August 2012 - The Case of the Gilded Fly

[Tracey]

I'm still waiting too ... I hate those tracking notifications that are about as useful as wings on a pig, and the eBay seller's response to my "Er, did you actually ship this yet?" was along the lines of "yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on." Free shipping = you get what you pay for.

[Kimberly]

Got my book from the library yesterday. It had to come from another branch andthen there was a delay. Just made tea and starting it in a few minutes So excited. The edition I received was a reissue of the original,

[Jane]

Finally got the book and have started reading it! Is it OK if I post my review as soon as I'm done, or should I wait for the 25th?

[[deleted user]]

I'm holding off on starting it for another week, just to have it fresh in my mind.

[Lynnm]

I finished it yesterday - hopefully I won't forget too much by the 25th! I originally had it planned so I would only read a chapter a day, but it was good so I kept reading. ;)

[Helen]

I have mine in my hot little hand as of this morning - but - I too will leave it for another week ... looking forward to it ..

[Jemidar]

I'm up to Chapter 7.

[Jane]

I am noting things that strike me in my updates, but I'll hold off reviewing. That'll give me time to consider what taste the book leaves in my mouth, so to speak. I have another book I must read by the 26th so I won't delay the pleasure!

[Jemidar]

There's a few things I would already like to discuss (nothing to do with the murder as it's just happened) but about characters and attitudes.

[Grad]

Hurrah! My library has a copy. Will pick it up tomorrow at lunch. Love everything Felony And Mayhem publishes.

[Leslie]

I'm off to my library -- hopefully they will have it! I do have The Moving Toyshop and a couple of others by Crispin.

Did you know that The Case of the Gilded Fly was the only Crispin book to make the Guardian's "1000 novels everyone should read" list?

[Jane]

I'm done! Can't wait to discuss it with you guys. I can't say I've become an instant Crispin fan, but I'm glad to have made Gervase Fen's acquaintance.

[Leslie]

My library didn't have any Crispin in print but I'll check the ebooks....

[Jane]

I had to order a used book through Amazon (Abe Books would be good if you're not an Amazon fan). Despite their apparent continued popularity they're out of print, which shows you how out of touch publishers are.

[Jemidar]

They're in print for the UK and Oz at least. I got mine through Book Depository. Unfortunately, Abe Books is owned by Amazon (as is Book Depository for that matter) so not any better for the non-Amazon Fan :-(.

[Jane]

You'll probably have to walk a long way to find a pie Amazon hasn't got its finger in.

[Kim]

I got mine on Kindle.

[Helen]

mine was the sole Crispin on the shelf at Chapters/Indigo (Montréal) ...

[Tracey]

I found mine on eBay - and had the added bonus (whether the seller left out details or whether I - as per my usual - did not read the whole listing) of getting an omnibus of three Crispins where I expected just the one.

I just finished it last night; I really enjoyed it (view spoiler)[until the very end when for heaven's sake just tell me why the ring was there!! I read the entire last scene of Measure for Measure, and am as clueless as when I started. *grumble* (hide spoiler)]

[Jemidar]

I finished a couple of days ago and Tracey, I totally agree with your spoiler as I still haven't worked out why??

[Jane]

I couldn't find it on Kindle in the US. Tracey, there were plenty of other things I wasn't happy about, but I googled and found the answer to your question.

(view spoiler)[It's in King Lear:

The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight...
The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to 't
With a more riotous appetite.
Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above:
But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends';

So basically all women are whores? (hide spoiler)]

[Tracey]

(view spoiler)[Lear?? Oh, sure. Obviously. (hide spoiler)]

Thank you. It does make sense, or at least that was the killer's opinion of the victim; it didn't seem to be a universal feeling. (The universal feeling is that everyone's an idiot but Fen...)

[Lynnm]

Tracey - agree about your spoiler. I was doing fine until the end - didn't get the end, and I have a lot of questions once the discussion gets going on the 25th. I wish it was starting now! lol!

[Tracey]

I saw that Jemidar rated it 3 stars, and I thought "Gosh! Harsh!" and then I finished. Hrmph.

[Jemidar]

Part of those three stars are because (view spoiler)[I personally dislike sleuths that withhold information so they can be appear the 'smart arse' at the denouement. I much prefer discovering things along with the sleuth and knowing as much as they do. (hide spoiler)] At least that way I feel I have a fair crack at working out how the crime was done.

[Tracey]

Jemidar wrote: "Part of those three stars are because [spoilers removed] At least that way I feel I have a fair crack at working out how the crime was done."

That's the other big, big thing. (view spoiler)[I kept thinking about the Item in The Five Red Herrings, and this was that to the nth power. "He mentioned the thing" and "he named the name" and "I'm not going to tell you, Nigel, because you should have figured it out" till I wanted to throttle him. (hide spoiler)]

[Jemidar]

Yep, me too. (view spoiler)[Could've cheerfully throttled him several times! (hide spoiler)]

[Tracey]

However, I liked his wife. (view spoiler)["Shall I pull the trigger?" she asked, knowing full well his mind was utterly elsewhere and she would scare both the trousers and the pants off the others when Fen said "sure whatever". And then she went back to her knitting. (hide spoiler)]

[Jane]

Voicing complete agreement with messages 80 through 84!

[Kim]

Thoroughly agree with all that has been written in spoilers and otherwise. I finished a couple of days ago but will hold off rating and reviewing until discussion time. Suffice to say that (view spoiler)[I don't exclude the possibility that I will read another Crispin, but I won't be rushing out to read his entire oeuvre>/spoiler>. (hide spoiler)]

[Maryann]

I just finished and most of the characters were unusual but aren't we all in some way. The candid responses and the descriptiveness of the various "suspects" gave a sense of who they were. I got some humor in the idea the book was written as a bet. I am going to try reading the subsequent books just to see how the author evolves. I am looking forward to the discussion.

[Tracey]

I'm glad I managed to get (most of) the keys back on my laptop keyboard - I'm looking forward to starting discussion tomorrow.

My posts, however, may be all in lower case (call me archy) and might avoid s's.

[Jane]

Yes I think so, although I didn't entirely warm to Fen. His mysterious hints that he knew ALL in the first three minutes and just wasn't going to reveal it to us, nyah nyah nyah, were rather annoying.

Of course I think this was also the author's intention - Fen is MEANT to be annoying. I thought the idea of a detective counterpart whose passion is for literary criticism was too funny for words. And Crispin has an absolutely wonderful way with words. And he did put the most important clue, the red notebook, right in front of the reader, so he was playing fair in that respect.

The gilded fly, of course, is kind of a red herring.

A gilded red herring.

[Kim]

I'm not sure if I'll read the next book. I've read reviews suggesting that it (and more particularly #3 in the series) are better than this one, so it may be worth giving it a try. I love the Oxford setting and I like Crispin's literary style: I've always been a sucker for Latin quotations and literary allusions and the literary critic policeman is a very nice touch. However, I really dislike the sexism of the work. While I'm used to Golden Age mystery writers having unpleasant victims (a sensible device, as it broadens the field of suspects), I was somewhat repelled by the language in which characters expressed the view that the victim in this novel deserved to be killed, as well as the repeated discussions about letting the murderer get away with it. I accept that Fen is suposed to be annoying, but I found myself getting increasingly annoyed with him, rather than growing fond of his eccentricities.

[Lynnm]

I wasn't sure what to make of Fen. At first, he reminded me of an unlikable Sherlock Holmes. He was able to solve the problem quickly, refused to let everyone in on the resolution of the crime, very intelligent, a bit arrogant. But part of Sherlock's success is that despite his arrogance, he is likable - again, something Fen is not.

Then, he seemed like a Columbo character - acting as if he was a bit of a scatter brain. Although was it an act? It seemed real to me.

Bottom line, it was hard to warm to him as a character. Not that the main protagonist of the story has to be likable - they do not. But other things at that point have to be in play, and I just don't think the rest of the story made up for his lack of likability.

But just MHO. :-)

[Lynnm]

Kim wrote: "I've always been a sucker for Latin quotations and literary allusions and the literary critic policeman is a very nice touch. However, I really dislike the sexism of the work."

The literary allusions were what kept me in the novel - that was interesting.

And agree about the sexism. It was okay to murder her because she was a b**** and knew how to use her sexuality to get what she wanted. Very misogynistic. Not that I would defend women like her - she certainly isn't a sympathetic character - but obviously murder goes a bit too far. ;) And the fact that no one really cared that she was murdered.

[Susan]

Hi I am new to the group. I love Golden Age detective fiction and really enjoyed this novel. Yes, it was not PC, but many books in this era use language that is not acceptable now. I enjoyed the setting and thought the author made good use of both the rep theatre and Oxford itself. I would certainly read more by this author and look forward to joining in with further reads.

[Kim]

Susan wrote: "Yes, it was not PC, but many books in this era use language that is not acceptable now...."

I don't expect a novel from that era to be PC and I'm quite used to the casual anti-semitism and racism that crops up in pre-WWII crime novels. However, I found the violence of the misogynist sentiment and language in this novel to be very off-putting. It's not something which is found in Sayers or Tey, for example. It may just be the difference between the gender politics of a male writer from that period compared to that of the female writers whom I am more accustomed to reading.

ETA. Welcome to the group, Susan!

[Lynnm]

Kim wrote: "Susan wrote: "Yes, it was not PC, but many books in this era use language that is not acceptable now...."

I don't expect a novel from that era to be PC and I'm quite used to the casual anti-semiti..."

I agree. And I think there is a big difference between being PC and the kind of misogyny we find in this book.

And it sad that we get used to the anti-semitism and racism in pre-WWII books - I am the same way. But I think that it is something that should always be pointed out in discussions as we are doing here with the misogyny.

[Jemidar]

I also expected sexism and attributed it to the the era but like Kim found the sexism in this book more aggressive than usual, and as I also enjoy noir I wouldn't classify myself overly sensitive or PC. This just seemed different somehow and more offensive.

Personally, I won't be rushing to read the next book. It was fine as these things go but it just didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would. I did like the Oxford setting and the use of the rep theatre, but I didn't like Fen much especially his almost childish attitude to others who hadn't worked out who did it. I was however amused at how many marriage proposals there were over the course of the story. Otherwise, with it's cast of thousands it was a bit of a confusing mess with an obvious 'who did it' and an overly complicated 'how did it.'

[Jane]

I wonder if the marriage proposals among secondary characters had become a bit of a cliché in detective writing by that time. I seem to remember Sayers alluding to it somewhere. Perhaps Crispin was sending up the genre; I suspect he's doing that in several places (in Fen's character, in the detective who loves litcrit, in the gory second murder just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...)

I also got the impression that many of the points that irritate the reader (Fen's childishness and secrecy about the case, the sexism and callousness about the murder victim) were quite deliberately put there precisely to annoy readers. It reminds me of an essay about Jane Austen I did once for a professor who hates Austen - to this day (and he's on my Facebook) he may not realize that almost everything I wrote was designed to get his goat.

I did love Mrs. Fen. It was very odd to have a detective with this cozy, knitting wife and small children. I thing that was also an attempt by Crispin to wrong-foot the reader. In fact, I would say that what we have here is a case of the unreliable author.

[Jemidar]

While I would agree with some of what you say Jane, I also got the impression that the author thought he was too clever by half. No clear evidence of this, just this smug arrogant feeling the writing gave me.

[Susan]

I have read many Golden Age detective novels where the victim was a man who had perahps been blackmailing characters, etc and whose death was received with great relief at the breakfast table. Although I see what you mean about the sexism, I think it was interesting that the author made the victim unsympathetic, thoroughly unliked and also female. I don't think I've really seen that before in an original novel from that era. Although it seemed quite callous the way everybody denied being upset at all (even her half sister), it was certainly an unusual and original idea. Mind you, all the cast seemed to get over any death with a great deal of fortitude!

Thank you very much for the welcome by the way. :)

[Tom]

I read Glimpses of the Moon many years ago and loved it. I can't say the same for The Case of the Gilded Fly. Several of you have commented on the overt misogynic treatment of the woman who was killed. It went very much beyond what I have read in other mysteries from that era. Fen in quite likeable in Glimpses of the Moon, but he is unlikable in this romp. As a librarian, I found his self-justification for razoring a book went beyond the pale. Others have written spoofs on the genre that are much more engaging, such as James Anderson’s The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy.

[Christina]

I just finished last night. I agree with a lot of the comments here, but I have to say I enjoyed the book. This was my first Crispin book. I loved the setting in Oxford. There were times when I felt like he was making the plot a little too complex, but for the most part I enjoyed this book. I especially liked Fen's wife. I thought it was interesting that Crispin included her as a balance to the eccentric Fen. I would definitely read another of Crispin's books.

[Cherry]

While this is the time period I most love to read about, I had a hard time finishing this book. The cast of characters was confusing and I didn't really care about any of them. The way none of the characters seemed to be in any way affected about the death seemed silly and of course the way the murder was done was over the top ridiculous. However, there were a few passages that were really good and I will read the next in the series to see if find Fen more interesting next time.

[Kim]

Cherry wrote: "The way none of the characters seemed to be in any way affected about the death seemed silly ...."

I completely agree with you, Cherry.

[Leslie]

Well, I finally got a copy of this & read it despite the somewhat negative comments here.
I found the story to be OK but certainly not up to the standard of some of Crispin's other mysteries. If this is the only work of Crispin's you have read, I would suggest trying "The Moving Toyshop" or "Glimpses of the Moon".

[Tom]

Leslie wrote: "Well, I finally got a copy of this & read it despite the somewhat negative comments here.
I found the story to be OK but certainly not up to the standard of some of Crispin's other mysteries. If..."

I like them much better.

[Susan]

I have only read Gilded Fly, but I really liked it - I know I was in the minority. I certainly intend to read on in the series and have downloaded the next book.