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Anthology #22
Super-Infinfite, by Katherine Rundell
This is, to borrow from its title, and Donne’s own evident penchant for this prefix, a super-erudite biography of a man of whom many will have heard, but very probably without knowing whence; the erudition does occasionally give rise to some slightly impenetrable prose, however. That said, I learned as much as I will probably ever need to know about this very complex late sixteenth and early seventeenth century character. The subtitle of the book is The Transformations of John Donne, which is an indication of how complex he was, as a result of his almost constant self-refashioning. Many will know the famous quote correctly attributed to him: “No man is an island…”, but very likely little else [guilty]. He was a contemporary of Shakespeare, but there is no evidence that they met. His writing covered several genres, but he is best known for his poetry and his later sermons as a Protestant [but ex-Catholic] Minister, given that he was a devout man in an age of expected & enforced devotion, but they could be controversial; he was obsessed with death, in an age when life could be short & uncertain, and occasionally, dangerously, mused on suicide: he even suggested that Christ’s death could be interpreted as suicide, and in a way, he could be seen as a precursor of the modern Dignity in Dying movement. The book is well structured, being mostly chronological, and there are several excerpts from his written work, and some monochrome reproductions of portraits and other useful images. Despite my minor reservation, this is not a ‘dry-as-dust’ literary tome, so I can recommend it as an introduction to one of England’s best Renaissance writers. The paperback I read was published in 2023 [2022] by Faber & Faber Ltd., London, ISBN 978-0-5713-4592–2.
The Burial Circle, by Kate Ellis
This book immediately succeeds one which I reviewed very recently: Dead Man’s Lane, and here, the author uses the same method of interspersing the current action with a historical narrative; this time, the late nineteenth century and, apart from the first instance, all the rest are presented in the form of diary entries by a physician who has transplanted himself & his wife from London to a small Devonshire village. The title refers to a practice which was common in earlier times, when people were so poor that they literally could not afford to bury their family members and, with early death & child mortality being so much more prevalent than now, this was a real problem; so people, especially those of a charitable nature, would group together and contribute a small amount regularly into a fund which could be drawn upon on demand, to facilitate burials. However, this name could also have a more sinister meaning, whereby people could be targeted for death, and subsequent burial, as happened in Doctor Christopher Crukshank’s time. In the present, some human bones are discovered after a tree is blown down on a farm belonging to the parents of one of DI Wesley Peterson’s sergeants. The presence of a red rucksack confirms that these bones are not ancient; in fact, constituting the body of a young female hitch-hiker who vanished twelve years previously. The girl’s connections still resonate in the area, and an old property provides the connection with the events of more than one hundred years earlier. This is another well-crafted murder mystery from this author, and the tension continues right up to the end. The paperback I read was published in 2020 by Piatkus, ISBN 978-0-3494-1832-2.
Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson
Jackson Brodie is a private investigator, of Scottish ancestry, who was previously an Inspector in the West Yorkshire police; before that, he was in the army. He has also been brought to television, in the person of Jason Isaacs; I haven’t had the opportunity to investigate [sorry] yet, but I intend to rectify that presently. It is presumably normal for PIs to work on more than one case at once; as indeed do the regular police; and this is how this book has been presented, with three different case histories vying for Brodie’s attention, and one other, which is interwoven, without any obvious immediate relevance: that is provided before the end, however, never fear. Four-year-old Olivia vanishes without trace in 1970, and the other three daughters of clearly less than perfect parents, studious Sylvia, flirty Julia, and frumpy Amelia, are left to cope in their own ways. In 1994, the beloved younger daughter, Laura, of a solicitor, Theo, is murdered in her father’s office premises in a seemingly random knife attack. An eighteen-year-old farmer’s wife has a breakdown and cleaves her husband’s head open with an axe, in 1979. Then there is Caroline: who, or what, is she? Somehow, Brodie manages to juggle these cases, contending with a tooth, badly in need of root canal treatment, and his suffering is exacerbated, rather than helped, by the occasional assault upon his person, in the course of his investigations, whose progress is presented in a fragmented and somewhat random sequence, but this all contributes to a clever resolution which is only apparent once any details which were omitted in earlier chapters are given. Brodie is a human and ethical character, so I will look out for other material from this author. The paperback I read was published in 2005, by Black Swan, [2004, Doubleday] a division of Transworld Publishers, London, ISBN 978-0-5527-7243-7.
Rumpole at Christmas, by John Mortimer
Although it’s too early yet, IMHO, to be thinking about Christmas, I regarded the opportunity to acquaint myself with this character, albeit in a collection of festive season-themed short stories, as too good to miss. I knew of Rumpole already, of course, and have watched at least the odd one or two excellent television adaptations of the stories, starring the marvellously well cast Leo McKern in the title rôle, but I had never hitherto read any of the source material. Despite being quite short, these stories certainly gave a hint of the dry wit & humour evident in this character, shown in his first-person narration. There are seven stories, in which our hero tries to make the best of a holiday which doesn’t inspire him with peace and goodwill to all men, unless he can spend it quietly at home in his London apartment, with his wife, known [presumably, only to himself] as She Who Must Be Obeyed; otherwise Hilda; when they open their regular & unchanging presents to each other, eat the traditional Christmas lunch, and try to avoid falling asleep in front of the queen’s speech. In these stories, some of which see him in the middle of cases at The Old Bailey, he is variously consigned to old school friends of Hilda, or to some betterment establishment designed to help him become a slimmer version of his current, well padded self. If he isn’t directly involved with a crime while ‘on holiday’, he encounters a personage who throws light on a brief, but the characteristic humour is ever present, and these are a joy to read: I look forward to finding a full-length story, should that be possible. The hardback I read was published in 2009 by Viking, Penguin Books Ltd., ISBN 978-0-6709-1791-4.
Wilfred Books 