Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery

 I LOVED this book! 

My paperback copy, published by Sourcebooks in Naperville (Illinois), asserts that this is a Young Adult book. But, as a friend said to me, it's really a romance for adults, although it is not a modern romance: no sex and no double-entendres.

I see Austen's influence here in so many ways. Above all, the central theme is courage. In this regard, it is very much like Persuasion. Valancy Stirling, the heroine of the novel, is a little sad: she quite repressed by her mother's insistence on perfect obedience and her limited life choices. 

As the novel opens, she is having her 29th birthday; her uncle teases her relentlessly about her old maid status, which really wears on her.

She suddenly receives shocking news which galvanizes her; she resolves to please herself, and while her family is so shocked by her behavior that they investigate whether they can institutionalize her, her determination to "seize the day" sets the novel's events in motion.

My thoughts about this book's similarity to Persuasion are that Valency, like Anne, fears that she will never marry; the neglect and disregard of her family is similar to that experienced by Anne Elliot; like Anne, she learns to assert herself, to think what she wants and to act on it; Valency's story, like Anne's, turns on some elaborate but deeply satisfying contrivances.

Montgomery is a funny, funny writer. Her descriptions of Valency's family, as Valency sees them, are hilarious. Valency is a character of deep thoughts and feelings; she is compassionate, a hard worker, and those readers who require a admirable heroine will be well-satisfied. 

And, to me, although the conventions of the romance novel go back to the 18th century, Valency's reactions to her family circle and others show both a conventional view of proper female behavior and an ability to assert herself that will delight fans of Lizzie Bennet and Anne Shirley.

 

 

 

Maigret Goes Home (L'Affaire Saint Fiacre)

This has been my very first Simenon novel.

Being a big Inspector Montalbano/Andrea Camilleri fan, I'd always wanted to read Simenon, because Camilleri said publicly that he greatly admired Simenon. Camilleri said that there is a theme running through Simenon's work, and that is the conflict between money and family love, or how family love is often trumped by the need for money. Camilleri said that there was a similar theme running through his work, and that was how sex trumped family love.

And, through my interest in Camilleri, I came to find out about the Maigret series, starring Bruno Cremer, produced through cooperation between French, Belgian, and Czechoslovakian TV in the 1990's. I loved that series. 

I found Maigret Goes Home at a used book sale (I suppose I would have preferred to begin with Peter the Latvian). Since it was written in 1931, I believe, I expected something like a cross between Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett.

The plot is roughly this: Maigret receives an unsigned typewritten note, informing him that there will be a murder at Mass in Saint Fiacre tomorrow.  He immediately decides he's going to Saint Fiacre, the town where he grew up. 

He attends 6 am Mass. At the end of Mass, everyone leaves and the priest, the altar boy, and the sacristan start cleaning up. Only one person remains: the Countess Saint Fiacre, widow of the old Count. Maigret approaches her from behind and places his hand on her shoulder; he's shocked to discover she's died during the Mass.

He learns that her son, who will inherit what's left of the heavily mortgaged estate, has a reputation for being an alcoholic wastrel; he arrives at the estate a few hours later, and he's come to ask his mother to cover a check he's just written that will otherwise bounce. Maigret meets the son, the Countess's secretary who is thought to have been the Countess's lover, the estate manager, the doctor and the local priest. Initially, they are all suspects.

I found it surprising in a lot of ways. First of all, the narrator explicitly tells the reader three times that Maigret is upset because he is profoundly shocked and offended by the way people in Saint Fiacre talk about the Countess, now in her early 60s. (So much for "show, don't tell.")

When he was a child, Maigret's father was the estate manager, and Maigret regarded the countess with an enormous amount of respect. When Maigret was a boy, the present Count was a baby in a pram being pushed by his mother.

Maigret visits the present estate manager in his home, and notices that the new manager has made expensive improvements to his house, and the surrounding courtyard. 

Later in the novel, there is a classic confrontation scene where Maigret and all the suspects are present. 

But, as Simenon points out, the confrontation scene was not arranged by Maigret; it was arranged by the Count, the Countess's son. 

When I'd finished reading, I not only still had questions--many mysteries fail to explain all the red herrings or tie up all the loose ends--but I still wondered who the real killer was. Was it Emile, the banker son of the estate manager? Or was the Count himself, behaving like an impious version of Telemachus.