Forgotten Book - I Am Jonathan Scrivener

The book I'm going to talk about today is one I'd never heard of (nor had I heard of its author) until I read a post on that excellent blog, Pretty Sinister Books, where John Norris praised it highly. John managed to get me really intrigued, and since a newish reprint is readily available, I sought it out. The Forgotten Book is I Am Jonathan Scrivener, and its Forgotten Author is Claude Houghton.

Back in the Thirties, both the novel and its creator gathered an impressive list of admirers. These included such diverse figures as Henry Miller, Hugh Walpole, Clemence Dane and P.G Wodehouse. Walpole and Dane even published a short appreciation of Houghton's work. In the present day, Houghton's fans include Michael Dirda, who contributes an enthusiastic intro to the new edition of the book (there is also a short piece by Walpole.)

It's a distinctive story, not quite like anything else I've ever read. There certainly seems to me to be an influence from Franz Kafka, but then again, the style is not really like Kafka. It's a genuine one-off. The story is narrated by James Wrexham, and he applies for a job as a secretary to a man of independent means who is about to leave the country. He gets the job, and is told by a solicitor that his new employer is called Jonathan Scrivener, and that he can live in Scrivener's house and, in effect, do as he pleases.

Various acquaintances of Scrivener turn up at the house, and they all seem keen to see Scrivener again, but equally, there is an air of mystery about the man. In particular, he seems to have made different impressions on each of them. What is Scrivener up to? I found this a fascinating, and often witty book, which held my interest despite a distinct lack of action. It's a book full of ideas, but none the worse for that. I enjoyed reading it, and although I don't claim it as a major masterpiece, it's astonishing that it's slipped so far from view until recently.  And also, from a writer's point of view, sobering.

Wodehouse in Exile - TV review

Wodehouse in Exile, a BBC Four tv show, offered a fascinating insight into the events surrounding P.G. Wodehouse's notorious radio broadcasts during the Second World War. The script by Nigel Williams was sympathetic to Wodehouse, and Tim Pigott-Smith gave a charming portrayal of the great humorous writer, but there were enough nuances in the screenplay and performance for this to seem a fair and balanced account of a controversial story.

As a young boy, I fell in love with the Wodehouse books, and read a great many of them in a short space of time. This was not long after I'd discovered Agatha Christie, and I soon learned that Christie and Wodehouse were fans of each other. Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley were other crime writers who were very keen on Wodehouse, and I know that he was invited to a Detection Club dinner in the early 30s, though it's not entirely clear whether he actually showed up.

My father was one of the many people of his generation who felt that Wodehouse betrayed Britain. I can understand that, when one is facing the possibility of death during a war, feelings run very high and it's not too easy to be entirely judicious in one's assessment of those who seem to be having it easy. And that was the impression many people had of Wodehouse. There may be some truth in it, as he was a naive and perhaps self-indulgent man. But I don't believe he was a traitor.

The death of Wodehouse's daughter is one of the pivotal moments in the screenplay. One interesting snippet is that she was the author of a very good crime short story, "Inquest", under the mysterious pseudonym of Loel Yeo. It's well worth a look. Wodehouse too wrote a number of stories that verge on crime fiction,testament to his lifelong interest in the genre. As for me, I'm still an admirer of his work. And though the man was flawed, who isn't?. Wodehouse in Exile seemed to me to be informative as well as entertaining, and it enriched my understanding of the great writer's life.

Forgotten Book - The Poisoned Chocolates Case

P.G. Wodehouse wrote a number of stories with a crime element, and admired Agatha Christie. She liked his work, too, and it’s a pity the two of them never collaborated. Had they done so, they might have come up with a book as good as The Poisoned Chocolates Case, by Anthony Berkeley.

This whodunit is a classic of the genre, which I first read many years ago. I decided to take another look at it, and found it was at least as good as I remembered - which is saying something. It’s clever and witty and quite unique.

Its genesis was a short story called ‘The Avenging Chance’. In the novel, written in 1929, Berkeley has the six members of the Crimes Circle (based, no doubt, on the then embryonic Detection Club) come up with different solutions to the puzzle of who killed Joan Bendix. Roger Sheringham’s solution derives from the short story – but here it isn’t the right answer to the puzzle. There are, in fact, two more twists in store.

In 1979 Christianna Brand came up with yet another solution. All this makes Berkeley’s point, that the solutions to a fictional mystery are potentially endless. I love the way he keeps shifting the kaleidoscope in this story. It deserves its status as a masterpiece of the Golden Age.

Forgotten Book - Trial and Error

Following up the ‘Forgotten Authors’ panel at Crimefest, my entry for Patti Abbot’s series of Forgotten Books is the novel which I said, in answer to a question from the floor, I would most like to see reprinted. In fact there are lots of them, but this is definitely a good one. It is Trial and Error by Anthony Berkeley.

The set-up is brilliant. Little Mr Todhunter is terminally ill. So he decides to make one final gesture, committing an ‘altruistic murder’ by killing the most obnoxious person he can find. He shoots Jean Norwood, ‘famous actress manager’, and believes he has committed the perfect crime. The snag is that an innocent person is charged by the police with Jean’s murder, and the police seem to have an ‘iron-clad’ case. So Mr Todhunter has to turn detective to prove himself guilty of murder and save an innocent life.

This is Berkeley’s finest books, widely regarded as a Golden Age classic – yet at Crimefest, very few people seemed to be familiar with it. This is sad, because Berkeley’s cleverness and cynical wit make Trial and Error a unique piece of work. On publication, the book aroused much debate because of a legal point – and in my edition, a green Penguin, Berkeley justifies his interpretation of English law in a way that seems to me to be pretty convincing (mind you, I have never practised criminal law…)

Berkeley dedicated the book to P.G. Wodehouse, and his earlier fiction reflects Wodehouse’s influence, but by the time this novel was published in 1937, his writing was truly distinctive. It is sad, and astonishing, that within a mere two more years, his career as a crime novelist was at an end.