The Rich and The Poor

Spook Country by William Gibson is definitely an abstract book. The novel is exploring a futuristic form of art in which the art is only viewable through a visor that allows you to see this “virtual reality” art. The novel is very straightforward and doesn’t have a lot of imagery or themes. One thing I have noticed however is the mentioning of different God’s, and how the God’s are addressed. Hollis Henry, a reporter, is staying in an expensive hotel. She goes into the lobby of this hotel and notices an artistic carpet that is projected onto the ground from over head. She says that the carpet has stylized squiggles. This style was:

"Originally intended, she remembered having been told, to avoid offending Allah."

This mentioning of Allah takes place in a hotel where wealthy people would stay, and in an environment where the wealthy would dwell. The mention of Allah is not that the carpet is an offering to Allah, or anything positive for Allah. It is a way to avoid offending Allah. They do not care to have any form of relationship with Allah; they only wish to avoid his wrath. I see this a lot in the world today. People don’t want to have to follow God’s commands, but they pray to God when things go wrong, and go to church on Christmas and Easter because “they should”. People who can supply their own physical needs don’t see themselves as needing God; they just don’t want God to smite them.

A contrast to the wealthy’s view of God is that of the poor. There is a character in the novel that is involved in theft and crime. He lives an apartment that is unfinished and has a bare cement ceiling. He has little money, and definitely would not be the type to stay in the hotel that Hollis is. He mentions how he pays homage to his God:

"…stood a small blue vase from a Chinese department store on Canal, a fragile thing he had secretly dedicated to the goddess Ochun, she whom Cuban Catholics knew as Our Lady of Charity"

He has dedicated a vase to his god; he is doing something for his god. He hopes that this god of charity will bring him charity, as he needs her. His dedicating the vase in secret shows he is not doing it as a means of appearing better, he is doing it because he needs this goddess to bring him charity and provide for him.

The contrast between the rich and the poor with relation to God is prevalent today just as it was in the times of Jesus. Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. The rich avoid God’s wrath. The poor need God and want to have a relationship with Him.

Don't Trust Anyone

There appears to be a recurring theme in Agatha Christie’s novels. I am now reading The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha, and the theme of distrust is evident. This theme can also be seen in Murder is Easy by Agatha. Anne Beddingfield loses her father in the beginning of this novel to pneumonia, and she goes to London to live with a friend of her father’s. She witnesses an accidental death when a man falls on the train tracks and is killed in front of her. In all of these events Anne shows distrust in everyone she comes in contact with. She claims that:

A curate once told me that my eyes were like ‘imprisoned sunshine in a dark, dark wood’-but curates always know so many quotations, and fire them off at random (30)

This is an example of the lack of trust she has for everyone she contacts. Her mistrust is not always as blunt as this quotation, but she remains distant from the other characters, and does not emotionally attach herself to anyone. She even claims that she did not love her father. Her distance and mistrust in everyone is much like the mistrust seen in Luke Fitzwilliam talked about in my previous blog.

When going from person to person in the town with Bridgett, Luke feels that everyone is holding back secrets. He sees things in people’s eyes and does not trust that they are telling him the whole story of the deaths.

Agatha seems to use the theme of distrust in these two novels, and it adds a powerful element. Their distrust teaches you not to trust the characters in the novel also. She teaches you not to trust through the example of her characters.

Agatha Christie has used these recurring themes in her novels to create a powerful impact on her readers. I will continue looking for recurring themes, and am interested in other parallels between her stories.

Easy to Kill

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie takes no time at all to get going. By the end of the first chapter you know of multiple murders. By the next page you find out that the woman who told of those murders, has now been murdered! This old woman spoke with Luke Fitzwilliam: the protagonist in this murder mystery novel. The woman (Miss Fullerton) tells Luke of how she is going to Scotland Yard to report the murders and leaves him with this:

It’s very easy to kill, so long as no one suspects you. And you see, the person in question is just the last person anyone would suspect (10)

Miss Fullerton’s statement is one with a lot of weight. It suggests she knows who the murderer is, and presents herself as a very mysterious woman. This statement has loomed over me while reading the chapters to follow. Her saying that it is the last person anyone would suspect has got me guessing at every character that the novel introduces. One of whom I think the text is hinting at is Bridget Conway. She is the cousin of Luke’s friend, and Luke is staying with her and her fiancée while investigating the murders. She seems to dislike all of the people who have been murdered so far, but so do many other people in the town. The thing that sets her apart is her identification as a witch. When Luke first meets her he says:

Her black hair was blown up off her head by the sudden gust, and Luke was reminded of a picture he had once seen-Nevinson’s Witch. The long, pale, delicate face, the black hair flying up to the stars. He could see this girl on a broomstick flying up to the moon. (21)

His relation to her as an evil being sets her apart from all the others in the town. She seems to be harboring secrets; Luke sees this. He mentions her flying black hair other times in the text also: trying to reinforce the image.

I realize that trying to guess at who the murderer is in an Agatha Christie novel is a failed experiment from the start. Especially in a novel where you are warned in the first chapter that the “person in question is just the last person anyone would expect”. The imagery of Bridget’s witch like characteristics is very intriguing however, and cannot be overlooked.

A Demon in My View

I have finally completed Ruth Rendell’s A Demon in My View, and really don’t know what to do anymore. This novel-which I have written on previously-is one where you start to see things lining up, and can predict the general idea of how it will end. So up until the last two pages I had the ending figured out. The ending of this novel has left me very distraught. So much so that I walked up and down the hallway of my dorm for a few minutes just to comprehend what to do next.

Ruth Rendell puts things in the text of this novel that you can see if you “read between the lines”. She repeats them a lot though, making it so that even a slow monkey could pick them out. Because you have to read between the lines though, you feel as if you have the ending of the novel figured out, and are proud of yourself for figuring it out though. She even manages to make the ending appear like what you thought until the last two pages! You expect that Anthony will get together with Helen in the end; you expect that Arthur will get caught by the police (as it turns out he not only strangles mannequins but has killed/kills women also) and put in jail. Anthony and Helen do get together, and Anthony tells the police about his suspicion of Arthur as the murderer, but it isn’t the police that come to Arthur’s door, it is Helen’s husband looking for an A. Johnson: his wife’s lover (this of course is Anthony, not Arthur). Arthur says he is A Johnson, so Helen’s husband shoots Arthur, and the last paragraph of the novel is Arthur falling down the stairs dying. There are a few loose ends to the story, but Ruth just leave you to speculate as to what happens.

It has taken me a full day to come back to this post and determine what to write about that is anything more than a summary. I have written on Arthur’s connection with Anthony, and their similarities previously; but Arthur’s death-due to the name connection-has led me to explore this aspect of the novel once again.

Anthony is in the process of writing his thesis and becoming a Psychiatrist. You find out that his thesis is exploring psychopathy, and is living in the same house as a psychopath. Anthony’s thesis is revealed to you in small portions, often when the portion written describes Arthur perfectly.

Though the psychopath may suffer from compulsive urges, or an obsessional neurosis, his condition is related to a lowered state of cortical arousal and a chronic need for stimulation. He may therefore face the warring elements of a routine-driven life (160)

This quotation can be contrasted with Arthur claiming that he hasn’t ironed on a day other than Saturday in twenty years. Clearly the thesis is a perfect description of Arthur. Anthony even realizes the irony of this when he figures out that Arthur is the murderer:

He would have laughed at himself if this had been a laughing matter, for the irony was that he who was writing a thesis on psychpathy, who knew all about psychopaths, had lived three months in the same house as a psychopath (203)

Another link between the two is that their women were both burned, indirectly. Arthur’s woman, Auntie Gracie, was burned by Anthony when Anthony found the mannequin in the cellar, along with heaps of wood that he was going to use for a bonfire. He took the wood, and decided that it would be fun to burn the mannequin also: not knowing how important this mannequin was for Arthur.

Anthony’s woman was burnt by Arthur when Arthur began taking Anthony’s letters from Helen and lit them on fire. He did this because Anthony burnt the mannequin. Arthur burnt the Anthony’s connection to Helen because Anthony burnt Arthur’s connection with Auntie Gracie. Eye for an Eye.

Arthur and Anthony are connected in so many ways. They are so alike that they eventually had to collide, Anthony studies Arthur’s ailment, and they end up burning each other’s women.

He uses the darkness

Holy cow Ruth Rendell. A Demon in My View is so ridiculously packed with imagery and word choice that my book is starting to look more like a scrapbook-with all of the notes and scribbles-than an actual novel.

She uses the word “darkness” excessively in this novel. Chapter seven is mainly Arthur’s memories of childhood, but then ends with him strangling the mannequin for the second time in the story. He talks about how he uses darkness, and his “need to use darkness”(57) began when he was twelve. He tells a story of how he didn’t turn the light on in the kitchen one evening, and a mouse scurried into the drawer that he had opened. He slammed the drawer on the mouse, and listened to it dying inside of the drawer. Out of his sight.

The cheep-cheep sounds were like those made by a baby bird, but they were sounds of pain and distress. Arthur felt a tremendous deep satisfaction that was almost happiness. It was dark and he was alone and he had enough power over something to make it die. (58)

He uses this darkness, and the fact that he is alone, to be able to savor and enjoy the death of this mouse. The darkness is what allows him to break free of this shell that his Auntie Gracie has out him in. in the darkness he can’t be judged, so he doesn’t judge himself. His worth comes not from himself, but from Gracie. A quotation from the very next page shows that Gracie is his judge, not he:

And he had to please [Auntie Gracie], he had to be worthy of her. Besides, defiance was too enormous an enterprise even to consider.

(59)

He still uses this darkness. When he “kills” the mannequin this second time he doesn’t turn on the light in the cellar. He uses a flashlight, and even turns the flashlight off when he is about to kill her. He wants complete darkness. He has to search for her, and this makes it more real to him. No one can see him, not even himself. He needs this darkness. He states, “he knew what happened to people that wanted what he wanted” (60). He has to use his darkness so that he is not found out.

At the end of the chapter he is leaving the cellar, and “the whole court was suddenly flooded with light” (63). This light came from Anthony Johnson’s room. Then Anthony and Arthur met eyes. This sends Arthur into a frenzy in his room about what to do, and how Anthony knew. His darkness was removed, and he cannot cope. Arthur is clearly a very deranged fellow.

The Other Johnson

Ruth Rendell’s A Demon in my View has so much imagery and symbols that I have been almost forced to blog again after reading only another 20 twenty pages. Arthur Johnson, the main character of the novel, lives on the top floor of an apartment. Near the beginning of the novel we find out that the bottom room-that is currently vacant-will be getting a new tenant soon. This tenant’s name is Anthony Johnson. So Arthur Johnson lives on the top floor, and Anthony Johnson lives on the bottom. Immediately a connection is assumed between them, and this coincidence is even brought up in the novel:

“’Are you by chance the other Johnson?’…

‘I think you must mean you are the other Johnson. I have been here for twenty years’”(33)

Ruth is clearly trying to show us that these two characters will be very intertwined, as their names are almost identical.

Both Arthur and Anthony have a woman who has/had a very large impact on their life. Arthur’s woman is his Aunt Gracie, whom I discussed in my earlier post. He also has the present embodiment of her as the mannequin in the cellar. Anthony’s woman is Helen. Helen is the woman that he loves, and she loves him. She however is already married, and pities her husband too much to leave him. Helen however has a very large impact on Anthony’s life.

“…he had never woken up to this awareness and insight before he met Helen. She it was who had turned his soul’s eye towards the light” (29)

Helen is what turned his eye to the light. For Arthur, Gracie is who controls his life; she is who would have the power to turn his eye to or from the light.

Another similarity between these men is their interest in a particular house. For Arthur, this house is one that he walks by every day on his way to work. It is the house in which he was raised: his aunt Gracie’s old house. The house is being demolished, and it brings back memories for him.

“The demolition men were at work and Auntie Gracie’s living room – brown lincrusta, marble fireplace, pink linoleum – all exposed to the public view. There on the ochre-colored wallpaper was the paler rectangle marking where the sideboard had stood, the sideboard into whose drawer he had shut the mouse. His first killing. Auntie Gracie had died in that room” (48).

Anthony’s interest in this room is different however. He saw this demolition site as the perfect place to begin his career as a social worker. He wasn’t allowed to begin officially until done his schooling, but at this demolished house he could begin unofficially. He wanted to get people together to study, and this site was the perfect location.

“A man seen building a bonfire there would soon attract all the juvenile society in the neighborhood. And he could rope in the parents…” (55)

Both men have an attachment with this house, yet the attachments are very different.

Rendell is clearly bringing these two men together for some reason. Their names are very similar, they’ve both been deeply affected by a woman who they do not have direct contact with, and they both have interest in the exact same piece of property: all of this in only the fist 55 pages of the novel. Their connection’s importance is not clearly visible yet, but in time I’m sure Rendell will reveal it.

She had never been very pleased with him, had she?"

A Demon in My View by Ruth Rendell has some very strange twists. Generally a suspense novel includes a person’s murder, and guessing for the novel’s entirety at who the murderer is. This novel is not like that. The murderer is known right away, and the murdered is not a person. The murdered being isn’t even an animate object.

Arthur Johnson is the main character, and he is not your average man. He was raised by his aunt Gracie and was very controlled by her. Even after her death she is running his life.

Would she be pleased with him if she could see him now? If she could see how he kept his own place, his bank balance…? But she had never been very pleased with him, had she? (20)

His current life is all about pleasing her. It is much like Hitchcock’s Psycho in the way Arthur cannot escape his aunt Gracie’s control. She runs his life.

Arthur seems to respect his aunt. The reader gets into his head and can read his thoughts. His actions however convey a different attitude toward her. Arthur has a mannequin in the cellar of the apartment he is renting, and that mannequin is dressed in his aunt’s old clothes. “An impulse came to him to dress [the mannequin]…the flat black dress, a handbag, and shoes. These had belonged to Auntie Gracie”(16). This mannequin was what Arthur took out his rage on. After a long day he would unwind by “murdering” her.

She was ready to die for him again. A week, a fortnight, might go by but she would wait for him. It was good, the best thing in his life. (3)

He would kill a thousand women in her person, she would be his salvation. (17)

Arthur tells of his rage towards women, but what would this hatred of them have come from? He speaks constantly about his aunt, and describes about how upset she would be with him if she were there. He never tells any story of something his aunt Gracie did that pleased him: always just more examples of her control. He dresses the mannequin up in her clothing, and strangles her weekly. His conscious respect for his aunt’s behavior seems to be undermined by a subconscious hatred of her, and all women.

His aunt’s control over him has led him to hate all women: “The woman who waited in the dark streets, asking for trouble, he cared nothing for them” (17). He knows that it is illegal to kill women, and because of his superficial image of him being a put-together respectable man, he would never break the law. He cannot control himself because of the deep mental scarring his aunt has marked him with, so he is forced to murder something no one will no about. Someone/thing has to die for his troubles, and who better to kill then the woman who ruined him? His aunt, in an inanimate form.

The World is OK

With how overwhelming Old Goat Books is, my novel choices obviously came down to #1 genre, and #2 how cool the cover looked. The Suspect by Michael Robotham fit the bill. The thing that has struck me the most in the first part of this two-part novel was the use of the word “OK”. I decided that the author either does not own a thesaurus, or he’s using OK on purpose. OK is used so often at times that it occurs two or even three times on a single page.

“I saw you on the news. You were very brave.”

“I was terrified.”

“Is he going to be OK-the boy on the roof?

“Yes.”

“Are you going to be OK?”

(pg 54: The Suspect Robotham)

The use of OK in this novel really mirrors the mood of the plot. Joseph O’Loughlin, a psychologist, is our main character in the novel. He has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. He has cheated on his wife and feels guilty. He only has one child because he and his wife can’t seem to have another. His career is pretty much at a standstill when he gets roped into helping investigate a murder case. The victim is one of his past patients, and he suspects one of his current patients to be the murderer. His life has brought his spirits down to being OK on a good day.

This got me thinking about how the world has become “OK”. We as a society have stopped caring. If someone asks you how you are you say “good, you?” and they say “good”. Conversation over. If you stray from those very strict guidelines of accepted conversation you clearly have something wrong with you. You’re not OK. You need to be OK. Everyone is. You can’t be “great”, “happy”, or “dandy”; you’re OK. Truly Joyful people are condemned in the World today. If you’re having a great day people always try to remind you of how terrible life is, of what a mess the Earth is. News never shows anything that’s positive! It is always the bad things that people want to hear about. These things help them stay in their bubble of misery. It keeps them OK at best.

As Christians we need to make sure that we don’t fall into this trap. There are so many Christians who have no joy at all. They’re just OK. A follower of Christ has the opportunity to be more joyous than anyone else on Earth! We get to know and have a relationship with our amazing Creator!

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

James 1:2-3