Only Genre
Jun. 18th, 2012 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselNov 2011
The Unbelievers - Alastair Sim - Snowbooks Ltd, 2009
* *
Confession time again - the author was a contemporary and an acquaintance at my Oxford college. So I really wish that I liked this novel more. It is an interesting Victorian police procedural, but, like Dissolution, suffers from clunky and ill-edited writing that had me whipping out my mental blue pencil rather than enjoying the story.
The setting is Edinburgh in 1865. Allerdyce, an everyman police inspector, is summoned by his superior Burgess to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the Duke of Dornoch, Scotland’s richest man. With his assistant Sergeant McGillivray, he investigates the lowest dives and the highest echelons of Scottish society while fending off the evil intentions of his arch-rival Jarvis and his own moral qualms about the rightness of his actions.
The most enjoyable aspect of the novel is its sheer Scottishness. Although the depictions of Victorian Edinburgh are pedestrian rather than atmospheric, Sim effectively evokes the class structure of the time, the social constraints that it imposed and the abuses that it allowed the rich and powerful. The Highland clearances, the horrors of the Crimean War and the nascent socialist movement are all woven into the plot. Women are conspicuous by their absence as major characters but this is fair enough given the background.
The strong setting makes the crimes against writing and character all the more of a pity (and a puzzle - the author studied English and would have been exposed to outstanding examples of both). Allerdyce is likeable enough as a viewpoint character but seemed ridiculously nafor a supposedly experienced detective. His concern for his family would have been more effective if their life together had been more than hastily sketched in. McGillivray’s personality can be described in a single word - honourable - and the other characters are similar caricatures with traits straight out of the Hollywood screen-writing manual. I particularly disliked the evil gay stereotype applied to Jarvis, which seemed gratuitous.
But it was the inept writing that really spoiled things for me. The main solecism is the use of the same word or phrase in successive sentences. A couple of examples:
Notice also the unnecessary details (“in the hall” - where else would the coatstand be?) and the plethora of poor word choices and grammatical constructions (“every newer feature”, “extended mightily”, “grasping beyond the frontage” and the hopelessly vague “structures”). Surely an editor should have spotted these?
The dialogue is in places equally clunky, not helped by the fact that the characters generally but not always use modern speech patterns which spoil the Victorian illusion. I cannot believe that the author or editor ever actually read the following out loud.
No one, not even the prissy vicar who is speaking, would ever use such convoluted prose in normal conversation. And surely the description of how William got into Edinburgh is something that he would only think to mention if asked.
The author also needs to figure out a way of switching from third person narrative viewpoint into the viewpoint character’s thought processes without using the disruptive and clumsy “thought Allerdyce” construction. Either relate the entire story from within Allerdyce’s head or show rather than tell us what he is thinking.
There are problems in the pacing of the plot, too. It takes nearly 100 pages before the events described in the back cover blurb come to pass, most of which are taken up with some unnecessary sleuthing in the seedier quarters of Edinburgh. The final 50 pages pass quickly enough but only because I had worked out whodunnit (it is heavily sign-posted) and was waiting for confirmation. The fact that the whole plot is irresistibly reminiscent of a certain classic film didn’t help either. I can’t say I liked the ending of Allerdyce’s story, which smacked rather too much of the author’s opinions.
Sadly, this book seems to be another example of the “it’s only a thriller, so the writing quality doesn’t matter” attitude that seems to have become the dominant view among publishers. They are doing themselves and their readers a disservice by letting books with such flaws out of the door, particularly one such as this which had the potential to be good. The classics of crime fiction - Raymond Chandler, Dorothy L. Sayers, even Agatha Christie - are notable for their polished prose which you barely notice while reading. Their modern descendants should at least aspire to a similar level. Or a decent editor.
The Unbelievers - Alastair Sim - Snowbooks Ltd, 2009
* *
Confession time again - the author was a contemporary and an acquaintance at my Oxford college. So I really wish that I liked this novel more. It is an interesting Victorian police procedural, but, like Dissolution, suffers from clunky and ill-edited writing that had me whipping out my mental blue pencil rather than enjoying the story.
The setting is Edinburgh in 1865. Allerdyce, an everyman police inspector, is summoned by his superior Burgess to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the Duke of Dornoch, Scotland’s richest man. With his assistant Sergeant McGillivray, he investigates the lowest dives and the highest echelons of Scottish society while fending off the evil intentions of his arch-rival Jarvis and his own moral qualms about the rightness of his actions.
The most enjoyable aspect of the novel is its sheer Scottishness. Although the depictions of Victorian Edinburgh are pedestrian rather than atmospheric, Sim effectively evokes the class structure of the time, the social constraints that it imposed and the abuses that it allowed the rich and powerful. The Highland clearances, the horrors of the Crimean War and the nascent socialist movement are all woven into the plot. Women are conspicuous by their absence as major characters but this is fair enough given the background.
The strong setting makes the crimes against writing and character all the more of a pity (and a puzzle - the author studied English and would have been exposed to outstanding examples of both). Allerdyce is likeable enough as a viewpoint character but seemed ridiculously nafor a supposedly experienced detective. His concern for his family would have been more effective if their life together had been more than hastily sketched in. McGillivray’s personality can be described in a single word - honourable - and the other characters are similar caricatures with traits straight out of the Hollywood screen-writing manual. I particularly disliked the evil gay stereotype applied to Jarvis, which seemed gratuitous.
But it was the inept writing that really spoiled things for me. The main solecism is the use of the same word or phrase in successive sentences. A couple of examples:
He folded the paper away into the inner pocket of his jacket and finished pulling his boots on. As he took his heavy tweed coat off the coatstand in the hall and pulled it on he felt himself, yet again, assuming the mantle of duty. (p 17)
Every newer feature of the house spoke of an explosion of power and wealth. The wings had been extended mightily, and a colonnade erected in front of them. At each end the colonnade turned sharply, grasping beyond the frontage of the house to give covered passage to two matching structures which sat to the left and right of the main building, slightly detached from its bulk. (pp 36-37)
Notice also the unnecessary details (“in the hall” - where else would the coatstand be?) and the plethora of poor word choices and grammatical constructions (“every newer feature”, “extended mightily”, “grasping beyond the frontage” and the hopelessly vague “structures”). Surely an editor should have spotted these?
The dialogue is in places equally clunky, not helped by the fact that the characters generally but not always use modern speech patterns which spoil the Victorian illusion. I cannot believe that the author or editor ever actually read the following out loud.
“William has often boasted to me, with no consideration to my holy office, about his exploits in Edinburgh. From time to time - not infrequently - he will creep out of Dalcorn House by the servants’ entrance in the dead of night and walk across country to Dalcorn Station, whence a late train can bring him to Edinburgh in half an hour...” (p 31).
No one, not even the prissy vicar who is speaking, would ever use such convoluted prose in normal conversation. And surely the description of how William got into Edinburgh is something that he would only think to mention if asked.
The author also needs to figure out a way of switching from third person narrative viewpoint into the viewpoint character’s thought processes without using the disruptive and clumsy “thought Allerdyce” construction. Either relate the entire story from within Allerdyce’s head or show rather than tell us what he is thinking.
There are problems in the pacing of the plot, too. It takes nearly 100 pages before the events described in the back cover blurb come to pass, most of which are taken up with some unnecessary sleuthing in the seedier quarters of Edinburgh. The final 50 pages pass quickly enough but only because I had worked out whodunnit (it is heavily sign-posted) and was waiting for confirmation. The fact that the whole plot is irresistibly reminiscent of a certain classic film didn’t help either. I can’t say I liked the ending of Allerdyce’s story, which smacked rather too much of the author’s opinions.
Sadly, this book seems to be another example of the “it’s only a thriller, so the writing quality doesn’t matter” attitude that seems to have become the dominant view among publishers. They are doing themselves and their readers a disservice by letting books with such flaws out of the door, particularly one such as this which had the potential to be good. The classics of crime fiction - Raymond Chandler, Dorothy L. Sayers, even Agatha Christie - are notable for their polished prose which you barely notice while reading. Their modern descendants should at least aspire to a similar level. Or a decent editor.