I’m continuing to listen to performanes of Ngaio Marsh’s whodunnits, in order. They are the cases solved by the gentleman detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn. They are very rewarding.
My father died when I was a young boy. As a teenager, I explored his collection of whodunnits. I devoured his complete set of Agatha Christie paperbacks, but avoided the other authors, including Ngaio Marsh. Although part of that was just wanting to read more Christie, part of it was also learnt from reading Christie, that reading a book series in order was more rewarding, because the regular characters would be developed. That might be pure hindsight, but I think not: I moved on to, indeed bought, the complete James Blish. My father only owned a few Marsh & Sayers novels.
Having now started to read Marsh (in order), I’m loving her books. The language is dated: the only time I hear such cadence nowadays is with Boris Johnson, who, whatever his faults, is wonderful with words. It’s the language, the dialect, of my mother, of my teachers. The language is the blue blood language of its day, and of my mother’s day. Now, don’t get me wrong, the language may be blue blood, but the only blue in my blood is the result of an unfortunate schoolboy accident with a fountain pen.
More important, though, is not that the language is dated, but that it is deliciously rich—not in the sense of gagging, but in the sense of yummy.
I’m still reading her early books, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the plots, so far, all involve the traditional isolated group of people, at least one of whom is a murderer, and at least one of whom is murdered. They’re rather claustrophic, but that’s the norm for the queens of crime of the time. Marsh wiil break out of this claustrophobia, but I’m not yet there.
The dated features don’t get in the way, so long as you allow for them. Almost all the characters smoke like kippers, and physical features determine character. Both errors were typical for the day. Neither set of dreadful consequences, whether lung cancer or genocide, were properly appreciated. Even today, people smoke, even today, idiots presume appearance determines personality (admittedly, I’ve used the latter to my advantage, to encourage fools to avoid me), but neither, in the now, are ubiquitous, unlike in the novels. In other words, the books are of their time.
All this is beside the point. What I’m really enjoying about her books is the psychology. The detectives, and those around them, slowly grow, but that’s not the real pleasure for me. Marsh creates some wonderfully real people around her mysteries. Nothing feels wrong, unlike a lot of the contemporary junk I’ve read recently (don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful contemporary whodunnits too). Marsh’s are real people, but real people of her day. The differences between how they behave and how I would behave, I like to think, is the difference between our times. Having said that, I regret to say, I wouldn’t be a Marsh hero, but another Marsh buffoon: there’s just a bit too much trombone in me.
The baddies, the goodies, the victims, the bystanders: all dated, all right. There are some characters that appear to drift a little into cliché, but Marsh, well, she either pulls back from cliché, or enriches it with depth. Basically, one should always allow an author her foibles, so long as they’re built properly into the plot, and, in Marsh’s case, they are.
The world–building: it’s London of the 1930s. I didn’t visit London in the 1930s. It’s New Zealand of the 1930s. I’ve never visited New Zealand. I have no doubt about what I read, it accords with my education, but it’s Marsh, not Mr. Shouty, who brings that time alive.
One of the recurring characters is Lady Alleyn, Inspector Alleyn’s mother. I sometimes feel that perhaps Ngaio March speaks through her. After all, both women gave birth to the Inspector. Both women are independent, one by accident of birth, one by application of brain. Both are feminist—well, I presumed that of Ngaio Marsh when Lady Alleyn said she was: Marsh is, at the very very least, a superb feminist role model. Marsh doesn’t lecture through Lady Alleyn, though, she’s far too accomplished. It’s just that, sometimes, I’d swear I heard two voices in that one mouth.
There is one aspect of the books, though, that I do not like. Marsh does not appear to like people from outside the empire of the time, excepting the French. Often, the baddie is non–British. In her books, in her day, in our day, too many people are cowards when it comes to difference. I don’t like that, it stinks of fear and laziness.
All the same, have no doubt, I will continue to listen to these books.