The Mystery of the Author's Decline

After finishing The Murder Room by P.D. James, I have one question: Who’s been putting Xanax in the Baroness's coffee?

Warning: spoilers for Murder Room, Unnatural Death, Death of an Expert Witness, A Taste for Death, Cover Her Face, Shroud for a Nightingale

Much of The Murder Room reads as though James is just too tired to flesh out the plot, the interviews, and the characters. Too much is told in summary, rather than scene. Even the obligatory horror story embedded in the middle is given short shrift, and I still haven’t figured out the relevance or the details of the betrayal in the anti-Nazi underground group.

But it’s more than just the weary, phoned-in quality that bothers me. It’s the drawing back from the painful consequences of murder. PD James has never been afraid of hurting (or killing off) sympathetic characters. Indeed, much of her appeal for me has always lain in her ability to show the humanity in all her characters, even the killers, while she nevertheless treats them with the ruthlessness the book demands. The lesbian novelist trying desperately to save her home and the life she’s made with her lover? Dies while attempting the gentlest form of blackmail. The over-driven, emotionally exhausted single father who wants to keep his family together? Murders to save them, but loses them when he’s caught. The devout old lady who befriends a street waif? Loses her faith, loses the waif she’s grown to love as a son, although he survives.

The Murder Room is different. The decent, humane older woman who has finally made herself a home doesn’t get killed or lose her home. The museum (for the sake of which the murder is done) does indeed stay open. Dalgliesh doesn’t lose a lover to the exigencies of his job. In fact, he gets engaged.

I do not insist that Adam Dalgleish stay celibate for his job; he's had lovers before. But now he has proposed to some woman he's never even fucked. There is very little indication in this book that he even knows the woman. I certainly don't know much about her, except that she teaches at Cambridge and has never been to his flat. I missed the previous book (Murder in Holy Orders), in which Emma and Dalgleish apparently fell in love.

Isn't it a bit tacky to be cruising murder scenes for pickups? Although that at least is in character. He became involved with Deborah Whatshername, whose mother he arrested for murder, and nearly married her. But she dumped him and went off to America while he was on vacation—where, of course, he stumbled over several interesting corpses. (That book, Unnatural Death, is in many ways a critique of the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries; she even swiped the title from Sayers. Must write about that at some point.) He was also strongly attracted to a suspect in Shroud for a Nightingale, who turned out not to be guilty of various other crimes, including the original murders, but took justice into her own hands by killing the murderess.

I'm also a bit troubled by the age difference; Dalgleish has always, as far as I could tell, aged naturally—that is, as calendar time passed in the world, it also passed in the books. His wife and child died during the 1950s. Thirty years ago he was in his early 40s. Now he’s got to be in his 70s—well past retirement age. Has he ceased to age at all? I don't know how old Emma is—she could be anything from mid-twenties to forty-something, I suppose. The age parameters are that she has a PhD in English but is still fertile, since Dalgleish was even mooning over the possibility of their having a child together. Somehow I can’t see that obsessively fastidious man dealing well with the daily chaos, noise, and mess of child-rearing.

Baroness James is 85 now. Perhaps she is mellowing with age, or she may want to leave her detective—and her readers—on a hopeful note. I salute her very great achievement over all these decades, and I hope she can bring us a few more good murders before she follows so many of her characters into death.

Techno Updates from the Past Few Days

As of Wednesday night:
The technological chaos of the past three weeks is ending at last. Michele found her cell phone, missing since January 19. My laptop is on its way back from Apple repair (got wet January 26); it should be at the Apple store Thursday. Our DSL, out for a week, has been repaired.

The laptop is not fixed, but at least we know what’s wrong with it—and why it didn’t bounce back from the wetting, as so many iBooks do. Apparently the plastic frame holding the LCD screen is cracked. Thus the tiny trickle of dampness got into the LCD itself—creating the most expensive possible repair. Sigh. They offered to fix the plastic for the original $300 estimate, but what would be the point of that? There was no way I could spring for the nearly $800 to replace the screen.

However, now that we know what the problem is, we may be able to find another way to fix the screen. Several trustworthy sources replace screens for $350 or so, including labor. The question is whether it’s worth the money, given that I can use the iBook as a desktop machine simply by hooking it to the monitor (plus wireless keyboard and mouse) I already own. But I will need a laptop for the trip east.

I’m amused that our high-tech problems are correlated with ancient astrological systems. There’s a T-square of outer planets in fixed signs that’s making 2006 memorable already. Occasionally some hapless planet will transit the empty spot and make a Grand Cross—a brief one every month, when the Moon crosses that sensitive spot, but several longer-lasting ones. Mars was just there, making combative aspects with Neptune in Aquarius, Jupiter in Scorpio, and Saturn in Leo.


As of Friday:

The iBook arrived in Emeryville yesterday. This morning I got email informing me that it was going back to be fixed, with a new repair number. Damn—clearly they'd received it, tested it, and sent it back as unrepaired. I could foresee months or years of this circuit, my iBook becoming a high-tech Flying Dutchman. So I called Apple this morning, and they promised to look into it.

I sat on hold for a while, listening first to some good hot jazz, then to a dreadful song by Barbra Streisand and the BeeGees named "Stranger in a Strange Land." Then the customer-service rep came back and explained that the iBook was being fixed for free. Apple will pay for the repair, since it was only a few months out of warranty.

They have my undying loyalty.

To be honest, they had it already. Apple products consistently work well, because they are elegantly designed, inside and out. The user interface standards are superb; for example, you never have to guess what will happen when you click OK, because the buttons are labeled with the action, not with generic consent.

Some people complain that Apple products may be a bit more expensive, but when I researched the issue, looking for a new laptop, I discovered that the iBook was actually competitively priced. Unlike many cheaper Windows laptops, it already included the wireless card, the sound card, all the things I wanted. Also, they hold their value; this iBook is fifteen months old, and I could sell it for very close to what I paid for it.

Every customer-service person I've ever dealt with at Apple has been courteous, competent, and thoughtful. Their corporate policy seems to be kindness. Or maybe they're just lonely. This is only the third time I've had a repair. After I'd had it for five or six years, the Apple IIe broke down; I've forgotten now what had to be replaced, but it cost $300. After eight years, it died completely; that was my second repair. And now this.

In more than twenty years of consistent, heavy usage, I've never found an Apple product that was a lemon. Think about it: since January 1984 I've spent almost every workday, most evenings, and many weekend days using an Apple computer. That's a minimum of eight or ten hours a day, and sometimes far more. I've written manuscripts and grad school papers, generated horoscope charts, run online forums, edited documents, designed and typeset books, created graphics, played games, and surfed the Internet. I've fallen in love. And despite that extremely heavy usage, the constant work, and the occasional cat strolling on the keyboard, I've had three problems. Three.

I can't think of any other product I've used so consistently and heavily that's given so little trouble. I've had refrigerators that were more demanding. And they don't play me music, or let me talk to people on the other side of the world, or offer me a nice game of chess.

Apple. They have my heart. And when the current book sells, I've got my eye on a 20-inch iMac.

How Different from the Home Life of Our Own Dear Bush

Prince Harry is to be sent to Iraq next year as a troop commander and is likely to patrol the hazardous border with Iran, defence sources have disclosed.

The third in line to the throne will join the Army's 1st Mechanised Brigade, which will be deployed to Basra in May 2007.

Prince Harry will complete his training at Sandhurst in April The prince has told colleagues that he is determined to go on operations and be treated as normally as possible—not kept out of the line of fire. . . .

"There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country," he has said.

Gone Fishin'

The administration has declined to release records of Abramoff meetings, saying it will not "engage in a fishing expedition."

Let's clarify the terminology.

Searching the Google records of millions of Americans is like fishing in a pond posted with "No Fishing Permitted" signs, using a stolen pole and tainted bait.

Releasing the records of the Abramoff meetings is dynamiting fish in a barrel. Given Abramoff's clientele, it's probably an oil barrel.

American Classics

Friday night was a celebration of the best of American culture: it included a trip to a faux-Egyptian picture palace, a great black-and-white movie, one of our finest newsmen, and a conversation in an all-night diner.

Half a dozen of us got together to see Good Night, and Good Luck at the Parkway theatre, built in 1926. Just getting there was an adventure, since Yahoo and Google both offer directions that make no sense in the context of the actual streets. There’s either a missing street sign, or the essential artery has had a name change that never extended as far as the online maps. We did arrive on time, although by the time we got there we both were feeling a bit frazzled.

The Parkway offers comfortable, casual seating on couches and at small tables. It's something like sitting in your own living room to watch a movie, assuming your living room has a multistory ceiling; a proscenium arch decorated with sphinxes, cobras, and cobra-headed vultures; and a genuine full-sized movie screen. And also good lemonade, decent pizza, and excellent lemon bars. It shows classics, cult movies, and carefully selected second-run films. Oh, and you can buy alcohol, too, if you like, or rent it for a private function.

It's a wonderful way to see a movie, and my God, what a wonderful movie to see! Courage, principle, damned good reporting, and subtle, beautiful ensemble acting. David Strathairn has long been a favorite actor of mine; he gives quiet, thoughtful performances in movies ranging from Matewan to Eight Men Out to Sneakers (where he has a delightful turn as a blind man). He’s good, he has always been good, and now he has found the role that should get him an Oscar nomination.

George Clooney directed, and he co-stars as Fred Friendly. The working partnership of reporter and producer comes alive onscreen. Robert Downey, Jr., also turns in his usual fine performance. And Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck—an impressively understated performance of a man in torment.

Every period detail snapped into place. The sexual politics, the office hierarchies, the clothes, even the ever-present cigarette smoke. No wonder all those guys died young—they smoked cigarettes everywhere, even on camera.

After the show, we stopped at the all-night Merritt Bakery, which is more a diner than a mere bakery, and talked for a bit. Sometime I need to come back there and actually eat (I just had a soda). In addition to the expected burgers, milk shakes, breakfasts, and desserts, their menu features chicken and waffles. That dish is also an American classic, although it’s a tad disturbing to see “Waffle with Legs” or “Waffle with Breast” on the menu. I’m not worried about being attacked by mutant waffle monsters; I’m just bothered when a classic diner’s menu sounds like the exhibit catalogue at a conceptual art gallery.

In the East Bay Hills

The grassy, oak-crowned hills in the East Bay remind me of Kenya. This rolling landscape with its spare lines and subtle colors is the primal scene for all of us. Millions of years ago, we were born in country like this; the first humans imprinted on their surroundings, and even now we respond with yearning to the wheat-colored hills, the clumps of trees, the fragrant underbrush marking the crevices where life-giving water collects. In a profound sense, country like this—grassy hills on the edge of a great geologic fault—is home to us all.

In Africa, this landscape is home to an astonishing variety of animals. In California we have mammals as small as the pocket mouse and as big as mule deer and black bears. The only pocket mouse I’ve spotted was roadkill; the deer die on the roads, too, and present much more threat to the early-morning commuter. The great grizzly bear, once monarch of these hills, still survives on the state flag, but it is extinct in the wild in California. Still, there are black bears here, and I hope to see one someday. (I’ve seen them in Pennsylvania.)

In the sky above these hills I’ve seen red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, egrets, great blue herons, the occasional eagle, and plenty of more familiar birds. Still haven’t spotted a condor, though we have some nesting pairs. Rock outcrops are good places to look for tiger salamanders and all their reptilian kin.

Coyotes are common enough to be a nuisance, and deer can be, too, despite their beauty. Still, it was a pleasure when Sonja and I spotted a few deer feeding in the hills along Crow Canyon Road just east of Castro Valley. We were returning from Costco with a month’s worth of groceries—a suburban Saturday-morning expedition that was made adventurous by the grazing deer.

As we rounded a curve, I kept my eye on the hills, still golden despite the December rains. And spotted, with a kick at my heart, a large cat creeping along the hillside toward the deer, like a housecat stalking a catnip mouse. But this was no housecat. Nor was it a bobcat, although we have them here. This was more than twice the size of a bobcat.

A mountain lion.

It was darker than I expected: less gold than medium brown, and paler underneath. It was moving along the deer trail, carefully working its way downwind of the deer. I realized that this was the ideal strategy: the deer were around the shoulder of the hill and a little downhill, so when the lion spotted them, he (or she) could leap downward upon the unsuspecting animals.

It’s one thing to spot a wild animal basking in sunlight, or crossing a road, another entirely to catch a glimpse of it in action. The hunting lion had no attention for anything but its prey. Although I was safe in the car, I suddenly felt small and scared. It was humbling, this elemental fear of the predator. This feeling too must be a legacy of the first humans, those agile hairless creatures so easy for lions to run down and kill.

As well as fear, I felt awe and pleasure. I felt honored by this glimpse of the wild. The only things like it in my life have been the kick at the heart, the terror and awe, of feeling an earthquake or seeing a ghost: things utterly beyond my understanding or control.

We humans are the greatest predators now. Do the deer and the lions feel the same awe when we pass them by in our steel and plastic boxes? I don’t know. But I think that’s why people hunt the great mammals to extinction—not for food, but to make the lion, the grizzly, the elephant feel afraid and small, thus to erase their own sense of being helpless in the face of the wilderness.

THE STABLE

The winds were scornful,
Passing by;
And gathering Angels
Wondered why

A burdened Mother
Did not mind
That only animals
Were kind.

For who in all the world
Could guess
That God would search out
Loneliness.

Sr. M. Chrysostom, O.S.B.
Robert, Cyril. Mary Immaculate: God's Mother and Mine. New York: Marist Press, 1946.

Don't Blow Your Stack! Get a Home Harmony Ear Harmonica!

If family conversations make steam come out your ears, you don't have to suffer in silence. Tuck the Home Harmony Ear Harmonica into your ear canal for your own private soundtrack!

Perfect for those visits to the old folks at home, it plays a selection of merry tunes whenever steam comes out your ears. Programmable to play your favorites, or you can stick with these popular selections:

* The Animals, "We Got To Get Outta This Place"
* Bruce Springsteen, "Born to Run"
* The Coasters, "Yakety Yak"
* The Beatles, "She's Leaving Home"

Would you rather listen to Dad asking when you're finally going to get a real job, or Bob Dylan playing "Maggie's Farm"?

When Mom can't remember the name of the woman you've been married to for the past seventeen years, select from our library of 273 songs named after girls--or stick with the simple, classic dignity of Destiny's Child singing "Say My Name."

Not audible to others, this dual-function insert substitutes beautiful music for the nagging voices of your parents and the boasting, whining, and fighting of your siblings and their offspring. But unlike simple earplugs or rival music systems, the Home Harmony Ear Harmonica alerts you to the topic of conversation, so you can respond appropriately while enjoying a private concert.

For only $29.99 extra, you can get the patented early warning superheated steam alert. This add-on plays "The Ride of the Valkyries" in full orchestral sound when you're ten seconds away from throttling any family member. Believe me, it has saved me thousands in legal fees and the lives of at least three of my in-laws.

Face the holidays with a smile--thanks to the Home Harmony Ear Harmonica.

Coming soon--the Buzzword Bingo Business Meeting Edition!

Quotation of the Day

So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information.—George Orwell, “Why I Write”

California Weather Report

It's raining here. That makes it winter.