I have done almost nothing with the last day and a half except read, bake, and finally sleep, which I like to think was good for me. I am especially proud of how glossily the glaze for the hermits came out—I'd put it on danishes if I liked them. We had no light molasses in the house for the butterscotch brownies, so either I substituted golden syrup or I just followed the instructions in British English. I got up this morning around eleven and then I went back to bed until two.
In between sleeping, I finally read Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios (U.S. A Coffin for Dimitrios, 1939), which I had not previously gotten around to despite loving the film noir it was adapted into. I had gotten the impression from Background to Danger (1937), Epitaph for a Spy (1938), and The Light of Day (1962) that the typical Ambler hero either gets his arm twisted into the intrigue business or more or less literally stumbles into it; the protagonist in this case goes looking, but is just as realistically incompetent when he gets there, albeit with the intriguing, perhaps self-satirical complication of the splinter of ice in the heart attributed to every writer by Graham Greene, who owed this novel a debt that can be seen from the top of a Ferris wheel in Vienna. It feels weird to consider that I have seen more films than read books written by Ambler, but I'm catching up.
Christianna Brand's Heads You Lose (1941) contains some extremely dubious psychology, literary allusion, and a denouement like a bucket of red herrings dumped over the reader's head, but especially in the wake of l'affaire Mendel it was a pleasant surprise to encounter the character of Henry Gold, who feels as much like a topical comment on anti-Semitism as a suspect in an elaborate country house mystery who happens to be Jewish. Described as "unmistakably Jewish . . . a small, slim, ugly man, with a friendly, rather puck-like smile that lit up his face into eagerness and gave him a quite overwhelming charm," he's the insider-outsider of the party at Pigeonsford, having recently married one of the much-admired granddaughters of Lady Hart. It is unsurprisingly, locally regarded as a misalliance: the omniscient narrative lets us in on more than one character, even among the sympathetic circle of the principals, thinking of Henry as some variation on "that dreadful little Jew." So far, so Golden Age. The fact that Henry is clever, funny, kind, vividly interested in the world and in people and madly adored by his wife doesn't mean that he's one of us. Except that the book actually seems to think he is and takes some pains to show it. "People all thought Henry was terribly lucky to marry me," Venetia confides to her sister in an early scene, "I know they did, just because he was a Jew and not very good-looking and not as up in society as some of the others . . . but if they only knew, it was me that was the lucky one." Later, as her husband is cheerfully cleaning up at vingt-et-un—they are playing for matches, of which Henry has accumulated so many that he has been obliged to trade in his winnings for a lighter so as to free up the pot for the other players—she teases popular prejudices, "He always does it. It only shows that it's quite right when they say that the Jews have all the money and people like Henry are responsible for the War and Mussolini and the measles epidemic and the common cold and everything else that ever goes wrong with the world . . ." It doesn't feel like merely the loyalty of a doting wife when the character who sneers most openly at Henry is an unlikable murder victim or when Venetia's own grandmother, while some of the red herrings are still flopping around on the floor, steadily takes his side for once before her granddaughter. Even Venetia's sadly accepted conviction that she is so much the more loving one of their marriage is disproven by the end of the novel, which is an important enough part of their relationship that I don't even mind when her sister cuts in, "Don't get all Jewish and sentimental, darling, or I shall start howling." It makes a change, all right? Especially when I didn't want to talk about the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas until it was over and hadn't turned into another Tree of Life.
Last night it was five above freezing outside and with the wind chill felt like five below and the moon looked like a follow-spot of ice. Tonight it's fogged over and the moon had a sort of blue-gel effect before it set. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, which is demoralizing. The reservoir behind my parents' house was covered with skaters this afternoon.
In between sleeping, I finally read Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios (U.S. A Coffin for Dimitrios, 1939), which I had not previously gotten around to despite loving the film noir it was adapted into. I had gotten the impression from Background to Danger (1937), Epitaph for a Spy (1938), and The Light of Day (1962) that the typical Ambler hero either gets his arm twisted into the intrigue business or more or less literally stumbles into it; the protagonist in this case goes looking, but is just as realistically incompetent when he gets there, albeit with the intriguing, perhaps self-satirical complication of the splinter of ice in the heart attributed to every writer by Graham Greene, who owed this novel a debt that can be seen from the top of a Ferris wheel in Vienna. It feels weird to consider that I have seen more films than read books written by Ambler, but I'm catching up.
Christianna Brand's Heads You Lose (1941) contains some extremely dubious psychology, literary allusion, and a denouement like a bucket of red herrings dumped over the reader's head, but especially in the wake of l'affaire Mendel it was a pleasant surprise to encounter the character of Henry Gold, who feels as much like a topical comment on anti-Semitism as a suspect in an elaborate country house mystery who happens to be Jewish. Described as "unmistakably Jewish . . . a small, slim, ugly man, with a friendly, rather puck-like smile that lit up his face into eagerness and gave him a quite overwhelming charm," he's the insider-outsider of the party at Pigeonsford, having recently married one of the much-admired granddaughters of Lady Hart. It is unsurprisingly, locally regarded as a misalliance: the omniscient narrative lets us in on more than one character, even among the sympathetic circle of the principals, thinking of Henry as some variation on "that dreadful little Jew." So far, so Golden Age. The fact that Henry is clever, funny, kind, vividly interested in the world and in people and madly adored by his wife doesn't mean that he's one of us. Except that the book actually seems to think he is and takes some pains to show it. "People all thought Henry was terribly lucky to marry me," Venetia confides to her sister in an early scene, "I know they did, just because he was a Jew and not very good-looking and not as up in society as some of the others . . . but if they only knew, it was me that was the lucky one." Later, as her husband is cheerfully cleaning up at vingt-et-un—they are playing for matches, of which Henry has accumulated so many that he has been obliged to trade in his winnings for a lighter so as to free up the pot for the other players—she teases popular prejudices, "He always does it. It only shows that it's quite right when they say that the Jews have all the money and people like Henry are responsible for the War and Mussolini and the measles epidemic and the common cold and everything else that ever goes wrong with the world . . ." It doesn't feel like merely the loyalty of a doting wife when the character who sneers most openly at Henry is an unlikable murder victim or when Venetia's own grandmother, while some of the red herrings are still flopping around on the floor, steadily takes his side for once before her granddaughter. Even Venetia's sadly accepted conviction that she is so much the more loving one of their marriage is disproven by the end of the novel, which is an important enough part of their relationship that I don't even mind when her sister cuts in, "Don't get all Jewish and sentimental, darling, or I shall start howling." It makes a change, all right? Especially when I didn't want to talk about the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas until it was over and hadn't turned into another Tree of Life.
Last night it was five above freezing outside and with the wind chill felt like five below and the moon looked like a follow-spot of ice. Tonight it's fogged over and the moon had a sort of blue-gel effect before it set. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, which is demoralizing. The reservoir behind my parents' house was covered with skaters this afternoon.
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