I'm Babylon burned inside out

[sovay]

It is unfair of me to keep using Margery Allingham's The Mind Readers (1965) as a punch line to the range of genres showcased in the Campion novels, but I have never quite gotten over its science fiction effectively capping off an otherwise realist series, especially the kind of paranormal, technologically mediated science fiction which I would expect to find in a Nigel Kneale teleplay. Its events should have diverged Campion's history considerably from our own in future books if she had survived to complete them, but perhaps not more so for Allingham than the Ruritanian existences of Averna or Turk Street or Alandel Aircraft Limited. Campion's world is so firmly shaped by inventors and artists and politicians and entrepreneurs we didn't have in our twentieth century, why not scientifically achievable ESP? It's one of my favorite novels in the series; I am delighted that it exists, but also that it exists in the form that it does. Even for late Allingham it's peculiar, not the spy-fi suggested by its industrial paranoia or the conventional thriller of its interrupting death or even a mystery except in the sense that it starts so murkily and ends in a confounding blaze. "These would all be adults, I expect." I am still recovering from last week's cold [n.b. checked out as such with doctors] and have been exhaustedly and frustratedly doing almost nothing of interest, but at least I am reading things I enjoy. Protip: the collected poems of Sean O'Brien backed with M. John Harrison's The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again (2020) may do a number on one's head.

Comments

[vass]

Huh. I've read either little or no Allingham (I can't remember if I have) and now feel strongly tempted to.

[ethelmay]

The Mind Readers is actually the first one I read, because it had sf elements and kids, and also it would have been less than ten years old at that point. It worked all right on its own, but it was a lousy entry point, as I tried various other Allinghams over the years and didn't get anywhere until I finally hit the first one that has Amanda in it.

[sovay]

The Mind Readers is actually the first one I read, because it had sf elements and kids, and also it would have been less than ten years old at that point.

That's neat!

I'm glad to know it stands on its own, since for me it's so much a part of the family saga side of these books since Sweet Danger that it feels as though it would be very strange to read as an introduction to any of these people.

[sovay]

I've read either little or no Allingham (I can't remember if I have) and now feel strongly tempted to.

I love the Campion books: they are one of my favorite Golden Age series. I read them straight through in order, but I have begun to recommend starting with The Crime at Black Dudley (1929) so as to see Campion as discovered by his creator, a scene-stealing minor player whom she shortly realized was running away with the plot from the ostensible protagonist, and then skipping forward to Sweet Danger (1933), which is the one ethelmay mentions where Campion himself and the kind of series he's in really crystallize, perhaps not coincidentally introducing the excellent romantic heroine. You can always return for the intervening novels if you feel like observing the evolution of Campion from a Wimsey file-off to his own individual person, although since last summer's re-read I am trying to remember that Police at the Funeral (1931) is the one which has a degree of racism baked into the plot which I consider out of Allingham's period-typical norm and frankly book-destroying for me. The Fashion in Shrouds (1938) requires a similar heads-up for its density of gender nonsense—I characterized it recently to sholio as heteroaaaaargh—except where Campion and Amanda are concerned, which is a good thing because its events entail a crucial stage in their romance, which results eventually in what I consider one of the great marriages of detective fiction. (He's . . . actually his profession is difficult to categorize, but it always involves looking into things. She's an aeronautical engineer. Together they really do fight crime, usually because crime started it.) Allingham ran the series in real time until she died in 1966, so one of the pleasures of the books is getting to watch everyone grow and change and their world which is perhaps not exactly ours change around them. One of the others is the aforementioned range of genres on offer, all with some element of crime or detection but otherwise take your pick: some are cozies, some are adventures, some are noirs, at least one qualifies as a novel of romantic suspense, another is plain screwball, there's a generational drama, I haven't even mentioned the Dick Francis-type feature where most of the books cluster around a different interest or milieu, and then we have the science fiction which provoked this entire post. Generally speaking the earlier novels are more formally conventional, the later ones can be much more experimental. The characteristics that make a "Campion novel" are not a formula. I can't really think of another series like it from its time. I like Allingham's prose besides.

[moon_custafer]

Last time I reread Police At the Funeral and Dancers In Mourning, it finally clicked that Uncle William from the former ends up becoming the best-selling author adapted into the stage musical that forms the setting for the latter.

[sovay]

Last time I reread Police At the Funeral and Dancers In Mourning, it finally clicked that Uncle William from the former ends up becoming the best-selling author adapted into the stage musical that forms the setting for the latter.

Yes! And then becomes the impetus of the mystery in The Beckoning Lady. I love how people in these books keep turning up.

[poliphilo]

I read all (or nearly all) of Allingham in my 20s. If I missed out a title or two it was because the lending library I was using didn't have them. My favourite was The Tiger in the Smoke.

[sovay]

If I missed out a title or two it was because the lending library I was using didn't have them.

I was lucky enough to have access to my mother's copies.

My favourite was The Tiger in the Smoke.

It's superb. I don't know if I have a sole favorite. I re-read The China Governess a lot.

[dramaticirony]

Gosh--I wasn't aware that the books took this turn at all.

Also interesting to read your thoughts about the order in which to read the series, I believe I tried to power through in publication order and lost steam, I'll have to jump ahead a bit and try again.

[sovay]

Gosh--I wasn't aware that the books took this turn at all.

I'm not sure it's very well known. Certainly I didn't assume the title meant it literally until I actually read the book. And it interests me because several of the earlier novels are within normal limits of realism for pulp—where your average detective can find themselves tracking down the heirs of a hitherto undistinguished Adriatic principality or confronting a high government conspiracy while under the influence of amnesia—but this one is just straight-up sf and follows through on it to the closing lines; it's not a secret history. If Allingham had lived to keep writing the series, since she had such a documented habit of returning to characters and developments from earlier books and logically catching up with them, I really would have loved to see what she did with the material of this one.

Also interesting to read your thoughts about the order in which to read the series, I believe I tried to power through in publication order and lost steam, I'll have to jump ahead a bit and try again.

Good luck! I hope you enjoy them.