all. 

Into the hat the Duchess throws Phoebe's name.  Phoebe is the granddaughter of the Duchess's good friend and Sylvester's godmother, Lady Ingham.  As a matter of fact there was talk at Phoebe's birth as the ladies toyed with the idea of a prospective engagement to Sylvester some day in the future, but nothing ever came of it as Phoebe's mother died and she was raised in the country.  So the wheels are set in motion for Sylvester to properly meet Miss Marlow, but as his first introduction to her at a ball was so unmemorable, it won't be surprising to hear how their second meeting goes.  Not well.

The Duke of Salford is invited to Lord Marlow's estate with offer of few days hunting, but of course his real intention is to check Phoebe out and decide whether she really is marriage material.  He almost instantly regrets his decision when he realizes he is to be the only guest making it obvious that something's afoot.  Phoebe's step-mother is under the misapprehension that Sylvester is there to offer for her, turning Phoebe into a bundle of nerves which means she isn't going to 'show well' in front of the Duke.

Sylvester's take on Phoebe:

"She had neither beauty nor countenance, her complexion was poor and her figure worse, her dress was tasteless, and the colourless voice in which  she murmured how-do-you-do confirmed him in his instant belief that she was insipid.  He wondered how soon he would be able to bring his visit to an end."

Phoebe's opinion of Sylvester is no better:

"He is not shy and he is not stiff.  His manners are assured; he says everything that is civil because he places himself on so high a form that he would think it unworthy of himself to treat anyone with with anything but cool courtesy; and because he knows his consequence to be so great he cares nothing for what anyone may think of him."

Their meeting is dismal and their dislike great, though to be honest for Phoebe it is dislike, the Duke is so condescending he thinks only of himself and how he might escape.  Phoebe beats him to it.  In fear that he will offer for her, an offer that she finds repugnant, she decides to run away rather than be forced into a marriage she does not want.  Her plan is to go to London and her grandmother, Lady Ingham.  She sets off with her good childhood friend who's the son of a local squire, and from there the story turns quite adventurous.  Snowy roads and an overturned barouche mean a broken leg for her friend Tom and a stay at a local inn where Sylvester comes upon them, and things become very entangled in the usual engaging Heyer style.

There's a good bit of romance in Sylvester and a good bit of adventure as well.  Sylvester is overly full of himself, unable to show his true self in front of Phoebe and ready to believe the worst.  Phoebe doesn't help things along much as she is an aspiring author who has had her first book published anonymously, though she makes the great error of basing her characters a little too closely on London's members of high society.  Her villain shows too close a resemblance on the Duke of Salford--his eyebrows take on a satyr-like appearance when he's annoyed--making the comparison unmistakable, and when word gets out who wrote the book Phoebe becomes something of an outcast.  It's unsure whether the two will ever get together.  Getting things all sorted out is, of course, what makes for such entertaining reading.  I've read enough novels by Heyer now to be able to compare and this one ranks in my top three (my other favorites being The Corinthian and A Civil Contract).  Next up I have Bath Tangle to read, and will post about it later this month.

My copy courtesy of Sourcebooks.

Edited:  I thought I'd note something that one commenter pointed out and is quite right about--although Heyer was inspired by Austen, Jane Austen wrote about her contemporaries and times in which she lived, whereas Heyer wrote historical novels about the Regency period and used quite a lot of detail to create that particular world.  A perhaps not so subtle difference that I should have thought more about, but this novel brought to mind Austen so much the comparison came immediately to mind when writing my post!  Sorry for the slip.

The Last Enemy by Grace Brophy

Part of the fun of summering in Italy (if only figuratively) is getting to know a particular city or region in the country both through the author's use of description but also through my own extracurricular research (thank you Google Images).  It's interesting to see if or how an author uses setting.  Sometimes it's very obvious and other times it is quite subtle.  Sometimes you get more of a sense of how the people interact or particulars of the culture.  An author might be quite descriptive in how they write about a place down to the very weather, but other times they simply stick to developing the characters to tell their story.  I thought foreign authors writing about Italy would rely much more on setting than Italians writing about their own country, but that isn't always the case.  Sometimes the setting becomes almost another character.  My favorite stories are the ones that have a little of everything, which gives a full sense of what a place and the people are like and the things that happen there. 

Grace Brophy's The Last Enemy has a nice mix of elements, both setting and characters are nicely developed and the pacing is well done--nothing too exrtaneous but just enough detail to make things interesting.  The story is set in Umbria, which is Italy's only landlocked region and also one of the smallest.

The Crime:

An American woman is found murdered in the crypt of her Italian relatives.  The final wish of Rita Minelli's mother was to be buried in her native Assisi.  Unhappily for the Casati family Rita came, buried her mother and decided to stay.  A spinster of 45 she had taken care of her mother most of her adult life, a job that went unappreciated.  Rita gave up the chance to marry in order to cater to her mother's whims and wishes.  She married an American GI and moved to Brooklyn after the war rather than live in poverty in Italy, and Rita was their only child.

The Investigator:

Commissario Alessandro Cenni of the Perugian Questura is called to investigate the crime in Assisi.  Much respected by his colleagues and his superiors he works mostly on cases dealing with terrorism or international crime.  He studied law and fell in love with a fellow student, but Chiara was kidnapped and never found.  Italy in the 70s was a volatile place, so when one finger was sent to her family Alex was sure she must have been murdered.  Twenty years later he is still haunted by her disappearance.  Alex is a twin--his brother Renato is a priest, which caused him much consternation as a young man.  They circle each other warily, but Alex is close to his Swedish grandmother, who is the family matriarch having run the chocolate business after the death of his grandfather.

Alex is joined by Piero and Elena in the investigation.  Piero is fond of his food, and it shows on his waistline, but he's dedicated and experienced and also enraptured by Sgt. Antolini who also assists on the case.  Elena is a feminist who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty even if it means climbing into dumpsters looking for clues, but shakes her head at Piero's infatuation.

The Suspects:

The body of Rita Minelli was found by a Croation-born immigrant who sells flowers but once worked for the Casati family.  Foreigners are always high on the list of suspects, particularly when the other suspects include a once-aristocratic family with close political ties to the city's government officials. 

None of the Casati family was happy that Rita had insinuated herself into their home and their lives.  Count Casati and his English wife run a successful language school and are barely pleasant to Rita.  Their daughter Artemisia is an art historian who wrote a feminist interpretation of the artist (and her namesake) Artemisia Gentileschi, which has helped land the directorship of an important museum.  She's an awful snob and hated Rita, who after years of being a frumpy school teacher, decides to dress like the beautiful Artemisia. 

The Casati's granddaughter, Paola, was orphaned young when her parents, died in a bomb explosion (one of their making by the way--the 70s really were volatile in Italy).  Paola's father Camillo was the Casati's pride and joy.  And now Paola is rebelling and has secrets of her own.  

And there are at least three mystery men in Rita's life.  Her new life in Italy was provocative and exciting and cut far too short.

Particulars to the Case:

The crime takes place during Holy Week, which is ironic since Assisi is a very holy city, but it seems criminals know no boundary.  Not only was Rita's body found in the family crypt, but it was positioned in such a way to imply she had also been assaulted, which lends a certain ick factor, though it is happily not dwelled upon.  Alex's boss puts pressure on the investigator to come to a quick and satisfying (though satisfying for whom?) conclusion to the case--meaning the obvious perpetrator is probably the the foreign woman and it's best not to make waves.  The Casati family is rich and influential, but Alex refuses to handle them with the kid gloves his superiors wish.  

I've noticed in Italian crime novels there is often the whiff of a desire for an easy and fast conclusion--expediancy at the cost of truth (truth is always relative though, right?), and also a hint of corruption within the ranks of those in charge and investigating the crime.  But maybe that's actually the same all over.  

I very much enjoyed The Last Enemy and am quite taken with Alessandro Cenni and his colleagues.  Brophy has created an interesting cast of characters that I want to read more about and see how they develop both individually and as a group of investigators.  I also love the setting of medieval Perugia and like to get an insider's view (well sort of insider as Brophy is an American who has lived in Perugia) of Italian culture.  I have her second Cenni mystery all lined up, Deadly Paradise.  I hope she will write more books.  My only problem with trying new authors in this reading project is discovering that I want to read more of each author's books.

You can read more about Grace Brophy here, and there is an interesting interview with her here.  The photo at the top of my post is from the wikipedia entry on Assisi, which is not copyrighted and can be shared.  It is a panoramic view of Assisi.  Nice, don't you think? 

Teaser Tuesday: Fred & Edie

It's been a while since I've shared a teaser from one of the books I'm reading.  It's also nice to have a shorter post sandwiched between two longer posts (I'm ahead of myself this week).  Sue Gee's Letters from Prague (thanks to Catharina for the reading suggestion!) was my first choice, but as I was flipping through looking for a suitable teaser nothing struck me.  I'm very much enjoying the story, but sometimes sharing a random paragraph doesn't quite work. 

In case I've made you curious anyway, I'm reading it for BlogLily's Summer Reading Program.  The story is about a woman searching for her first love.  Twenty years earlier she had a short but intense relationship with a Czech student who had been working in London.  It was the summer of 1968, the summer that Russian tanks rolled in and he was lost forever.  But as the Berlin wall eventually toppled down so too did the iron curtain crumble and she decides to travel to Prague to try and find him.  She follows the route he traveled so many years before when he returned home.  Sounds good, don't you think?  But, alas, this is not the book I'm going to talk about today. 

I've picked up another book, also for BlogLily's Summer Reading Program, but this one couldn't be more different storywise, Fred & Edie by Jill Dawson.  I've long had this book on my TBR pile. It was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2001 and won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.  Most of the books I pick up to read are probably impulse choices, but this one was very much so.  What initially prompted me to go search for it on my shelves was a movie I watched over the weekend--a library find and another impulse choice, but in this case I didn't realize just what the story was about.   (I admit I brought it home because Ioan Gruffudd is one of the actors.  Need I say more?).

The description of Another Life reads:

"Scandal leads to murder in this intense drama set in wartime England. Natasha Little gives a critically acclaimed performance as Edith, a free-spirited, naïve girl who accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Percy Thompson before fully realizing his controlling ways. Unhappy and emotionally unfulfilled in her marriage, Edith seeks the companionship of an old friend, Frederick Bywaters, which soon becomes a forbidden love affair. When Frederick's attempt to rescue Edith from her domineering husband spins out of control, envy turns to murder in this true story of a woman caught in the middle of a sexual scandal that leaves no one spared."

I didn't realize that the movie is based on the true crime case from 1922 when Freddy Bywaters murdered Edith Thompson's husband Percy.  The two had been having an affair but Percy wouldn't agree to a divorce.  Edith denied any involvement in the murder, but her letters to Freddy were incriminating, so both were convicted and hung for the crime.  I'm obviously glossing over details, but want to read the book before talking more about it.  I've not forgotten my teaser, and what could be easier than the opening paragraph:

Widows Story in Ilford Mystery

Quite Happy Together and No Quarrel...I Did Not See Anybody About at the Time

"'I heard him call out 'Oh!' and he fell against me...We had no quarrel on the way; we were quite happy together...I did not see anybody at the time'."

"In these words Edith Thompson (27), widow of the stabbed Ilford shipping clerk, told the police the story of her husband's death.  Her statement was read at Stratford court yesterday, when she and Frederick Bywaters, the 20-year-old ship's steward, were remanded on the charge of murder."

"Mrs Thompson, said the police, made other statements, and Bywaters also made a statement, but none of those were put in yesterday's hearing."

"A large crowd had gathered around the police court in the hope of seeing the couple, but they were brought from Ilford in a cab, and manoeuvred into court before the waiting people knew of their arrival."

If I find that I've not had enough of the sensational Thompson-Bywaters murder case I can also read F. Tennyson Jesse's A Pin to See the Peepshow and E.M. Delafield's Messalina of the Suburbs, which were both inspired by the murder.

Dipping into The Lotus Singers

Yesterday my short story destination was India as I read three stories from The Lotus Singers edited by Trevor Carolan.  This volume anthologizes eighteen stories by different authors from South Asia, and it just so happened that the first three were by Indian authors.  Reading these stories I'm finding that they are the tiniest bit jarring to me culturally, though it is as interesting to see where similarities cross as where differences separate our cultures.  Only one of the stories I read yesterday was written in a language other than English, since India (like many of the countries in the anthology) was once a colonial country.  The editor has taken care to try and include authors writing in their indigenous languages, however.

In Neeru Nanda's "His Father's Funeral" a young boy begins to see the implications of becoming an adult.  Shankar and his best friend Veer are walking in a funeral procession for Shankar's recently deceased father.  Veer has already undertaken this painful rite of passage at the death of his mother.  It's obvious that they are both still young boys as they talk and argue about their predicaments.  Veer mentions Shankar will have to light the fire to burn the body as he is now the man of the family, which is the first of several unhappy realizations. 

As someone already in the know about what comes next, and as friends will do, Veer teases Shankar about what his life will soon be like.  His mother, now a widow, will not be able to marry again so Shankar will have to leave school and begin earning a wage.  Veer proposes his father could marry Shankar's mother, but the situation is less than perfect as Veer's father beat his mother and sometimes beats Veer.  The conversation quickly becomes an argument which leads to a fight, which brings in relatives of both families.  When Shankar sees the concerns of the adults--not just those of money but also of caste, which complicates life, he realizes his loss isn't just of his father, but perhaps his own childhood innocence.

Neeru Nanda has been a freelance writer and editor of literary journals.  During a visit to New York she attended a creative writing workshop at Columbia University which resulted in her first short story collection, If, where "His Father's Funeral" first appeared.  Nanda's stories "are often rooted in her extensive travels and examine the impact of social privilege on local Indian life".

"Arjun" by Mahasweta Devi is a story that has much relevance in the global world we all live in now.  A world where anything is for sale and little care or concern is often paid to our ecological environment.  The arjun tree is a sacred tree to many indigenous people.  They revere it and it is part of their culture.  If a wish has been granted they pay homage to it.  One tree remains--it seems to have been there forever, but now it is supposed to be cut down--like all the other trees in what was once a forest.  The people forced to cut the trees down are those who had dwelled in their environs.  They have no choice.  If they refuse to cut the trees down they will go to jail, and if they do cut down the trees they will also go to jail.  Their reward for cutting the trees down is money and liquor.  Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  But perhaps the power of this one lone sentinel is enough to withstand yet more exploitation.

Mahasweta Devi is one of India's most important writers.  She has written more than 60 books and has received a number of awards for her works including India's highest literary award.  "Devi is known for her writing about the lives of ordinary men and women, as well as for her firebrand activism on behalf of India's economically repressed Adivasi tribal people".  A number of her books are listed on Amazon.  This story was translated from Bangla by Mridula Nath Chakraborty. 

I think Salil Chaturvedi's story "Nina Awaits Mrs. Kamath's Decision" is  my favorite story so far.  Chaturvedi, partially paralyzed, sailed a twenty-foot sloop from Mumbai to Goa in order to bring attention to accessibility issues for those who are disabled.  He himself uses a wheelchair.  The story is told through the eyes of Nina who is blind, but that doesn't mean she cannot see.  University educated and holding a good job, she is still not seen as marriage material by Mrs. Kamath for her son Ramesh.  Besides being blind she is also Christian, which is unacceptable--to say nothing of not being of the same caste.  "No one  gives a degree for raising children and running a house", which more valued by Mrs. Kamath than a Class-A job.  So she and Ramesh wait for Mrs. Kamath's approval in order to marry, for despite the obstacles, which neither really feels, they are most importantly in love.  What I enjoyed most about this story is the way Nina sees and deals with the world around her, which Chaturvedi conveys through sound--shlick, shlick...chuga, chuga, chuga..koel-koel-koel-koel...ting-ting-ting-ting.  The shuffling of feet, the sound of a motorbike, birdsong and a prayer bell.  It's almost uncanny how Nina knows what others are doing without ever seeing them, she knows when and how they move, so attuned is she.  But also she is attuned to their prejudices as well, despite her many abilities.  This was a beautifully written story. 

Salil Chaturvedi blogs at Saliloquy, do check it out.

More stories next weekend.  I'm very much enjoying these collections by the way.