(no subject)

[skygiants]

The last battered yellow paperback I allowed myself before returning to (overdue) library books was Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise, a mystery novel that various people recommended to me when I posted about Brat Farrar a few years ago and were absolutely correct to do so.

The central plot of To Love and Be Wise goes as follows: a devastatingly beautiful young man visits a small village that's been overrun with Creative Types on the basis of a professed mutual acquaintance with one of the Creative Types, a young man who hosts a deeply saccharine BBC show about The Virtues of the English Countryside and who is heir to aunt's Romance Novel Fortune. The devastatingly beautiful one man has only one acquaintance in the UK, an estranged lady painter cousin, so appears more than happy to hang out in the village for an indefinite period of time.

Everyone in the village -- from the romance novelist aunt, to the local famous gay playwright, to the saccharine BBC host's sensible and clever fiancee, to indeed book police detective Inspector Alan Grant -- finds themselves uncomfortably attracted to this devastatingly beautiful young man! Comparisons are made to demons and fallen angels. The saccharine BBC host's tolerance for his devastatingly beautiful guest diminishes by the day, but he nonetheless acquiesces when the devastatingly beautiful young man proposes that they collaborate on a book-and-photography boat trip ...

... in the middle of which the devastatingly beautiful young man disappears, presumed drowned-or-murdered, and Josephine Tey's favorite Inspector Grant is called in to start doing thoughtful character studies on all the Creative Types in the village to attempt to crack the case.

Tey's Grant is a bit similar to Marsh's Inspector Alleyn, but (in my recent experience of him) more endearing to me because he is less judgmental; Alleyn usually only really approves of a very few people in any given book and occasionally oozes a sense of moral arbitration, whereas Grant occasionally takes a scunner to someone particularly awful but generally is ready to be extremely charmed by the pleasant absurdity of humanity. I enjoyed riding along with him in A Shilling for Candles, my last Tey, and enjoyed it again here.

However, I am well aware that the reason everyone correctly recommended this book to me is the fact that the final reveal is that a.) for perhaps the only time in a golden age mystery novel, there was no murder at all and b.) the devastatingly beautiful young man and his estranged lady painter cousin are in fact one and the same person, a photographer working under a man's ID who decided to Take Revenge on the saccharine BBC announcer for previous relationship crimes against her favorite cousin! Revenge involves a.) stealing his girl and b.) murdering him!!!

... and then, after reluctantly deciding that murdering him was probably over-the-top, c.) at least making his life moderately uncomfortable by faking her own death on his watch instead!!!

My biggest complaint about all off this is of course that the fake murder victim didn't finish the job of seducing the saccharine BBC announcer's sensible and clever fiancee and the happy ending of the book is that the saccharine BBC announcer has simply Learned to Appreciate The Fiancee More. I am seriously considering requesting Yuletide fic.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Isn't it amazing? I knew you'd enjoy it.

You have two Tepper books waiting too.

[skygiants]

YOU WERE RIGHT!

BELIEVE ME I have not forgotten! I've been fighting to stay on top of library books in between travel periods, so stuff that lives permanently on my shelves has had to take a backseat, but once I get home and beat my due dates...

[sovay]

I am seriously considering requesting Yuletide fic.

Please do.

("I am quite sure that he was something very wicked in Ancient Greece.")

[skygiants]

Incredible what a realm of delightful possibilities are opened up in the last ten pages of the book!

[vass]

However, I am well aware that the reason everyone correctly recommended this book to me is >( TOTAL BOOK SPOILERS, DO NOT CLICK IF YOU PLAN TO READ )

Me: Hmm, I haven't read To Love and Be Wise yet, and still want to, probably. I don't think I mind spoilers for it, but skygiants seems very emphatic.

Me: [glances back up at the paragraph about how everyone, including the detective, is attracted to the devastatingly beautiful man]
Me: [reflects on which tropes cause people to recommend books to skygiants]

Me: Actually? I think I just guessed the plot twist anyway.

Me: [checks]
Me: [was correct in the generalities, though not the specifics]

[skygiants]

To be honest I'm a little embarrassed at myself for not calling the twist earlier, I feel like given all the givens I should have predicted it from the moment of the disappearance!

[osprey_archer]

I have read this book but I somehow forgot the final plot twist! Damn, Fake Murder Victim should have done a better job seducing the sensible and clever fiancee, what a waste.

I was a bit startled to hear Grant described as the less judgmental detective, but upon reflection I recalled that the Tey book that really oozes moral outrage is The Franchise Affair, which mostly is not in Grant's POV. The moral outrage in that one is so strong that it now tinges my memory of all of Tey's other books, because I read them all about the same time.

[skygiants]

Right? "They seem a natural pair, somehow" -- it's right there in the text!

It's true, I've not read The Franchise Affair and have been so thoroughly warned off it that I'm not likely ever to do so. Grant also has the advantage of having a relatively short series that isn't (as far as I know) in a clear chronological order, whereas with Alleyn I was determined to start at the beginning and plough through In Order and have thus hit all the extreme duds as well as the most enjoyable ones. Grant is perfectly endearing in this book and in A Shilling for Candles!

(Beth says she remembers him being more annoying in the King Richard book, but I haven't read it in decades so I'm free of considering that.)

[likeadeuce]

So wait, do we know what the actual gender of the fake victim/painter is?

[skygiants]

The book wants us to consider her as 'really' female, although I think there's plenty of room for a variety of interpretations if she were written by a contemporary author rather than Josephine in 1950.

[sovay]

The book wants us to consider her as 'really' female, although I think there's plenty of room for a variety of interpretations if she were written by a contemporary author rather than Josephine in 1950.

Considering Searle's successful parallel careers as Lee the painter and Leslie the photographer (of which the ostensible masquerade is much the higher-profile: "Do you know that Hollywood stars go down on their knees to get Leslie Searle to photograph them?"), I skipped straight to AFAB non-binary in 2009, but I am also probably biased.

[lemon_badgeress]

oh, please. i would adore reading the PROPER ending!

[skygiants]

This is what Yuletide is for!

[legionseagle]

"You suggest that I, that I, Serge Ratoff, was taking part in an 'op?" is still the funniest line in the whole thing.

[skygiants]

Serge Ratoff should take part in an 'op, IMO. It might be good for him!

[aamcnamara]

ah yes The Gay Tey

Yuletide fic for this would be great, Tey gets so close and then... not quite. You could have had it all, Josephine!

[skygiants]

The Gayest of Teys! Thank you again for the rec. >:D (I also had my eyebrows real high up when Grant at the beginning is going on and on about how attractive Searle is and I would not at all mind seeing Grant Grapple With Some Things either if this had gone in a different direction tbh.)

[aamcnamara]

The beauty of this plot is that no matter what direction it goes, it's gay.... oh, it is gay.

[kore]

! !

Yuletide fic for this sounds great!

[skygiants]

The season approacheth....

[annotated_em]

Thank you for this write-up, because I had not previously encountered Josephine Tey and now I have a whole bunch of delightful reading to look forward to.

[skygiants]

My favorite of hers that I've read is still probably Brat Farrar, but this one and A Shilling For Candles were both very enjoyable as well!

[chestnut_pod]

WOW, this sounds amazing and I MUST read it.

[skygiants]

:DDDDD I hope you enjoy if you do!

[venetia_sassy]

I'm still bewildered that the sensible fiancee stayed with the self-satisfied BBC host. Yuletide fic indeed!

All the 'village artists' made me laugh - apart from the one who wrote about steaming manure heaps and made his wife miserable. Arse. A well-written arse.

[skygiants]

Right, everyone's like "well everything's sorted itself out for the best" and I'm like "but ... you all love this woman and think her fiancee is an idiot so how ......"

THAT STRESSED ME OUT SO MUCH. Especially when they start talking about how his wife was a teacher with ambitions before she married him! FREE FAKE THOMAS HARDY'S WIFE.

[legionseagle]

A friend of mine and I got into the habit of describing Philip Pullman as "Silas Monthly" based on this portrayal.

[agonistes]

I read the spoilers and then promptly went to check out the ebook from library, and I am in chapter 2, and wow this book is full of Seething Undercurrents of Gay Panic ain't it

[skygiants]

Oh, massively, and it's such a funny self-own ... truly astonishing how dangerously sexy queerness is, by virtue of paying attention, and having good conversation, and listening to the things that people are interested in!

[larryhammer]

the fake murder victim didn't finish the job of seducing the saccharine BBC announcer's sensible and clever fiancee

That's a wimpout big enough, I don't know I want to touch this -- especially given how awesome it otherwise sounds.

[skygiants]

I'm so mad that it's just like "well, inexplicably, she truly loves this milkweed, so I guess it's a happy ending! Big shrug!" LET LIZ EXPERIENCE THE JOYS OF LESBIANISM

[landingtree]

Name jotted down, comments and spoilers carefully avoided!