Spine observations


I stumbled across this image in a typical Swedish interiors book. Full of  'miss-matched' furniture, stripped back wooden floors, classic scandinavian design, string shelves, novelty slogan posters and tea-towels. The book was titled 'Details', focusing on small well curated corners of apartments, and various 'quirky' items - such as a two-page spread devoted to toilet paper holders - intended to spruce up your home. Styling tip! It's all in the details apparently. My eyes latched on to this photo by pure chance - initially drawn to the beautiful chair-as-bedside table and rough white-washed walls, but on closer inspection was amazed to recognise the artfully stacked pile of books on the windowsill, realising them to be a collection of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's crime novels, written in the 60's and 70's, featuring the protagonist Martin Beck. I have my own collection of these at home (up on my string shelf in fact), trophies from extensive and dedicated rummaging through second hand stores. These were the first books I read in Swedish. I have a near compulsion to buy any copy I stumble across, including having managed to collect 5 copies of Roseanna, (two in English, 3 in Swedish) the first book in the series. I will make the claim that Roseanna is up there among the greatest novels in not just Swedish crime, but within the crime genre in general.

Sometimes it's not just about having the details, but noticing them as well.


Collection bound







One thing I would like to achieve during my lifetime is to collect all of Ngaio Marsh's 32 detective novels. I unashamedly call Ngaio Marsh my favourite author, and along with Raymond Chandler, Joseph Heller and Haruki Murakami, it is due to her amazing use of language. She uses some wonderfully obscure adjectives.
I am one who generally judges books by their cover. And I mean that literally. I try not to apply that phrase to people, but will stand by it when it comes to literature. There are some wonderful Ngaio Marsh covers, from the hand illustrated to the more boldy graphic as the editions move through from the 40's and 50's into the 60's. From the early 70's onwards, as photography was commonly used, the covers progressed steadily downhill.
So I am keeping my eyes peeled for striking covers that proudly proclaim the amazingness of the words which they contain. Above are some of the best. 

Evil Under the Sun



There was a slightly criminal atmosphere at the beach today, and it wasn't just my copy of Raymond Chandler's 'The Simple Art of Murder' which served as my post-bathe reading, accompanied by an Old Jamaica Ginger Beer.
I arrived to find that one end of the T shaped pier from which I swim had been burnt to a crisp, and not for the first time either. It made for a rather bleak image on a sunny, breezy day. It sort of appealed to the mood at the end of the pier though, the sea dark and choppy, colder than usual, me, the only person in the water - clouds kept covering the sun and dropping the temperature so regularly the Swedes couldn't decide whether or to have a dip or not. Most of the time they simply sunned themselves on the warm wood of the pier and looked at the cordoned off charred wood.
After a brisk swim to a buoy anchored a way off in the water with a pit-stop at the pontoon on the return trip, I left the pier to read my book in the grass, with the sun on my back.

The Story of a Crime




















                   






Two book covers from the Martin Beck series, collectively titled 'The Story of a Crime'. Both covers are almost opposites, one a watercolour, the other and photograph; Roseanna showing just the head, while The Man Who Went Up In Smoke shows a business suit in motion, sans body - it wafted away with the title.

The writing duo of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö each wrote alternate chapters for every book, a sort of collaboration I find particularly amazing - the ability to create characters, from the brains of two people, and keeping a believable continuity to their personalities.

I wonder if you can tell which chapters are written by whom? Did Maj Sjöwall take the odd numbers, and Per Wahlöö the even? Did they switch that around every book, so as not to give the game away? There is something pleasingly rounded and symmetrical about the whole process, in the way I find happiness in every Tintin book being 62 pages long.

Lamb to the Slaughter

My task in today's Swedish class was a close reading of the Swedish translation of Roald Dahl's darkly comedic short story 'Lamb to the Slaughter' (1953), known in Swedish as 'Mysteriet med det Försvunna Mordvapnet' (The Mystery of the Vanished Murder Weapon).

The tale concerns a wife who bludgeons her policeman husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb, puts the lamb in the oven, establishes an alibi going to the grocery store to buy vegetables to accompany her roast, and proceeds to serve the murder weapon to the investigating officers.

After a fruitless search, the policemen bandy about possible locations of the murder weapon, while waiting to be served their dinner.

"It's probably right under our very noses."





Lamb to the Slaughter was adapted for television twice, first in 1958 as part of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by the master of suspense himself, and starring Barbara Bel Geddes (Midge in Vertigo).

Another adaptation was included in Tales of the Unexpected, in 1979. Tales of the Unexpected was a collection of tales based on the short stories of Roald Dahl.

Grim Rieper







My costume for this halloween was Pauline Rieper/Parker, one half of the notorious Parker-Hulme teenage murdering duo, found guilty in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1954 for the murder of Pauline's mother, thus providing the basis for Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures.
Together they created an elaborate fantasy realm, 'The Fourth World', and hoped to sell their epic tales of adventure for adaptation to Hollywood films.
Pauline is best remembered for her detailed diaries, hatred of Orson Welles, and her love of Mario Lanza and Juliet Hulme.
Pauline's mother was viewed as the one stumbling block in the two girls' relationship, as both sets of parents began fearing the friendship bordered on homosexuality, and had decided complete separation was the only way to cure this 'mental illness'. Pauline and Juliet reasoned the only way they could be assured of staying together would be to bludgeon Mrs Rieper with half a brick in a stocking in a secluded part of Victoria Park.


Excerpts from Pauline's diaries:

We have decided how sad it is for other people that they
cannot appreciate our genius . . .
. . . but we hope the book will help them to do so a
little, though no one could fully appreciate us.

To think that so much could happen in so little time,
caused by so few. A terrible tragedy has occurred . . .

Mother woke me this morning and started lecturing me
before I was properly awake, which I thought was somewhat unfair. She
has brought up the worst possible threat now. She said that if my
health did not prove I could never see the Hulmes again. The thought is
too dreadful. Life would be unbearable without Deborah . . .

I rang Deborah immediately as I had to tell someone
sympathetic how I loathed Mother.

One thing Deborah and I are sticking to: through
everything, we sink or swim together.

Anger against Mother boiled up inside me as it is she who
is one of the main obstacle in my path. Suddenly a means of ridding
myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die . . .

Personal Preference

How to learn Swedish verbs:

There is an easier and more effective and entertaining way of learning the verb forms, though: By reading Swedish texts, newspaper articles, comic strips, and novels written in an everyday language (translations of Agatha Christie crime novels or love-stories by Barbara Cartland or whatever you personally prefer), you will soon meet all the common verbs - they are actually not that many - in a meaningful context, you will see their function in different sentences, how they are used in idiomatic phrases, and you will not have to spend time on the numerous verb forms that theoretically exist but are rarely used. The first pages of such a book in Swedish may naturally take some time to tackle, but it will not be long before you will be able to recognize and understand an amazingly large number of words. With a basic knowledge of the verb system in Swedish it will be even easier.

Now to begin my collection of Agatha Christie crime novels in Swedish for educational purposes.

Wood from the Trees





obsessed with the forest green penguin crime & mystery titles. the only problem lies in whether to begin collecting the works of Ngaio Marsh or Raymond Chandler?
and so to begin the florence wild crime library.

Whilst working at Special Collections daintily vacuuming mold off rare and old books, I began taking Ngaio Marsh novels off the shelves one by one to reread as I cleaned.

I would be satisfied if my personal library held the complete works of Ngaio Marsh, Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, along with sundry others.

I am always surprised I can read murder mysteries again and again, I would have thought the interest and intrigue would have worn out after one reading.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time


Upper Baker Street, c. 1905, Baker Street and Portman Mansions, c. 1900, and Bell Street, N.W. 1, c. 1904

Carlisle Street, N.W. 1, with some 'Baker Street Irregulars'

City of London street, c. 1900, Marylebone Road, 1900, and Paddington Station, 1896

Melcombe Street, N.W.1, 1898

'Upper Swandham Lane'

Sherlock Holmes and his interest in dogs.

'I have serious thoughts of writing a small monograph upon the uses of dogs in the work of the detective.'

"May I draw your attention to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.


Sherlock Holmes 's sitting-room at 221B Baker Street

Illustrations from 'My Life With Sherlock Holmes: Conversations in Baker Street', by John H. Watson, M.D.

Murder at the Savoy



In 1969 Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote the crime novel Murder at the Savoy, the sixth novel in the series The Story of a Crime. Because it went beyond the previous ideals and format of crime fiction, the series is today regarded as the starting point of an iconic genre. Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s stylistic authorship brought insight into real police work and made visible society’s social and political structures in a new way. Crime fiction moved from being a genre in which an upper-class character had been solving murder mysteries at castles and estates, towards creating an understanding of the real work of a police detective. The couple’s collaboration and their perspective have been inspiring crime writers ever since, and have now inspired us to create an art project.

The novel’s plot begins with a murder at the Hotel Savoy in Malmö. It is the summer of 1969 and the CEO of an international company has been shot. The clues lead back to shady weapon deals linked to top leaders in society. The government orders parallel investigations by the secret service. Chief Inspector Martin Beck is called down from Stockholm to solve the case together with Per Månsson from Malmö.

Malmö Konsthall has invited 15 artists to participate in the exhibition project Murder at the Savoy. The novel functions as a platform allowing artists to blend fiction and reality at different places in Malmö. The novel’s plot, characters and settings, or social and political dimensions have influenced the creation of these art works. Murder at the Savoy is designed to be an exhibition about a crime and the project therefore involves a number of different art forms and genres. For example, visitors will encounter works that reflect upon the role of the police and the media in society. The project will present photographs, paintings, sculptures, performance art, installations and videos at various locations in the city.

The excellent Malmö Konsthall has me all in a tither, with what looks to be a brilliant concept for a show opening on the eve of my two week sojourn to the UK.
MURDER AT THE SAVOY - EXHIBITION OF A CRIME runs only for a week, and I will be rueing the missed opportunity to engage in the exhibition which incorporates performances around Malmö, plus other public programmes relating to the crime genre.

The thing that excites me most is that the concept for the show explores many ideas I investigate within my own artistic practice, noticably the underlying themes and plot devices from the crime genre and murder mysteries, the blending of fiction and reality, primarily through popular culture references, and the interdisciplinary approach I take to these ideas. Hypothetical works whirl around my head and I think about stealthily installing a work of my own accord. Indeed, I even did a cycle-by (as opposed to a drive-by) of the Hotel Savoy this afternoon, in all its art deco glory, to scope out the scene of the fictional crime.


The scene of the crime in 1964.
During the exhibition the Malmö City Archive will present a photographic journey through the footsteps of the murderer using photographs from the time (1969). Here's hoping I can see this at the opening.

text and images from the Malmö Konsthall press release.

And whilst Murder at the Savoy has a rather nice ring to it, the original Swedish title is naturally, far superior - POLIS, POLIS, POTATIMOS! - which translates to "Police! Police! Mashed Potato!"
A variation of a well-known children's rhyme, "Polis, Polis, Potatisgris!" (Police, Police, Potato Pig!).

I look forward to the Sunday vernissage at the Hotel Savoy with much anticipation.

The Intrepid Shamus


The Raymond Chandler Mystery Map of Los Angeles. Locales frequented by Philip Marlowe, the way LA used to be, as described by Raymond Chandler. Painstakingly researched, it resides somewhere between fiction and reality, with Chandler's Los Angeles overlapping the city in it's present state, revealing buildings and locations Chandler attempted to disguise and camouflage, nestled amongst iconic sites like Union Station and The Chinese Theatre.
I am in awe of the cartographical detective who created this.
Hollywood, Bay City, Los Angeles.

CLIMAX! The Long Goodbye

CASE SOLVED

Corpse Walks Away During Drama on TV

And the dead man got up and slowly walked away...

No doubt about it. Thousands of televiewers were talking about it yesterday.
It seems that on the new high-budgeted CBS dramatic series, Climax, which had its debut on KNXT (2) Thursday night, actor Tristam Coffin was lying under a blanket and Detective Dick Powell was talking about having the body removed when the actor arose from the dead and strolled off scene.
Powell and the other actors went right on talking as if nothing had happened. And the show went on and the private eye finally solved the murder, leaving televiewers a little perplexed.
CBS blushingly explained yesterday that Coffin thought the scene was over and that he was off-camera when he took his macabre stroll.

 - Los Angeles Times (October 1954)


SLAIN GUY CRAWLS OFF VIDEO SET

CLIMAX! On its premier from Hollywood last night the new Climax series reached a totally unexpected climax. For it's opener, the series presented a tight, taut Raymond Chandler murder thriller titled, "The Long Goodbye", starring Dick Powell as a private eye.
The action had moved to it's moment of greatest impact. An alcoholic author had just been mysteriously shot. A blanket was drawn over the body and while the viewers sought to figure out who killed the victim, the body got up and crawled off-stage on all fours, dragging the blanket atop him.
We haven't seen a camera booboo so ludicrous since the early days of tv when WBKB put on "Arsenic and [Old] Lace", and the corpse in the window seat suddenly came to life.
Despite this bobble, this was a great show with Powell turning in a top-grade performance as a casual, cool detective, who unraveled a complicated case, but I'll be he will always insist on a filmed show in the future to avoid such boners, even though he had no part in causing this one.

- Chicago Daily Tribune (October 1954)


Curtains! Adieu to ze little grey cells


Yesterday I read the final Poirot novel by Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. Written in the forties, the Queen of Crime stowed the manuscript away for thirty years in a bank vault, to be released as she, like Poirot, was about to kick the bucket.
As part of my three goals I wanted to achieve in my lifetime, reading Christie's oeuvre was one, along with learning how to lip read and to buy a one way ticket somewhere in the world.
So far I have successfully completed one of these.
Having been reading the works of Agatha Christie on and off since I was twelve, it was getting to the point where I could no longer remember which ones I had read and which I had not (part of the enjoyment is the familiarity of all the plotlines, the repetitive dialogue and the archetypal characters, all cardboard cut outs off each other). The English Upper-class are all so painfully alike.
Christie was my favourite novelist, even though members of my family scorned me for reading them, for it could hardly be called 'high literature'. Until my mother put me on to Ngaio Marsh, I would rarely issue any other author out of the library, except if there was a Christie drought and I didn't have a choice.
That is what happened yesterday, and Curtain was the only tome left to be read. I had been holding out on this one as I knew Poirot met his demise in the end, and I wasn't sure I would want to read any more once I knew he was dead. So it was a sad farewell to an inevitable end, that I knew was coming and had been putting off for many years.
At least his hair and moustaches we black and immaculate until the end, even if it was a wig and a fake moustache.

Hardboiled in a nutshell

The lobby looked like a high-budget musical. A lot of light and glitter, a lot of scenery, a lot of clothes, a lot of sound, an all-star cast, and a plot with the originality and drive of a split fingernail.

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pyjamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.
A cigarette girl came down the gangway. She wore an egret plume in her hair, enough clothes to hide behind a toothpickm one of her long beautiful naked legs was silver, and one was gold. She had the utterly disdainful expression of a dame who makes her dates by long distance.

- Marlowe. Drink while waiting?
- A dry martini will do.
- A martini. Dry. Veddy, veddy dry.
- Okay.
- Will you eat it with a spoon or a knife and fork?
- Cut it into strips, I said. I'll just nibble at it.
-On your way to school, he said. Should I put the olive in a bag for you?
-Sock me on the nose with it, I said. If it will make you feel any better.
-Thank you, sir, he said. A dry martini.

'You're a man named Marlowe?' she asked, looking at me. She put her hips against the end of the desk and crossed her ankles.
I said I was a man named Marlowe.
'By and large,' she said, 'I am quite sure I am not going to like you one damned bit. So speak your piece and drift away.'
'What I like about this place is everything runs true to type,' I said. 'The cop on the gate, the shine on the door, the cigarette and check girls, the fat greasy sensual Jew with the tall stately bored showgirl, the well-dressed, drunk and horribly rude director cursing the barman, the silent guy with the gun, the night-club owner with the soft grey hair and the B-picture mannerisms, and now you - the tall dark torcher with the negligent sneer, the husky voice, the hard-boiled vocabulary.'

Passages from 'The High Window', by Raymond Chandler.

Another sunday rolled around, and I started another detective story. I read, eat some popcorn washed down with a glass of pepsi and accompanied by the American Graffiti soundtrack and some Sinatra. A top-notch sunday really, maximum excitement with minimum exertion.

Chandler's writing is exciting enough. I find myself rereading passages and experiment reciting them in my head, with inflections on different words, some parts sped up, others slowed down. In my head I feel like I am almost spitting the words out, and my voice is scathing and rambling and rude and witty and charming all at the same time. I love how the descriptions of people and places are so sharp and original and lyrical. I begin to test out phrases in my mind from my everyday life in Chandleresque prose . And its intimate, you know, written in the first person. Sometimes I find it hard to pick up what is dialogue and what isn't. The way you feel that it is only you who can understand Marlowe's jargon and insults, and the puns and wisecracks float over the other characters' heads (sometimes this happens, sometimes not).
Raymond Chandler, I feel, could be a man to agree that 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. Then is it strange that he writes hard-boiled fiction? Perhaps not.


We watched 'The Big Sleep' last night, with Bogie & Bacall. It was great, it is great, a staple of the film noir genre, major stars acting well, snappy dialogue, all that jazz. Its presevered by the Library of Congress, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and all.
But Chandler's lyrical descriptions couldn't quite be transformed to celluloide and
the film just didn't quite get there. Its nice to think some books still come out trumps over cinematic adaptation.

Letters and Notes


With the easter break looming, I was in dire need of some new reading material. The books I had brought with me to Malmö are all much loved and well thumbed, my volume of Sherlock Holmes novels, a couple of Ngaio Marsh's, Gatsby, and The Skinny Louie Book by Fiona Farrell, one in the new Penguin New Zealand series, given by an aunt as a parting gift. I am the kind of person who will read the same books, watch the same films, and listen to the same music again and again, and never tire of it. But even I need some welcome additions to the list every so often. I was excited to learn Malmö stadbibliotek had shelves detective fiction (in english) for my to read and re-read, along with some Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Murakami. The usual suspects.

One thing I did find out of left field was a TINTIN ROMANCE. Well this is what it appears to be at first glance, and probably the reason I borrowed it. Actually, its a novel by Frederic Tuten, titled Tintin in the New World: a romance . Apparently, Tuten transplants Tintin from his comic book confines into a fleshed out, realistic world with all its wicked, grave and abstruse trappings. Sounds like my kind of story.


cover of Tintin in the New World with artwork by Roy Lichtenstein (1993)

I only bought six records with me to Sweden, Roy Orbison 'Mystery Girl', Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours', The Beatles 'Please, Please Me', The Righteous Brothers 'Greatest Hits', Elvis Presley '50 000 000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong' and the Original Soundtrack of 'The Singing Detective'.
However with the purchase of an ipod before I left, slowly a collection of music is beginning again.
The past few days of avid reading have been accompanied by some excellent tunes.

Cowboy in Sweden and The Story of Them

As I never listened to either of these in Auckland I feel like I can associate them solely with my new life in Sweden. Now I just need to build up another record collection - with Cowboy in Sweden and at least one Them album in there.

The mystery of the two cups of tea

While Florence Broadhurst was celebrated for her brilliant fabric, wallpaper designs and patterns, her 1977 death remains shrouded in mystery. Speculation was rife that she had fallen victim to a serial killer who murdered elderly woman However others believed Florence's killer was known to her, due to the presence of two cups of tea found near her body, suggestive of a rendezvous.