Detective Fiction

Anyone who reads a lot of Poul Anderson leads some particular lifestyle (in the case of the present blogger, retired) and also reads other authors. Consequently, over time, some other stuff should could come through in a blog. We can focus on details within Anderson's works but can also appreciate those works in their wider literary contexts of the Bible, Eddas, Sagas, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Robert Heinlein, James Blish etc. 

Detective fiction is relevant to Poul Anderson Appreciation, first, because Anderson wrote three novels and at least one short story about a fictional detective, Trygve Yamamura, and would have continued to write detective fiction if sf had not paid better and, secondly, because of the Holmesian influence on several of his works. (An alternative literary history: Anderson writes a long Trygve Yamamura series and many other detective novels and only a few sf works!)

In the course of blogging, we have mentioned some other fictional detectives, e.g., Father Brown and Inspector Montalbano. (Scroll down.) Here is one more before we return to Ythrians, maybe, this evening. Today, while out for a walk, we bought for £10 in a charity shop a boxed set of all thirteen Inspector Morse novels by Colin Dexter. That might constitute my late night other reading for a long time to come. Early in the opening novel, a minor viewpoint character compares Morse unfavourably to Holmes and Poirot. And Holmes referred disparagingly to Poe's Dupin. Detective fiction authors always acknowledge their predecessors. British ITV dramatized Morse and cleverly created both a sequel and a prequel.

As Kevin, whom I meet in the Gregson Institute, once said, "It's endless, i'n't it?"

Sherlock Holmes And Nicholas Van Rijn

"'You are both wrong.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 195-233 AT p. 229.

"'You are all wrong.'"

-Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" IN Conan Doyle, The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes IN Arthur Conan Doyle: 3 Books In 1 (Mumbai, 2007), pp. 229-254 AT p. 225.

Holmes and van Rijn are right, of course!

A perfect parallel. In the latter case, a man was taken on a twelve mile journey by night in a coach but did they go north, east, west or south? All wrong. Six miles out and six miles back to the starting point, but to give the impression of a twelve mile journey. Holmesian villains are devious.

In the next Holmes story, a character is cut to the quick. Quiz time: where does van Rijn say that he is cut to the quiche? (Someone please help me with this one. I can't remember.)

I think that van Rijn is a bit like Poirot but here he is a bit like Holmes.

OK. I am still rereading "Star of the Sea" but also Holmes.

What "The Master Key" Gives Us Apart From Cain

 

This is a rich story.

(i) "...the name of the Polesotechnic League was great in the land."

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 195-233 AT p. 197.

The name of the League was great because the unnamed first person narrator and his friend, Harry Stenvik, had humbled:

"...a king who set himself above the foreign merchants." (ibid.)

(ii) Then the two merchants celebrated by patronizing:

"...the Solar Spice & Liquors factor..." (ibid.)

Regular readers know that SSL is van Rijn's outfit.

(iii) The narrator is on only a very brief business trip to Earth. He has been on a planet where there is ammonia in the air and some conflict.

(iv) Because they are both guests of van Rijn, the narrator and Stenvik meet in the SSL owner's Winged Cross penthouse which we have seen before and will again. There is a view of Chicago Integrate, roses and jasmine in the garden and a long trollcat rug inside.

(v) Stenvik raises mastiffs and sons in a house that he has built above Hardanger Fjord.

(vi) His oldest son, Per, was apprenticed on a van Rijn ship in the Hercules region and has recently become a Master Merchant.

(vii) Per's ensign is from Nuevo Mexico beyond Arcturus.

(viii) Cain, where they have recently been, is in the direction of Pegasus.

(ix) Van Rijn has been on enough planets to recognize patterns. Saying that he has been on Cain not in the flesh but in his brain, he is most like Poirot.

Lamentations And Invocations

When reading some Saint short stories by Leslie Charteris, I noticed similarities between Simon Templar and Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry. Then I remembered that Hank Davis did state in a The Technic Civilization Saga introduction that Anderson had intended Flandry to be an sf counterpart to Templar. Next, I will quote an account of another famous fictional character while omitting the character's name:

"I pass over the spectacle of [name] on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar."

Although this reads exactly like Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn, the source is:

Agatha Christie, "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" IN Christie, Poirot Investigates (London, 1981), pp. 92-109 AT p. 98.

Three more comparisons and then some differences. First, Poirot says:

"'The true clues are within - here!' He tapped his forehead. 'See you, I need not have left London. It would have been sufficient for me to sit quietly in my rooms there. All that matters is the little grey cells within.'"

-Agatha Christie, "The Kidnapped Prime Minister" IN Poirot Investigates, pp. 129-151 AT p. 144.

Van Rijn says:

"'...tonight I have been on Cain up here, in this old brain, and it is rusty and afloat in alcohol but it has stored away more information about the universe than maybe the universe gets credit for holding.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1964), pp. 115-159 AT pp. 153-154.

Secondly, the Belgian Poirot's turns of phrase confirm that he is not a native English speaker. Van Rijn at least pretends to have trouble with Anglic but what would his first language have been?

Thirdly, both series commence with their central character advanced in years. Poirot has retired from the Belgian Police before becoming a private investigator and van Rijn approaches an age when he has to stay at home and send younger men into space.

Differences

Poirot is usually composed. His distress when seasick or riding a camel is unusual but genuine. By contrast, van Rijn habitually shrieks, gesticulates and invokes but this is often if not always an act to project a dynamic image while making his enemies underestimate him. 

Secondly, although van Rijn avoids violence, he is able to handle himself in combat, a situation that Poirot never has to face.

Fictions Within Fictions

Fictional characters are usually fictions to each other although there are exceptions. This includes fictional detectives who refer to each other in general and to Sherlock Holmes in particular. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, Holmes is sometimes referred to by name in contexts where he might be just the familiar fictional character but he also appears, without being named, as a real person. It is the responsibility of the reader to recognize him. At least two other Anderson works hint at a real Holmes in their pasts and his Old Phoenix multiverse allows familiar figures, again including Holmes, to be fictional in one universe but real in another.

This brings us to Hercule Poirot's companion, Captain Hastings, who says:

"'Obvious, my dear Watson,' I quoted lightly."

-Agatha Christie, "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat" IN Christie, Poirot Investigates (London, 1981), pp. 48-64 AT p, 51.

We are expected to notice that Hastings misquotes first because Holmes says, "Elementary," not "Obvious," and secondly because, although Holmes does say both "Elementary" and "my dear Watson," he never, in our hearing, says both together.

In these ways, all fiction can refer to all previous fiction. Thus, Poul Anderson refers to Shakespearean characters, Holmes, James Bond, Clark Kent, Huckleberry Finn, Sancho Panza, a Lensman and HG Wells. (I acknowledge that Wells is an author, not a character.)

Lost Youth in Different Periods And Timelines

At the ends of their respective sub-series of Poul Anderson's Technic History, Chee Lan and Miriam Abrams make essentislly the same remark: their youth is gone. See here. There are other literary echoes. Chee Lan's shipmate, Adzel, says that those were good years just as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot says that those were good days. We remember and agree. Anderson's Manse Everard cannot recapture the experience of his boyhood before the war even though he is a time traveller! He can, of course, space-time travel to the Midwest pre-1942... but he is not the same, as Chee Lan says.

This experience is common to all of literature. Poul Anderson expresses it in science fiction.

"Bid time return..."

Last Appearances And Reading Orders

Agatha Christie wrote a concluding Hercule Poirot novel to be published later. Poirot dies. Andrea Camilerri wrote a concluding Salvo Montalbano novel to be published later. I am about to read it. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a concluding Sherlock Holmes short story to be published immediately. Holmes died but - we know what happened.

Usually, an author simply writes a last episode of a series and the last published episode is also the last in terms of fictional chronology. Our chronologically last sight of Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn, both still alive, is at the end of Anderson's novel, Mirkheim. However, reading the Technic History in its original book publication order enables us to appreciate that finale, then to recapture these and a few supporting characters as they had appeared in chronologically earlier instalments. Six characters appear in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy (Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World and Mirkheim):

van Rijn (6 times)

Falkayn (5)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (3)

Coya Conyon/Falkayn (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

- and (re)appear, earlier in their lives, in The Earth Book of Stormgate:

van Rijn (4)

Falkayn (2)

Adzel (3)

Chee Lan (2)

Coya Conyon (1)

Sandra Tamarin (1)

If we can get hold of the volumes, then we have a choice between this reading order and the purely chronological order presented in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga.

The End Of A Series

Any fictional series must have a chronologically last episode usually although not necessarily identical with its last published episode. This has to be true of any kind of series. We will shortly return to the special case of future history series, including Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic and Technic Histories.

The chronologically last episode of a series can be just another episode, interchangeable with any of the others. Alternatively, the author can try to create some kind of culmination or climax, with greater or lesser success. A central character can die since he is no longer required to appear in any subsequent episode. Poul Anderson knew when he was writing the last Polesotechnic League novel and the last novel to feature Dominic Flandry. In both cases, the text reflects this fact. Both van Rijn and Flandry sign off by telling us what they think about life. In van Rijn's case, the League has gone into terminal decline. In Flandry's case, a new generation, represented by his own daughter, is coming forward and, of course, the Long Night cannot be postponed indefinitely.

Sherlock Holmes is relevant both because Anderson mentions him several times and because Anderson's Time Patrol series crosses over with the Holmes series. That latter series survives the apparent death, then the retirement, of its title character and eventually ends with just an ordinary episode. Agatha Christie wrote her Poirot culmination earlier to be published later. The James Bond series survived, by my count, three apparent deaths of its title character, then ended with an appropriate epitaph for the character in the concluding sentence of the posthumously published novel.

Should a future history series build towards some kind of climax or culmination? More on this later.

Old Times

We age and remember old times. Therefore, our reflections, fictional characters, do the same. But we can reread their old times. We can read Mirkheim, then reread "The Trouble Twisters," read The Game of Empire, then reread Ensign Flandry and "Tiger by the Tail." If we read Poul Anderson's Technic History in its original publication order, then we read "Margin of Profit" after it was quoted in Trader to the Stars and read "Lodestar" after reading Mirkheim. We find that we have not after all read all that there was to be read about van Rijn, Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan. Adzel's student days are even introduced in a fresh new short story narrated by a new young character.

A series about a fictional character is like a fictional biography. In Curtain, Poirot tells Hastings, "They were good times..." Van Rijn and co recall their good times but also plan what they will do next. Life is not over till they are dead - and then the history continues. There are young perspectives in the concluding two stories of the Earth Book. And the whole Flandry period is still in the future.

A Roman Policier

 

Mirkheim, XIX.

Once or twice, I have compared Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn in some, not all, respects to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Van Rijn makes this comparison almost explicit:

"'We ought to put on a scene like from a roman policier, where I dump a kilo of clues on the rug and we fit them together in the shape of the villain, us having a guilting bee...'" (p. 256)

I am all too familiar with such scenes because while I read or blog and Sheila knits, at the far end of the room she usually has the TV on with a Drama Channel that endlessly reshows detective series, including Poirot. In fact, a prolonged scene of this sort was showing while I was typing this post. So is Poirot among the romans policiers seen by van Rijn?

Age And Change

A series of any length shows its characters aging unless an author arbitrarily decrees that his characters will not age while the world changes around them but I regard that as unacceptable. Some tricks or jokes with chronology and age are acceptable but not mere denial of the aging process. The best such joke is Ian Fleming's second last James Bond novel - it contradicts dates as given in earlier volumes but then informs us that those volumes, written by a former colleague and friend of Commander Bond, were inaccurate. An author should closely control such details. I am reading John Grisham's seven Theodore Boone juvenile novels. Theodore is thirteen in Volume I and only four months elapse between that volume and the end of Volume III. Agatha Christie made problems for herself because Hercules Poirot began his lengthy series already retired from the Belgian police force.

In sf, some characters have access to anti-aging processes. For as long as we read about him, Poul Anderson's Manson Everard remains based in the twentieth century, from 1954 to 1990. He spends an unknown amount of time in other periods, some of them not in this timeline, but remains physically unaged thanks to future medical treatment. However, how much does he age mentally? Time Patrolmen seem to look forward to no retirement.

Dominic Flandry advances from his teens to his sixties but is well-preserved thanks to regular exercise and antisenescence treatment. David Falkayn advances from teens to middle-age and greater maturity. In "Wingless," he is a grandfather but remains off-stage. Nicholas van Rijn begins his series already old, then ages even more...

Thinking And Habit

"Hiding Place."

"'I suppose Old Nick is sitting and thinking,' said Yamamura in an edged voice." (p. 590)

Yes, like Poirot with the "little grey cells."

Captain Torrance, like Eric Wace in The Man Who Counts, does not understand van Rijn's contribution:

"'He sits in his suite with a case of brandy and a box of cigars. The cook, who could be down here helping you, is kept aboard the yacht to fix him his damned gourmet meals. You'd think he didn't care if we're blown out of the sky!'" (pp. 590-591)

Torrance also remembers his oath of fealty and his official position although he thinks that they seem nonsensical:

"...on the edge of extinction. But habit was wrong.'" (p. 591)

Habit is so strong that a James Blish character still thinks in terms of company time even after Armageddon - and even after an Armageddon with an unexpected outcome! 

Clues

"Hiding Place."

The pilot of the captured spaceship must be:

strong, long-armed and large-handed - like a giant;

 

able not only to read very small display panels but also to turn a key at the bottom of a small, narrow hole - like a dwarf.

 

Clues to the pilot's nature accumulate. 

 

Van Rijn practices detective skills like Poirot. Van Rijn and Poirot are Catholics, are not native English/Anglic speakers and are first seen late in their careers. However, their differences are more numerous than their similarities. Poirot is known through cinema and TV. Van Rijn should be.

 

I prefer sf to detective fiction. In particular, I dislike the crossword puzzle aspect of detective fiction, having to reread passages in earlier chapters in search of the clues that are supposed to be there.

 

Addendum: After I published this post, Poirot was on TV in the episode where he walks out of our local Midland Hotel in Morecambe.

Literary Universes

Some authors interconnect their works:

characters from several works by Poul Anderson meet in the Old Phoenix Inn and more could have done;

half a dozen series by ERB are set in the same Solar System and, in one case, beyond the Solar System - thus, Tarzan returns from the Earth's Core shortly before Carson Napier sets off for Mars but lands on Venus etc;

both John Buchan and Dornford Yates present interactions between characters from different novels and series and even, in Yates's case, different genres;

Poirot and Marple do coexist although they do not meet.

Alan Moore describes a multi-author equivalent:

"...all the comic book stories produced by any given publisher are likely to take place in the same imaginary universe."

-Alan Moore, INTRODUCTION IN Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, Saga Of The Swamp Thing (New York, 1987), pp. v-xi AT pp. vi-vii.

 

Moore explains:

 

"For those more familiar with conventional literature, try to imagine Dr. Frankenstein kidnapping one of the protagonists of Little Women for his medical experiments, only to find himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Sherlock Homes and Hercule Poirot." (p. vii)

 

Three Observations 

(i) Here we connect with Anderson because Holmes exists in the Time Patrol timeline. The Patrol must prevent Holmes from detecting their activities in his period but I speculate that they consult him during his retirement when such consultation no longer runs any risk of being recorded by Watson.

 

(ii) Alan Moore went on to write The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which all literary and fictional characters coexist.

 

(iv) Anderson's imaginary universes should be able to produce an equivalent of what Moore imagines involving Frankenstein, Little Women, Holmes and Poirot. Maybe Merau Varagan kidnaps Dahut in an attempt to prevent the inundation of Ys but finds himself subject to the scrutiny of a team-up between Trygve Yamamura and Bob Shining Knife, the FBI Agent in Operation Otherworld. Such a crossover narrative could be written without compromising the integrity of any of the individual works.

From Flandry To Bond To Poirot

Poul Anderson wrote some detective fiction and a lot of sf and his sf character, Dominic Flandry, is comparable to James Bond although published earlier.

Because a rogue planet plays a major role in the climax of Anderson's sf novel, Ensign Flandry, rogue planets are introduced in the dialogue in an early chapter. Similarly, in detective fiction, any clues cited during the solution of the mystery have to have been planted earlier.

It was not Anderson's detective, Trygve Yamamura, but James Bond who drew me into reading some Agatha Christie, the connection being that both Bond and Poirot travel in the Orient Express. On rereading Dead Man's Folly after many years, I discovered that, although a character is quoted in a later chapter as having said something in an earlier chapter, I cannot confirm even by careful rereading that she did say it earlier. Can Agatha Christie have got such a detail wrong? I am willing to discuss this with any Christie fan who may be interested. It takes us away from Poul Anderson as such but stays with the question of how to write a detective novel.

Anderson's Genres

Prompted partly by an earlier blog review of one of Poul Anderson's detective novels (see here), I have finally read for the first time ever Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot novel, Murder On The Orient Express. An analysis of that novel's intricacies might more appropriately be published on another blog but, in any case, I am not really interested enough to pursue the matter.

But one observation is relevant. We have compared Anderson's sf with that of Wells, Heinlein etc and, less frequently but no less validly, we have also compared Anderson's works of fantasy based on Norse mythology with those of JRR Tolkien whereas, if Anderson had stayed with detective fiction and had not become so prolific in those other genres, then we would at this stage only have been comparing him with Doyle, Christie etc and that would have been to our considerable loss!

In fact, Anderson's incorporation of Sherlock Holmes into his Time Patrol series is a worthier sequel to Conan Doyle's canon than any number of original detective novels by Anderson.

Getting Into Detective Fiction, Maybe (Poul Anderson And Other Authors)

We, editorially speaking, reread Ian Fleming's James Bond novels because they are worth rereading and, at the same time, we happen to find parallels with Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry series. We do not regularly read detective fiction unless you count Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy which I do endlessly reread.

However, maybe I have found a reason to tackle Agatha Christie. See:

Review of Perish by the Sword by Poul Anderson by AM Romer

Ali Romer says in her review that it was obvious to her from the outset who the murderer should be in this novel. She read the book to the end hoping that there would be a twist but there wasn't one. The villain was the obvious candidate. Last night, in a very good British TV appreciation of Agatha Christie and her Hercule Poirot series, the point was made that Christie was expert at writing surprising and satisfying conclusions to detective novels. So maybe I should check out Murder On The Orient Express especially since this famous train was also one of the settings in From Russia With Love?

Complicated Crossovers

So far today, I have published six posts before this one, four here on Poul Anderson Appreciation and two elsewhere. See:

A Complicated Comics History

A Complicated Comics History II 

 

Multi-authored narratives become complicated in ways that no single author, not even Poul Anderson, can match. Characters from different series meet? Sure. Poul Anderson does this in the Old Phoenix but not on the scale of a comic book universe. An Unexpected Crossover, occasioned by Anderson's incorporation of Beowulf into Hrolf Kraki's Saga, quotes Alan Moore's explanation of comic book crossovers. Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy refers to Shakespeare characters who turn out to have historical originals. See Macbeth. So Anderson does it. However, whenever you reread van Rijn in the Old Phoenix, remember Alan Moore suggesting a Holmes-Poirot team-up investigating Frankenstein kidnapping one of the Little Women. The republic of letters is one and some authors know how to show it.

"Back To Reality"

Every fictional series has its familiar characters and settings:

Baker Street;
the bridge of the Enterprise;
Gotham City;
etc.

Sheila starts watching a TV mystery series. We witness a murder. Then the theme music starts or the detective appears and I know which series it is: Poirot; Marple; Fr Brown; etc.

A TV drama showed familiar actors, Shatner, Nimoy etc, in 1930s New York scenes. My sister kept saying, "He's in Star Trek, he's in Star Trek...," then the scene changed to the bridge of the Enterprise.... My mother said, "Back to reality!" (Which it is anything but.)

In "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," that "back to reality" moment arrives when the second section, headed 1935, refers to "space-time" and "a Patrol base." (p. 341) The story deserves to have been read for the first time in a collection where we did not know in advance that it was going to be a Time Patrol story.

In 1935, the viewpoint character:

is in the Patrol;
is not Everard;
was the Wanderer in 372;
is a first person narrator.

This is new territory for the Time Patrol series. Everard will appear but neither as the main character nor as a viewpoint character.

Onward.

Confession

Operation Luna.

Ginny's brother is put through a "'...psychoscopy...,'" (26, p. 239) which must be the goetic equivalent of a hypnoprobe or a kyradex. (Scroll down.)

Steve tells his brother-in-law that the government investigators:

"'...keep confessions under seal same as priests or doctors.'" (29, p. 259)

Once when I sat to meditate in St. Wilfrid's Church, Preston (see image), a man approached and asked if I knew whether anyone was hearing confessions. I had to say no. I was there to practice a different religion. (The public are invited to enter to pray or mediate.) A woman came in and practiced yet another, walking around kissing the statues of saints. Sometimes, if you sit or kneel in a church, someone watches you, then follows you out and asks you for money.

Ian Hislop said on TV that journalists tried to pay his vicar to learn whether he had said anything interesting in confession! Agatha Christie's Poirot cannot receive absolution from a priest because the priest would insist on Poirot first confessing murder to the police and Poirot, for his own purposes, needs to disguise the murder as suicide so he directly asks God to forgive him.

Of Poul Anderson's Technic History characters:

Nicholas van Rijn and Admiral Cajal are Catholics;
I deduce that Eric Wace is also Catholic (see here);
Philippe Rochefort and Francis Xavier Axor are Jerusalem Catholics;
Dominic Flandry's fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, is an Orthochristian, later canonized.

These six characters would confess sins to a priest.

We also see Catholicism and several other religions survive into SM Stirling's Emberverse.