Brian Freemantle's "The Homles Inheritance"

Occasionally, I begin reading a book in which the premise is quite intriguing, the characters themselves interesting, but the writing gets in the way.  In this case, I've come close to putting the book down for good on several occasions, but have, so far persevered; I'm about 2/3 of the way through it as I write this.

The book is Brian Freemantle's The Holmes Inheritace.  I've read a fair amount of Freemantle's writing, and like (with some reservations) most of the Charlie Muffin books.  So when I learned about his books featuring Sebastian Holmes, son of Sherlock and nephew of Mycroft, I searched ABE and found both books, The Holmes Inheritance (2004) and The Holmes Factor (2005). 

I started, of course, with The Holmes Inheritance, and it's driving me nuts.  The premise is this:  Sherlock Holmes fathered a son--Sebastian--while recovering from the Reichenbach Falls incident.  He decided that he could not acknowledge the child, and left him to be raised by Mycroft (the mother died in childbirth).  Now, some 20 years later, on the eve of World War I, Mycroft (working with/for Winston Churchill) needs someone to undertake a confidential mission in the US.  He and (reluctantly) Sherlock agree that Sebastion should be asked to undertake it, and he does.

So the situation is interesting, the activities of Germany in the US are a very good starting point for such a story, and if it's more of a spy novel and less of a detective novel, that's OK.  But the writing is something I would never have expected of Freemantle.  Here are the examples I've run into so far:

Freemantle seems to hate to use the word "said," instead substituting some other verb for it, and these all appear on p. 100:

protested
defended
reminded
disputed
insisted (twice, in successive paragraphs)

That's probably the single most glaring stylistic issue I have, although there's also this:

"...he left, no longer feeling pretentions with the swordstick..."

And similarly awkard, or (as in the use of "pretentions") just wrong uses of language occur throughout.  There are also cases of getting the historical setting or facts just flat wrong.  For example, early on, a character is referred to as a "venture capitalist," a term that did not come into use until the 1970s at the earliest.  In 1913, someone who looked for places to make investments would have been called a "capitalist," with no modifier needed.

And:

"Sebastian's excursion to Long Island...this time [he] travelled [sic] from Penn Station in a scheduled first-class carriage..."

Now I realize that railroad passenger cars in England and on the Continent were separate classes of accommodations, but that was not true in the U.S. at that time; there were sleeper cars and private cars but no separation of classes of carriage in ordingary coaches.  (And from Penn Station to Long Island, no sleeper cars, either).  This may be somewhat specialized knowledge, but it's not all that arcane.  I'd expect an American author, writing about using English trains, to know that there were separate classes of carriage.  So why shouldn't I expect a British author to get it right about the US?

In another scene--a birthday reception in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the German Embassy, we are told that the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Undersecretary of Trade, and the "senior permanent advisor at the Treasury" are present.  That should be the Secretary of War (the department and the title were changed to Defense only after World War II) and the Undersecretary of Commerce (the Ministry of Trade is the English equivalent).  As for the "senior permanent advisor at the Treasury," no such positon exists in the U.S., and never has (although the Permanent Undersecretary of the Treasury is, in England, a civil servant and not a political appointee; the highest-ranking civil service position in the Treadury Department in the U.S. today is the Fiscal Assistant Secretary, who is three levels down from the Secretary of the Treasury).  (What the comparable position would have been in 1913, I don't know, but all of the Assistant and Under Secretaries were then, and are now, political appointees.)

Then, we have this:

"...continuous radio news programme..."

Complete with remote broadcasts of an interview on the Capitol steps.  There were no radio stations in the U.S. until at least 1916, and the early ones were on-air for only a couple of hours a day.  There were no radio news programs, although what was then called the "radio telegraph" was used to transmit news to newspaper offices.  And the notion that a hotel room would have had a radio receiver in 1913 is laughable.

Now, writing historical fiction is hard.  And I suspect that most English readers of the book would not really notice them.  But the events of the early 20th century in the U.S. are not that difficult to discover, and many, if not most, potential readers of this sort of book are likely to be fairly well informed.  So such elementary errors as these have a tendency to pull the reader out of the story.  Which is too bad for me, because I spent a hot $4 on this book (and on the sequel).

Couches, France

Another picture from the hard drive...actually, two versions of the same picture.  This is a medieval castle at Couches in France,  The first version is "straight;" the second version has had a Photoshop transformation (called "Fresco") applied to it...I like them both, and wobble back and forth on which I like best.  (Taken in June 2000.)

"Wish You Were Here"

One of my favorite songs is Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.”*  The lyrics, by Roger Waters, clearly refer to Syd Barrett, one of the original members of the band, who stopped performing in 1968, and spend the remaining years of his life living privately and gardening.  His behavior, attributed at the time to his drug use, had become erratic, and his ability to perform declined. 

What I find interesting about the song is that if contains the affection felt by Waters for Barrett, but it also has an underlying anger that Barrett had left the people who loved him (including the band) for a retreat from the world.

Combined with a hauntingly beautiful guitar part, this is one of the most compulsively listenable songs I know.

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?

 *© 1975 Warner/Chapell Music; words & music by Roger Waters & David Gilmour

Root and Branch

Here's another picture from the hard drive, taken in San Diego in the late 1990s.

Big Foot

I haven't had much to say over here for a while, so, because I've been sorting through my photos, I thought I might post one occasionally.  I took this back in 2002, in the courtyard of a museum atop the Capitoline Hill in Rome.  I call it "Big Foot."

On (Not) Watching Television

I've been following along recently with a number of discussions of the ending of Season 3 of Downton Abbey, mostly out of amusement at how passionately some people are reacting to what happened.  I'm not a participant in these discussions, because I have never seen a single episode of Downton Abbey (which is apparently somewhat unusual for someone in my demographic, which can be loosely classified as "Over-Educated Intellectual Snob").  The last television series I watched with anything like regularity was The Practice, which was on ABC for 8 years (1997-2004).  I actually didn't make it through the first year, because ABC moved it around, and I had trouble keeping up with what day and time it was on.  And I didn't want to tape it (yes, it was long enough ago that people used VCRs to record shows they wanted to watch, not DVRs or streaming or on-demand...).  Before that, I couldn't say what I watched with any regularity.  Maybe the Mystery! Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett between 1984 and 1994?  Since those programs, I have completely missed out on reality TV...and on everything else...although oddly enough we have expanded basic cable (basic is included in our HOA fee, and we buy the expanded tier so my wife can watch the Food Network and I can watch baseball...does baseball count as "reality TV"?). 

I don't feel particularly "superior" to anyone because of this; I guess I would rather read, and rather not be tethered to a schedule (although on-demand makes that unnecessary).  Just musing on how much of an outsider in on-going conversations I tend to be (and to feel), and it can often be awkward.  (But not awkward enough to make me do anything about it.)

Some Thoughts on Assignment in Brittany

Helen MacInnes's books have begun to be re-issued in print and in ebook formats by Titan Books (this is a wholly good and wonderful undertaking), and I have begun to re-read them.  I started with the first one, Above Suspicion, published originally in 1941, and being a classic example of the amateur being caught up in an intelligence operation.  When I first read it (in the early 1970s), I thought it was an excellent book, and having just finished re-reading it, I find my original opinion unchanged.

I remember having a similarly positive reaction to her second book (Assignment in Brittany, 1942).  But as I have begun re-reading it, I have run into something that has given me pause.  A British intelligence agent, Martin Hearne, is being sent into occuppied France because of his remarkable physical appearance to a French soldier (Bertrand Corlay) who is currently recuperating in an English hospital.  Corlay is from the small town of Sainte-Deodat, unmarried, his father dead and his mother a semi-invalid.  Hearne is supposed to take his place and to report on German actions in that part of Brittany.

Hearne is asked (well, ordered) to undertake this assignment because his superior (Matthews) saw Corlay and jumped to the conclusion that it was Hearne.  The physical resemblance was that strong.

But we're expected to believe that anyone who gave this scheme a moment's thought could possibly have concluded it would work.  Matthews saw Corlay on a stretcher (broken hip), bandaged.  Yet he was sure enough of the resemblance that he formulated this plan.  Could the resemblance possibly extend to such things as physical mannerisms (which Hearne will not, in any event, have time to learn--he leaves in only a couple of weeks, and Corlay is hospitalized, and in bed)?  Voice (could a native speaker of English actually speak French well enough to impersonate someone well-known to his neighbors?)?  Could Hearne possibly learn enough to deceive the people of Sante-Deodat (including Corlay's mother), regardless of how well he has been coached?  Corlay is engaged to a young woman in Sainte-Deodat, with the engagement described by Corlay to Hearne as an arrangement, not a love match.  Even so, Hearne's ability to lead her to think he is really Corlay seems questionable.  And even if most of the villagers are willing to go along with the game, it only takes one to cause the whole scheme to implode.

And this is not a case of someone who's been away from the village for years (e.g., The Return of Martin Guerre or Brat Farrar), but someone who has been gone for (at most) a few months. 

I'm having a little difficulty accepting that anyone would have approved this plan.  (And, of course, it doesn't turn out as planned.)  But without approval, of a clearly hopeless undertaking, there is no book.