The Case of the Gilded Fly (1944)

The first novel in the Gervase Fen series and the first of Crispin's novels which I've read, this was the August 2012 group read for the English Mysteries Book Club. Gervase Fen, an Oxford don and gifted amateur detective, solves the murder of an actress apparently hated by all who knew her.

This review, written by my friend Jane and this one written by my friend Tracey, leave me little to say about the novel. Jane and Tracey (as usual) do a great job with their analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

I’ll content myself with listing the things I most like and dislike about the novel. First, the things I like:

• The WWII Oxford setting;

• The stylish prose (possibly a bit pretentious, with its liberal sprinkling of Latin quotations and literary allusions, but I’m a sucker for that sort of thing);

• The post-modern, self-referential touches;

• The theatre theme;

• The juxtaposition of the lecturer in literature who loves detecting crime and the policeman whose hobby is literary criticism;

• Gervase Fen’s put-upon but wonderfully snarky wife.

Now for the things I dislike:

• The confusing cast of characters who were difficult to distinguish one from the other.

• The incredibly annoying Fen. I accept that he’s supposed to be annoying, but I kept hoping that something about his eccentricity would become endearing. It didn’t.

• The relentless misogyny of the text. For me, this went beyond the difference between language and attitudes which were acceptable in the 1940s but are not acceptable today. According to the narrative, the victim, a sexually promiscuous and deeply unpleasant young woman, deserved to be murdered. In fact, the murderer did the world a favour by disposing of her and Gervase Fen spends a lot of time asking himself and other characters whether apprehending and punishing the murderer would be just. I’d like to think that this was, as my friend Jane believes, the author playing with his readers, but I’m concerned that it was meant seriously. While I’ve become accustomed to the casual anti-Semitism and racism which is prevalent in pre-WWII British crime fiction, I’ve not encountered such obvious sexism before in this kind of novel. It may just be that I’m used to reading female mystery writers of the period – such as Sayers and Tey – who dealt with gender issues in quite a different way.

Overall, in my mind the negatives of this novel outweigh the positives. My reading of other reviews of Crispin’s work suggests that this is not the best of the Gervase Fen series, so I may read another at some point. But I won’t be in any great hurry to do so.

Rounded up to three stars because of the great setting, the excellent prose and Mrs Fen.





( )

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Book Description: Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseult, a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen--scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire--who would infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseult is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Though clear kin to Lord Peter Wimsey, Fen is a spectacular original--brilliant, eccentric and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat, and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen's first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery), whom the New York Times once called the heir to John Dickson Carr . . . and Groucho Marx.

My Review: Tedious, fusty, and supercilious.

Well, that about sums that up. ( )

I've been a Crispin fan, in a subliminal sort of way, for years. I read several – probably picked up at library sales – and quietly reveled in the sharp wit and erudition. And then kind of forgot about them; Crispin has been on my List for a long time, but I've never bestirred myself to finish my collection. So I was tickled when this first book in the series – which I'd never picked up before – became the book-of-the-month at the revived Goodreads English Mysteries Group.

It's been a long time since I've read a Gervase Fen mystery. And now I'm going to have to go back and read the others again, because I want to know if I still like them. I'm none too sure I really liked this one.

Great line: "Thank you, Miss Whitelegge. You've been involuntarily informative to a high degree."

The sharp wit was very much in evidence – so sharp it drew blood in a few places. The erudition was very much there – the sort of careless sophistication that tosses off literary reference and foreign language commentary without explanation or translation, as a reminder that either general education was much more thorough in England in the first half of the 20th century … or that Edmund Crispin's education was ever so much better. Or simply that mine wasn't. This culminated in an extraordinarily frustrating reference-drop in the very last chapter; without spoilers, the provenance of a major component of the murder scene, left almost completely unexplained up to that point, is questioned, and Fen tosses off "I believe it was in Act IV, scene iv." He mentions Shakespeare. Which play? You mean you don't know? Tut tut. (A kind friend clued me in before I had to go Goodsearch: It's King Lear.)

The tone of the book is almost painfully modern (or is it postmodern?). I'm fairly sure other writers were still tap dancing around extra-marital love affairs to some degree, unless of course I'm mentally whitewashing. Not Crispin. His characters make statements about their love lives and wait for audience reaction. The play at the heart of the book is terribly, terribly modern; the sexual mores are modern; the attitudes – well, you get the idea. If there had been any paintings discussed in the book they would have been either all sharp and ugly angles, or Pollocks, all filled with the deepest meaning or aggressively without meaning. At the same time, the deep roots of Oxford are well utilized, dim old rooms and history clinging in the stairwells and organ loft – but it's very clear that the world is changing. This could be down to the War: blackout must be observed (and there is a really wonderful quick moment when an exception is made), and there are a few other glances toward the Blitz and the front, but on the whole I found it easy to forget this was supposed to be taking place some five years into Britain's war effort.

Something I kept finding in looking up Edmund Crispin was the constant refrain of how much Gervase Fen owes to Lord Peter Wimsey. So I found this quote utterly remarkable:

Fen: "But don't you see, whatever I do, I shall have it on my conscience till I reach the grave."
Mrs. Fen: "Nonsense, Gervase, you're exaggerating. Either way, you'll have forgotten completely about it in three months. Anyway, a detective with a conscience is ludicrous. If you're going to make all this fuss about it afterwards, you shouldn't interfere in these things at all."

Well. Well, well, well. So … was this a snark from Crispin directly at Lord Peter? It can't but be so. This was originally published in 1944, after the bulk (if not all) of the Lord Peter material had been released. There's no doubt Crispin knew Lord Peter – if nothing else, Fen bears a striking resemblance to what would result if Peter were stuck in a blender with Holmes and the archetypal absent-minded professor and gently pulsed. Interesting that the words are put into the mouth of Dolly Fen, who struck me as a kind of wonderful character. She is the only possible wife for the flighty, forgetful, distractible Fen, calm and steady and with a great sense of humor ("Shall I pull the trigger?" I loved that); it's a little surreal that this helpmeet, whom I really liked, should administer a smack-down on one of my favorite fictional human beings.

Crispin had to have known Sayers – and he also knew John Dickson Carr:

"Oh my fur and whiskers! ... Heaven grant Gideon Fell never becomes privy to my lunacy; I should never hear the end of it." -- Gervase Fen (whose name, I think perhaps, owes something to the latter gentleman.)

I loved the ghost story old Wilkes told – loved it to pieces, until the end, which didn't quite make sense. A boy was killed by a group of men who hunted him down and beat him to death. Some four or five hundred years later a boy is chased by something unseen – all broken bones and teeth – and winds up beaten to death himself. But the elements didn't seem to come together; was the ghost the hunted boy or the pack that hunted him, or was one part of the story and the other the one which did the murder? If it fit a little bit too perfectly into the setting (and suddenly a shot rang out!), it was forgivably theatrical.

There was a great deal to enjoy about The Gilded Fly. Was this a brilliantly written book? Absolutely. Was it a good murder mystery? Absolutely. Was the stuff in there about theatre and Oxford in 1944 wonderful? Absolutely. Did I love the self-aware reference to Gideon Fell (and, in a sort of way, to Lord Peter)? Absolutely. Was the snapshot of Oxford in wartime terrific? Absolutely. Was the entire bracketing sequence about the trains into Oxford funny and excellent? Absolutely. Was all of this completely undermined and overshadowed (both!) by the snarky Lord-I'm-so-much-cleverer-than-you-could-ever-dream-of-being attitude of the Great Detective and, apparently, his creator? Absolutely. ( )

Where I got the book: purchased used through Amazon. Absolutely marvelous dreadful cover.

Having had a few days to allow this murder mystery to percolate through my brain, I have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is a novel-length p*ss-take of the genre and that the author was laughing up his sleeve at the reader the whole time. Set in Oxford during World War II, the story revolves around a repertory theater group who are putting on--from scratch in one week--a play by a brilliant playwright who is also involved in the production. Bitchy actress Yseut makes trouble for everyone and practices her seductive wiles on as many men as possible, and gets her comeuppance via a bullet hole in the head. Is the ring on her finger (a gilded fly) a clue?

We are introduced to the amateur detective Gervase Fen, a professor and literary critic who works out the crime in three minutes and spends the rest of the book dropping hints about how he knows what went on but he's not going to tell anyone until they've worked it out for themselves, neener neener neener. This, of course, allows time for another murder to take place, so Fen is in fact responsible for a death. In the meantime, the rest of the cast and crew get on with the show that must go on, nobody really caring a rat's *ss about the murder victim because she was a beyotch and a ho anyway. Which demonstrates that the author knew a lot about actors.

Fen makes me think of the lead character in the brilliant BBC Sherlock, so irritating he's fascinating (I think the original Sherlock was supposed to be that way, but time has hallowed him). The supporting cast is fairly unmemorable, except for Mrs. Fen whom I adore utterly. The "official" detective--whose passion is for literary criticism--is an absolutely brilliant idea, but he's not rounded out well enough for me.

Yep, I honestly think that everything I found annoying about this book was put there on purpose to annoy. I think Crispin was having his bit o' fun with us stupid readers. When he makes Fen say, mid-book, "In fact I'm the only literary critic turned detective in the whole of fiction", I think he's showing us right there that his intention is to subvert the murder mystery genre rather than add to it.

The writing, on the other hand, was superb and often very funny. Crispin displays very little sympathy for the world he describes and the people in it; he's laughing AT everyone, I swear.

This book may get a re-read just because. In the meanwhile, my feelings about a rating hover between a 3 (for being bloody annoying) and a 5 (for being a bloody good writer). Let's just call it a 4 and have done with it. ( )

If you enjoy mid-century British murder mysteries, you should find this satisfying, for it contains all the prerequisite elements: a large cast of suspects (the cast & crew of an Oxford dramatic production); an unlikeable victim (a female actress/femme fatale); a "how could the murder possibly have happened" intellectual puzzle; lots of clues; a complicated timetable; and an eccentric detective - Gervase Fen, irrascable college English Lit don, in harness with a literature-loving Scotland Yard inspector. Crispin's a competent writer and a deft hand at irony.

Unfortunately, the novel also includes many genre staples that date these novels and sometimes render them less accesssible/entertaining to modern audiences: little/no character development; a bewildering cast of characters (many of them with similar names, just to add to the confusion); lots of improbable coincidence; little action; and that hoariest of cliches, the "gather all the suspects in the living room and announce the murderer" denoument.

As it happens, I'm a fan of the Golden Age of British mystery (viva la Agatha Christie!), but even so, had trouble warming up to this one. One major reason is the red herrings. I love a cunningly planted misdirection as well as the next gal, but the problem here is that the red herrings (sorry - can't list them without spoiling the ending) turn out not to be even peripherally related to the outcome; which still might be forgivable if only the red herrings weren't so much more entertaining and fraught with dramatic potential than the rather lame, unexceptional solution that is eventually provided! A second reason I think I had trouble warming to this was way Crispin basically "phones in" the character of Gervase Fen. In later books in the series, he develops into an intriguing and believable character; in this first outing, however, Crispin does little to make Fen's eccentricities either relevant or interesting.

So there it is: though not without flaws, Gilded Fly is a creditable archetype of the genre, and you could certainly do a whole lot worse. (Cough - mysteries featuring cats, quilts, or recipes - cough!) ( )