A Blog Post: In Which We Praise Victorian Sensation Fiction; Briefly Consider a Kiwi Comedy-Folk Duo; Revisit Nancy Drew Mysteries; Abolish Backyard Insects; and Slurp Fla-Vor-Ice.

Ah, summer reading.  Time was, we’d pool our allowance and babysitting income, pay a visit to the bookstore at the West Shore Plaza in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, and stock up on sensational Nancy Drew Mysteries.  We’d read them and swap them, read some more and swap some more, revving up the roadster and reveling in amateur sleuthing with Nancy, Bess, and George.  And when we laid hands upon a fistful of Fla-Vor-Ice, well then, we'd be in business for the summer.  Slurp, slurp. Slurp.

These days, our summer reading is slightly more ambitious, slightly more sensational, still full of sleuthing, still worth swapping.  And as a rule, less slurpy.

The Luminaries: A Novel by Eleanor Catton.

Little, Brown and Company, 2013.  834 pages.

Mystery and Suspense, Historical Fiction

Sure, we could slather ourselves with sunscreen and haul this beguiling behemoth onto a crowded public beach.  It wouldn't be pretty: sand accumulating between eight-hundred-plus pages as we hide behind dark glasses and mop brows in sweaty acknowledgment that we're reading words written by someone brighter and brainier than us.  On the plus side, the Man Booker Prize Winner would serve as ballast for our beach blanket when the onshore breeze kicks up. 

Victorian Mosquito.

But trust us, this one is best enjoyed in the privacy of backyard shade: from the sequestered comfort of a weathered Adirondack chair, with an outdoor cushion for lumbar support, a cold compress to sooth throbbing temples, and a tall glass of something iced within reach.  Mosquitoes, gnats, biting flies?  Not to worry.  We have laid hands upon the best bug deterrent in town: namely, the business end of a Victorian-style sensation novel, updated with a droll postmodern tone. A few dense pages into The Luminaries, fiction enthusiasts recognize the legacy of a literary genre popular in Great Britain during the nineteenth century, bookish response to the Industrial Revolution and its social angst.  Thwack, thwack.  Thwack! 

The Luminaries touches upon many themes requisite to the Victorian sensation novel, listed here alphabetically for aesthetic purposes.  Adultery?  Check.  Amateur Sleuthing?  Check.  Apparitions?  Check.  Concealed Gold?  Check.  Forgery?  Check.  Illicit Opium Use?  Check.  How about Murder? Prostitution?  Seances?  Seduction?  Sketchy Behaviors?  Thievery? Check, check, check, check, check… thwack!

Hokitika Valley, John Turnbull Thomson, 1876.

The plot thickens meticulously.  On a dark and stormy night in 1866, newly-arrived Englishman Walter Moody—physically spent and psychologically spooked—staggers into a backroom meeting in coastal Hokitika, New Zealand.  Here he finds a dozen local men assembled to investigate three synchronous crimes in the gold rush boom town—misdeeds in which each of the twelve is implicated in some way.  A wealthy young man has vanished, a prostitute has been found near death on the street, and a turns-out-not-so-penniless hermit has died under suspicious circumstances.  Not surprisingly, Moody is drawn into Hokitika's universe of star-crossed fate and outrageous fortune. 

19th Century Zodiac.

In the language of the Maori, Hokitika means around, and then back again, an appellation explaining much about the novel's elaborate and circular narrative path.  The plot revolves around planetary movements, and characters correspond to Zodiac signs.  The opening chapter is hundreds of pages long; the final chapter, just two.  Dickensian chapter headings wax as the page count wanes, synopsis eclipsing narrative in the closing pages. 

Gold Rush Town, 19th Century New Zealand.

Back to the meticulously thickening plot.  Newly-arrived Englishman Moody has personal business to attend to, hoping to make his fortune and dispel the dishonor of the rellies (that's Kiwi for family shame).  On the prospect of gold prospecting, he confesses: I suppose I've dreamed of what comes afterward—that is, what the gold might lead to, what it might become.  We read on and on, anxious to learn what this might lead to, what's to become of this big beaut book (that's Kiwi for big beautiful book).  Without a doubt, The Luminaries is crash hot (that’s Kiwi for excellent), and Eleanor Catton can spin a story like Nobody’s Business.  Speaking of Crash Hot and Nobody’s Business and New Zealand, we would be remiss if we did not include a live performance by New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a capella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo, The Flight of the Conchords.  Sing it, Bret and Jemaine:

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

Penguin Classics, 2003.  720 pages.

Mystery and Suspense, Oldies But Goodies

Oh yeah, it's business time, and there's plenty of funny business in this definitive example of Victorian sensation fiction, circa 1859.  Late one night on a deserted London road, young art instructor Walter Hartright encounters a phantasmagorical Woman in White.  He helps her on her way and travels to Limmeridge House in historical Cumberland, England, where he falls in love with one of his students and insinuates himself into a suitably Victorian and sensational domestic situation.

Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie!

As expected, the plot thickens.  We have: bad advice, criminal intent, cross purposes, duplicitous behavior, financial squabbling, illegitimacy, international intrigue, letter writing, questionable wardrobe selection, wrongful psychiatric commitment.  And typhus.  Speaking of sheilas (that's Kiwi for women) in white and Dickensian chapter headings (we were, several moments ago), let's add this to our summer reading list:

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan by Claire Tomalin.

Knopf, 1991.  317 pages.

Non Fiction and Biographies

This book-now-a-major-motion-picture provides an account of Charles Dickens’ relationship with actress Nelly Ternan, sharing Victorian moments from their thirteen-year affair and sensational scenes from the dissolution of Dickens' marriage. Further, we learn that Wilkie Collins, himself a master of the discreet irregular ménage, remained totally discreet about his friend.  This is bad business, Wilkie.

  

Speaking of invisible and bad business, right about now we're feeling a bit nostalgic for Nancy Drew Number Forty-Six, The Invisible Intruder.  That's the one where Nancy, Bess, and George embark on a ghost-hunting expedition and go all guts for garters (that's Kiwi for get in big trouble) with a gang of seashell-swiping thieves.  That's the one where Nancy, in the penultimate moment, outwits the enemy in a sensational Room of Skulls!  Slurp, slurp.  Slurp.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

Modern Library, 2001 (1868).

Mystery and Suspense, Oldies But Goodies

Speaking and singing of business (we were, just a moment ago), this oh-so Victorian sensation novel concerns itself with the business of the diamond.  First serialized in Charles Dickens’ oh-so literary magazine All the Year Round, it is widely considered the first English-language detective novel.  In keeping with the requirements of the sensation genre, The Moonstone offers a variety of exclamatory elements, including:

All the Year Round.

A spirited-albeit-naive heroine!  A cursed diamond!  The return of a childhood companion!  A lovesick housemaid!  A smidge of decorative door painting!  Subtle sexual tension!  An English country house party!  A band of party-crashing Hindoo jugglers!  A brazen late-night theft!  Bungling local constabulary!  A long list of likely suspects!  A short list of unlikely suspects!  A respected investigator from Scotland Yard!  Red herrings!  Amateur sleuthing!  A spate of somnambulism! Impractical but entertaining recreation of the crime!  A comical house steward!  A poor relation!  A religious crank!  A man with piebald hair!  A period of turmoil and misfortune, followed by resolution of the matter!  Oh Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie!

Speaking of moonstones and mysteries, Nancy receives a valuable moonstone from an anonymous benefactor in Nancy Drew Number Forty, The Moonstone Castle Mystery.  The ensuing twists and turns of plot are overshadowed by our realization that, judging by the cover art, Nancy and her chums conduct much of their amateur sleuthing in sensational vintage Fla-Vor-Ice-colored dresses.  Slurp, slurp.  Slurp.

The Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins.
Hesperus Press, 2005 (1874).  112 pages.
Mystery and Suspense, Oldies But Goodies
This adaptation of a stage play lacks the complexity, page count, and consequent physical heft of The Luminaries, The Woman in White, and The Moonstone; however, Wilkie's novella holds some interest for fans of Victorian sensation fiction and for aficionados of melodramatic Arctic expeditions.  
The plot.  The place is an English sea-port.  And the business of the moment is—dancing.  At a party given in celebration of the aforementioned melodramatic Arctic expedition, sailor and suitor Frank Aldersley proposes to Clara Burnham.  She accepts, necessarily rejecting another sailor and suitor, Richard Wardour, who is necessarily overcome with despair and unnecessarily joins the expedition on a whim.  This puts the romantic rivals on the same boat! Two years later, ship and crew are trapped in Arctic ice: Aldersley is weak, unable to escape without assistance.  Wardour is not-quite-as-weak, able to assist and escape.  Wardour discovers his rival's identity.  And therein lies the Victorian and sensational dilemma.  Which man will return to Clara?

In the Audience: Queen Victoria.

With Dickens, the plot thickens.  The Frozen Deep traces its beginnings to an 1856 theatrical venture written by Collins, aided and abetted by crash hot (remember, that's Kiwi for excellent) author and literary chum Charles Dickens.  He falls in love with one of the actresses (that's Nelly Ternan, The Invisible Woman!) and insinuates himself into a suitably Victorian and theatrical situation, playing the role of Wardour, tweaking dialogue, acting as prop guy and stage manager... generally mixing Victorian business with sensational pleasure.  Queen Victoria takes in a performance at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, and the production reportedly moves audiences to tears.  

Speaking of The Frozen Deep... How about Nancy Drew Number Twenty-Nine, The Mystery at the Ski Jump!  Okay, so it isn't exactly The Frozen Deep.  It's Upstate New York and Southern Canada, but there is indeed frozen precipitation, and Nancy, Bess, and George are chilly at times.  They are tracking, of all things, fur thieves and dealing with an appropriately sensational case of identity theft.   

And now, gentle reading chums, business hours are over.  We're heading for the deep freeze (that's nostalgic for freezer) and laying hands upon a fistful of Fla-Vor-Ice.  We will find a sequestered, comfortable Adirondack chair, thwack away the mossies (that's Kiwi for mosquitoes), and read Victorian sensation fiction until our lips and tongue turn blue.  Slurp, slurp. Slurp.