Recent reading

[regshoe]

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier (1936). This is one of three books to which Annick Trent compares an upcoming romance novel, which inspired me to pick up the copy I'd had sitting on my shelves unread for eight or nine years. I got about a third of the way into it, and was rather enjoying the atmosphere and the dramatic adventure—smugglers (and worse) in early nineteenth-century Cornwall—but had misgivings about a few things... and it was at this point that I began dimly to recollect why I'd left the book unread on my shelves for years after liking Rebecca and The House on the Strand, which was that I'd heard something about what else was in it besides the thrilling adventure story, and, oh dear.

Well, I seldom DNF a book, so now I can report accurately on exactly what else is in it:

Girls, find yourself a man who treats you WRONG! Rude, careless, disrespectful, sexist—the lot. Got enough better judgement to realise you don't actually want to be with him?—perhaps even to have other priorities which you'd like to choose over him? Irrelevant! Attraction is everything; judgement, reasoned wishes and in fact all other desires are nothing, because you are a Silly Irrational Woman and it's all you'll ever be capable of. Happy ending! :)

P.S. weird-looking disabled people are evil.

I was going to say 'the one thing that could be said for it is that it's got a good strong sense of place', but then in the final chapter du Maurier manages to turn even that into something screamingly offensive. Impressively terrible.


Worrals in the Wilds by W. E. Johns (1947). The war is over, but Worrals and Frecks still find plenty of adventure, here by flying off to rescue Bill, who's gone missing in South Africa in mysterious gold-mine-related circumstances. This was a fun adventure, as always; it contains some great Worrals moments, some nice Worrals/Frecks material, and I was internally cheering when I realised that Worrals was going to get to steal yet another vehicle. However, it's now been three books in a row with some serious racism issues, and for that and another reason I think that probably ought to be it for me with this series. It's been fun, and I may well re-read the first four books at some point! Thanks to Biggles fandom for the introduction. :)


How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman (2013). I knew Goodman from the BBC Historical Farm television series, and this book has a similar sort of sensibility to 'Victorian Farm' and 'Victorian Pharmacy', being all about everyday life for ordinary Victorians. It's structured around a typical day, beginning with chapters on personal hygiene (getting up and having a wash) and clothing (getting dressed) and continuing through meals, housework, jobs and the workplace, childcare and schools, leisure activities, and finally sex and sexuality (going to bed). It's a fascinating overview, full of interesting titbits of information; Goodman writes engagingly and makes great use of her own hands-on historical experience, describing what it's really like to operate Victorian machinery, wear Victorian sanitary towels, do the laundry Victorian-style, etc. The overall impression, besides the hardship and poverty of it all, is of how variable and complicated everything was: the book gives a good sense of how practices and opinions changed over the period and how different ones coexisted. However, touching on such a wide range of topics means it can't explore anything in very great depth; and the odd lack of references prevents the reader from easily following up on things they want to read more about, which this sort of book would otherwise have been perfect for. There's not even a general 'further reading' list! Very disappointing, though otherwise I do recommend the book.


Call for the Dead by John le Carré (1961). Various thoughts about this, in rough order of relevance:

• This first of the George Smiley novels is apparently a relatively light, gentle book, before things get really grim and harrowing later on in the series. This book deals with, among other things: the long tragedy and legacy of the Holocaust, and the motivations of Jewish survivors who go on to become Communist spies; the British protagonist's recognition of the complex and somewhat-sympathetic motives of his enemies in that context, including one who was his own colleague during the war; the all-but-murder of one of the antagonists by the protagonist (besides the three unambiguous murders that have already happened), and protagonist's serious feelings about that; two instances of near-fatal head injuries sustained by major characters in attacks; AND the protagonist's complicated heartbreak over his wife just having left him. I'm really not sure I want to know what the rest of the series is like.
• It is also an enjoyable twisty murder mystery, but I think that was all a bit much.
• Le Carré has a few annoying modern prose style habits, e.g., his use of present-tense set phrases ('that is', 'God knows', etc.) in a past-tense narrative: that can work if you have an omniscient narrator with a clear voice, who can narrate events in the past and also address the reader in the present, but I don't think it works when your past-tense narration is clearly inside a character's head, as it is here.
• I am kind of shipping Smiley and Mendel.
• Book design thoughts. This is the first book in the series which also includes The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and with the edition I got from the library you will not forget this, because its front cover has 'THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD' on it in letters only somewhat smaller than the title of the actual book, with 'An earlier work from the author of' in much smaller letters above that. However it also has the wordcount on the front cover (45,000; gosh, this book is dense), an innovation which has my cautious approval.
• I cannot figure out how this tax evasion/money-laundering (?) scheme works, and it's maddening. Can anyone else make the numbers add up? The speaker runs a car hire business; the person hiring the car is not in on the scheme; quid = pound, bob = shilling (1/20th of a pound), tenner = ten pounds:

'Bloke wants a car for a day. You take twenty quid deposit in notes, right? When he comes back he owes you forty bob, see? You give him a cheque for thirty-eight quid, show it on your books as a loss and the job's worth a tenner. Got it?'

(Now contemplating a post-war AU where Worrals becomes a spy instead...)

Comments

[sovay]

I was going to say 'the one thing that could be said for it is that it's got a good strong sense of place', but then in the final chapter du Maurier manages to turn even that into something screamingly offensive.

How does that happen?

(I am fond of the 1939 film of Jamaica Inn, but mostly for Robert Newton and Emlyn Williams and the parts of the plot where Maureen O'Hara is not being tied up. Her rescuing Robert Newton is a lot more fun.)

I'm really not sure I want to know what the rest of the series is like.

If it helps, I would not have described Call for the Dead as light, I would just have said that it and A Murder of Quality (1962) are much more like traditional detective novels than everything le Carré wrote after them.

Re the car hire scheme: there must be an angle I am also missing. Forty shillings from twenty pounds leaves eighteen pounds, the check for thirty-eight pounds should therefore produce a discrepancy of twenty pounds again, not a tenner. It feels like there's a step left out and the exchange of notes for a check doesn't seem to account for it. I am happy to be corrected since I am left feeling bad at crime.

[troisoiseaux]

Re the car hire scheme: there must be an angle I am also missing.

Check fraud? Money laundering?

[sovay]

Money laundering?

Because of the importance of converting cash to check (and therefore to new cash), I think it has to be, so the step I was missing was mildred_of_midgard's suggestion that the person hiring the car is a confederate, in which case both parties get a tenner out of it (and not the original one, either).

[mildred_of_midgard]

(Here via network)

It only makes sense to me if the "bloke" hiring the car is in on it. Because if he gives you 20 and you write him a check for 38 instead of 18, he's going to know something doesn't add up. But if he knows there's 20 quid left over, and he agrees to split it with you, then the job's worth a tenner.

Otherwise, it makes no sense to me or to reddit.

[sovay]

But if he knows there's 20 quid left over, and he agrees to split it with you, then the job's worth a tenner.

That makes sense both mathematically and shadily. Otherwise, agreed (and amused that this passage obviously needs a gloss in a critical edition).

[mildred_of_midgard]

Someone needs to explain to us how to do crime properly!

[ethelmay]

From the context, unfortunately, he can't be a confederate (one such customer gave fake info and stole the car). I think maaaaaybe the original "twenty quid" should have been "forty quid," and then the crucial thing is that Scarr didn't report the cash income but did report the outgoing check payment as a loss. So in addition to 2 pounds legitimate income (40 in, 38 out), plus the float until the check clears (assuming of course it even does), he'd have a tax deduction of 38 pounds, which is apparently worth 10 pounds. I admit that the tax fiddle doesn't seem quite directly criminal enough for this guy, but otherwise where does the loss on the books fit in? Or is that just gravy on top of some other scheme that I'm not getting?

Under the customer-in-cahoots theory, splitting the 20 pounds only nets out right for Scarr if the check is no good, because otherwise he's taking in 10 and giving out 38. But if the check is no good, the customer is giving in 20 and getting back 10 and a bad check. So that wouldn't really be "in cahoots," but a mark who thinks he's in cahoots.

[regshoe]

Given the number of places on the internet that have apparently failed to figure this out, I was beginning to suspect that perhaps it actually doesn't make sense as written... and the idea that it should have been forty pounds to start with does make more sense of it! So perhaps it's that, with £2 unreported profit and £38 reported-but-spurious loss, there's £40 income on which he's not paying tax, and (supposing the relevant rate is 25%—I've no idea whether it might be), that's worth £10?...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you for the additional context. I obviously haven't read the book.

I agree it sounds like he messed up the numbers, then, and confused generations of readers!

Under the customer-in-cahoots theory, splitting the 20 pounds only nets out right for Scarr if the check is no good, because otherwise he's taking in 10 and giving out 38.

See, I was differentiating between the business and Scarr as an individual: the business eats the 38 quid check, while Scarr pockets 10 in untraceable notes as an individual. Not only is that unreported income for him as an individual, it means the business profit looks lower. It also makes it easier for Scarr to squirrel away those unreported assets somewhere where they can't be touched by the business's creditors. So tax fraud and embezzlement.

If you treat Scarr the businessman and Scarr the individual as financially undifferentiated, then, yes, the math doesn't work except under the circumstances you described.

[regshoe]

Hello! I love how many places on the internet can't figure this out :D —and that also inclines me to the view that, as ethelmay suggests, le Carré messed up the numbers and it actually doesn't make sense as written.

[regshoe]

How does that happen?

Ugh, so in the last chapter Mary, the main character, is wondering whether she should stay with Terrible Love Interest after all. The book began with her leaving her old home to go and live at Jamaica Inn on the moors, and she starts thinking of her old home, in lots of loving and beautiful detail, and she realises that despite her attraction to TLI, what she really wants is to go back there and live the old life she loved in peace and contentment. At this point I, with very little faith in the author left, am squinting in suspicion and going, 'Really?...' Then TLI turns up again, and you can guess the rest.

I am glad to hear the film is apparently not very faithful :D

A Murder of Quality does sound interesting—I gather it features public schools, and that plus spies is making me think it might make a good comparison to Another Country—so I might try it.

I think ethelmay has got it with the car hire scheme: le Carré messed up the numbers and the deposit should have been 'forty quid', not twenty. Then £38 is the correct net amount owed to the customer, and the scammer has made £2 unreported profit and reported £38 spurious loss—that's £40 he's not paying tax on, and supposing he would have had to pay tax at 25%, he's made £10... or something!

[muccamukk]

I support your post-war Worrals plans. Or she can retire. Or do ANYTHING other than a tour of the colonies. Space race?

[regshoe]

Worrals IN SPACE is an excellent idea, I support this too :D

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Like sovay above, I've only seen the film adaptation of Jamaica Inn (and liked it for similar reasons), and after reading your thoughts, I'm thinking I've dodged a bullet by avoiding the book so far! XD

I remember the Worrals (and Biggles!) books from when I was learning English, I got some of them at a used bookstore, because the owner recommended them as being fun for young people and easy enough for ESL readers. I can't remember which ones I read, but can definitely remember going "hmmm that sounds super racist" at several moments. It's true that several older books have this problem, but it never stops being annoying!

[regshoe]

I think you did—and I'm pleased to hear the film is apparently so unfaithful XD

Oh dear, it is annoying. The better Worrals and Biggles books sound like a fun way to practise English, though!

[phantomtomato]

I have not read any le Carré, but that quote is so distinctive that this meme discussion from earlier in the year stuck with me:

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/645031.html?thread=3974483879#cmt397

I love how this single line seems to have confounded everyone who read it! That’s very funny.

[sovay]

I have not read any le Carré, but that quote is so distinctive that this meme discussion from earlier in the year stuck with me

Thank you for that link! This feels like le Carré was a lot better at incluing espionage than petty crime.

[regshoe]

Haha, I remembered that thread too—I was thinking, if they can't figure it out, I'll try asking here and see if anyone can... XD But I think ethelmay has got it—the amount of confusion in different places on the internet was inclining me to suspect that perhaps le Carré (or the printers) made a mistake and it actually doesn't make sense as written, and I think substituting 'forty pounds' for twenty produces something a bit more explicable.

[ethelmay]

Not sure exactly which year this is set, but the standard tax rate in the 1950s for non-rich people seems to have been higher than 25%, though you wouldn't pay it on all your income by any means. In 1951-1952 it was nine shillings and sixpence in the pound, or 47.5% (higher than late 40s when it was 9s in the pound, or 45%). So I think the £20 is right after all, and the £38 should be £18. Scarr thinks of his marginal tax rate as about half, so rounds up to "a tenner."

[regshoe]

There, that makes sense of it! Thank you for the additional tax info :)

[ethelmay]

You're welcome - it was fun, in my peculiar fashion. Incidentally, for fellow U.S. readers, those tax rates aren't so shocking when you realize they covered at least some of the things that we separate out as Social Security and health insurance and so on. Plus of course rebuilding after the war.

[regshoe]

They look pretty shocking from a modern UK perspective too!—from a very brief look round Wikipedia, National Insurance (a sort of additional income tax which funds state pensions and some benefits, similar to your 'Social Security and health insurance'?) did exist at this time but the rate was probably lower, and VAT (sales tax on most goods and services) did not yet exist, so perhaps it balances out a bit. Fascinating stuff.

[osprey_archer]

Jamaica Inn is such an infuriating book. The love interest is THE WORST, and unlike in for instance Rebecca where the fact that the reader can see the love interest is the worst (even if our narrator never quite grasps it) is part of the POINT, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to cheer the "happy ending." He's awful. I hope he dies in a ditch.

Call for the Dead is light only in comparison to other John Le Carre books, which means that the scale is completely borked to begin with. A Murder of Quality is comparable (and, as you say, with public schools!) and then we take a deep dive for the bleak.

[regshoe]

He's awful. I hope he dies in a ditch.

I'm glad you think so too, and I totally agree :D

Well, I will give A Murder of Quality a try at some point, and then see how I feel about the prospect of some real bleakness...