Takes more than charm if you're going to get me to confess
So I'm reading a thread about Josephine Tey over at ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants' where people are anti-recommending Miss Pym Disposes (1946) and The Franchise Affair (1948) and I don't disagree with them in either case—I've read the latter and everyone who has ever mentioned the former to me included the caution that it can turn you off Tey for life. It interests me that this happens with authors, the one or two books out of an otherwise enjoyable body of work that need warning against/exorcism with fire and salt. In the case of The Franchise Affair, it seems fairly clear that the unexamined classism which runs in an undercurrent through all of Tey's work simply rose from the depths and ate the premise alive. That model does not explain Margery Allingham's The Fashion in Shrouds (1938), since unexamined misogyny does not otherwise afflict the other eighteen Campion novels (but in order to figure out the cause I'd have to re-read the book, so I haven't yet). I recognize that the phenomenon is idiosyncratic—I finally bounced off a novel by Mary Stewart when I read Wildfire at Midnight (1956) because its mystery is perfectly well-constructed but its romance depends on reconciliation between two people who had really good reasons to be divorced. I'm not really asking for a list of books to avoid, but I'm curious about other people's experiences with the outliers that suddenly bit them. Is it usually the case that a regrettable but generally background tendency comes to the fore because of specific plot conditions and there goes the neighborhood? Is it just that the brain-eater stopped by for a midnight snack and left by the next book in the series? Do you have no idea what happened, but for God's sake don't read that one anyway? Inquiring minds! And then, so as not to be totally down on literature, this literary mixtape is pretty awesome.
skygiants' where people are anti-recommending Miss Pym Disposes (1946) and The Franchise Affair (1948) and I don't disagree with them in either case—I've read the latter and everyone who has ever mentioned the former to me included the caution that it can turn you off Tey for life. It interests me that this happens with authors, the one or two books out of an otherwise enjoyable body of work that need warning against/exorcism with fire and salt. In the case of The Franchise Affair, it seems fairly clear that the unexamined classism which runs in an undercurrent through all of Tey's work simply rose from the depths and ate the premise alive. That model does not explain Margery Allingham's The Fashion in Shrouds (1938), since unexamined misogyny does not otherwise afflict the other eighteen Campion novels (but in order to figure out the cause I'd have to re-read the book, so I haven't yet). I recognize that the phenomenon is idiosyncratic—I finally bounced off a novel by Mary Stewart when I read Wildfire at Midnight (1956) because its mystery is perfectly well-constructed but its romance depends on reconciliation between two people who had really good reasons to be divorced. I'm not really asking for a list of books to avoid, but I'm curious about other people's experiences with the outliers that suddenly bit them. Is it usually the case that a regrettable but generally background tendency comes to the fore because of specific plot conditions and there goes the neighborhood? Is it just that the brain-eater stopped by for a midnight snack and left by the next book in the series? Do you have no idea what happened, but for God's sake don't read that one anyway? Inquiring minds! And then, so as not to be totally down on literature, this literary mixtape is pretty awesome.
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(WARNING: Everything from here on is probably a bit spoilerish.)
But I just wrote off the person eventually revealed to be the murderer as a natural-born sociopath whose sociopathology required little or no assistance from the allegedly hothouse atmosphere of a women's college. Although if I'm remembering the plot properly, her ostensible motive was more "feminine" (in terms of not directly benefiting her in the expected way) than those of similarly ruthless male characters, or even the child murderer in the movie version of "The Bad Seed," which I think was made not much later--or at least sometime in the 1950's. Of course, the last time I read *Miss Pym Disposes* was at least twenty-five years ago, so it's possible that I'd interpret it quite differently now.
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What are your reasons for best avoiding it, if they are not subtext-related?
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(WARNING: More potential spoilers.)
My impression is that the traditional objection to *Miss Pym* regards a particular ethical decision made by one character towards the end of the book, which has disastrous effects for at least one other person.
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Did the author and then-readers consider the apology so obvious as to not need mention? Without it, the ending read to me like B___ leaving A___ stuck in the penance forever.
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Unfortunately, I think we were supposed to assume that it was essentially too late to undo what had been done, since A___ unjustly felt guilty anyway and B____ wouldn't have much credibility under the circumstances.
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A___ was set up as a martyr type, and iirc had already refused the post. But B___ should certainly have apologized and given back the signed confession. A___ was young and upset but might have grown out of such martyrdom. Although the post was lost, she still need not have buried herself forever, without that threat.
Still, for the fields of waving macaroni, I'll forgive Tey anything.
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Because the character was adopted as a baby, there's no getting around it.
Nevertheless, I still kind of like it. And I love Miss Pym Disposes, which is not to say it's not deeply problematic, but I love it anyway.
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