I stood by the faucet till the sink filled up
I am having extraordinary difficulty writing about anything, movies, politics, my own life, and have to keep reminding myself that recovering from a cold is a valid employment of my time and not just a diversion of resources from things I should be doing. The sneezing my face off remains at bay, but the fever came back while gift-hunting with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch yesterday evening and I spent most of the night staring at a wall.
I did finish The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930). I had read one or two of the stories onmoon_custafer's recommendation, but not the entire collection, which feels like a cycle even though I know there's one late addition in the form of "The Harlequin Tea Set" (1971), which I need to track down. I suppose all of its stories are mysteries in one sense or another, but that is not the same as detective stories. Not all of them involve murders or even crimes. Appropriate to the trickster diamonds of Harlequin, they are kaleidoscopes, shifting perspective to show the other patterns into which facts can fall. It reminded me that I know much less about the English harlequinade than I do Italian commedia dell'arte—I recognized Christie's Mr. Quin most readily from Sayers' Murder Must Advertise (1933), the magician of desire who has more than a little to do with death. "Framed in the doorway stood a man's figure, tall and slender. To Mr. Satterthwaite, watching, he appeared by some curious effect of the stained glass above the door, to be dressed in every colour of the rainbow. Then, as he stepped forward, he showed himself to be a thin dark man dressed in motoring clothes." Leslie Howard would have played him very well, especially in his last and most unambiguous appearance. "And do you regret?"
spatch yesterday evening and I spent most of the night staring at a wall.I did finish The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930). I had read one or two of the stories on
moon_custafer's recommendation, but not the entire collection, which feels like a cycle even though I know there's one late addition in the form of "The Harlequin Tea Set" (1971), which I need to track down. I suppose all of its stories are mysteries in one sense or another, but that is not the same as detective stories. Not all of them involve murders or even crimes. Appropriate to the trickster diamonds of Harlequin, they are kaleidoscopes, shifting perspective to show the other patterns into which facts can fall. It reminded me that I know much less about the English harlequinade than I do Italian commedia dell'arte—I recognized Christie's Mr. Quin most readily from Sayers' Murder Must Advertise (1933), the magician of desire who has more than a little to do with death. "Framed in the doorway stood a man's figure, tall and slender. To Mr. Satterthwaite, watching, he appeared by some curious effect of the stained glass above the door, to be dressed in every colour of the rainbow. Then, as he stepped forward, he showed himself to be a thin dark man dressed in motoring clothes." Leslie Howard would have played him very well, especially in his last and most unambiguous appearance. "And do you regret?"
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Harlequin and Columbine dance off towards a waiting ship while the other characters of the Harlequinade are accosted by a skeleton. It's one of the plates from a splendid series called The English Dance of Death.
Rowlandson understood that Harlequin is an immortal.
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That is excellent. I've never seen it, although the accompanying verse looks familiar to me. (Maybe just because it prefigures "Comedy Tonight.")
Rowlandson understood that Harlequin is an immortal.
As he takes his leave of Mr. Satterthwaite in his very first story, Mr. Quin says, "I must recommend the Harlequinade to your attention. It is dying out nowadays – but it repays attention, I assure you. Its symbolism is a little difficult to follow – but the immortals are always immortal, you know."
Christie understood it, too.
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