You know where you are with a series, sort of. Starting to read Poul Anderson's Murder In Black Letter, I know in advance that it is the second of three mystery novels about the detective, Trygve Yamamura, and that I have already read the first and third installments. Thus, I do not expect any surprises. Yamamura will solve a murder. He will not marry, age, retire, die or experience any major life change. All of these things can happen to a continuing character and his series becomes more interesting when they do but they are not going to happen here. It is like watching an episode of a TV series.
I am reading the novel as an ebook and must continually alternate my screen between the text and the blog. That makes this a different kind of experience, visually. The text does not begin with Yamamura as its viewpoint character. The point-of-view character, Kintyre, is fencing with a man of whom we quickly learn that:
his surname is "Yamamura";
he is a private detective;
Kintyre addresses him as "Trig";
his first name is "Trygve";
he is tall, thin and of partly Oriental ancestry;
he prefers Japanese swords;
he smokes a pipe;
he has recently left the Berkeley police force to start his agency.
We stay with Kintyre when he and Yamamura part company but obviously more is going to happen.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you meant to say in the first paragraph that you had already read the first and THIRD of the Yamamura novels.
And I think one reason why we don't see many major life changes in the Yamamura novels is because Poul Anderson wrote only three books about that character. I think you need a longer series before an author might feel compelled, for realism's sake, to bring in major personal changes in the life of a series character.
Started writing an essay about Anderson's "Night Piece." No promises on when I can send it to you. It's going to be one of my tougher, and probably less satisfactory, articles.
Sean
Sean,
I will be very interested to read an analysis/assessment/appreciation/appraisal/elucidation/explanation//interpretation etc of "Night Piece."
Paul.
I think the Yamamura stories cover about 2 years at most.
Kaor, Paul!
I'll try. I've written eight paragraphs so far. Can't say I'm totally satisfied with what I've done so far. It's very much a rough first draft, so far.
Sean
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