The Fashion in Shrouds

Somehow I've gotten onto a string of misogynistic women authors. Compared to this the last one, Christie's Blue Train, seems quite mild. At least its sexism is of a more paternal tone -- oh, you women are so silly and unable to control your feelings --rather than truly hateful. The women here are not just irrational, but also vicious, selfish, dishonest, and amoral. And this despite the fact that the male characters do all the murdering and most of the other crimes. When women commit their sordid little crimes it is at the behest of men, but that still makes them worse than men because they are stupider as well.<br /><br />This book contains the most repulsive proposal I have read, to date: <br /><br /><i>Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought? ...In return, mind you (I consider it an obligation), I should assume full responsibility for you. I would pay your bills to any amount which my income might afford. I would make all the decisions which were not directly your province, although on the other hand I would like to feel I might discuss everything with you if I wanted to; but only because I wanted to, mind you; not as your right. ...You would be my care, my mate... my possession... It means the other half of my life to me, but the whole of yours.</i><br /><br />This is totally serious. It is not meant as a satire. Also, it comes right after the guy has had a very public affair with a married women, and there hasn't been a big talk or reconciliation scene or anything of that nature. But I guess poor Val has low standards. After all, earlier in the story when she was admitting how upset she was about Alan's betrayal, she was told, <i>"This is damned silly introspective rot. What you need, my girl, is a good cry or a nice rape."</i> And that's from her brother! The protagonist/detective/hero of the story! This is book ten in Campion's series. I really thought I had read an earlier installment and not hated it or him, but I sure did here. In fact, I found most of the characters pretty repellent. The only person I found sympathetic was Amanda, the young aircraft engineer. Well, and the kid Sinclair, but he only existed as a plot device and disappeared as soon as he had conveyed the crucial information.<br /><br />Allingham's writing is decent and often clever. It's a pity her characters ruin it.<br /><br />[Added after a reread 02/26/14, which was unfortunately necessitated by starting [book:Traitor's Purse|383181] and realizing that I couldn't remember what had happened with the Campion/Amanda plot arc.<br /><br />I think what bothered me so much about the misogyny was both how universal it was -- <b>every</b> female character conforms to stereotypes of women as irrational, emotional, catty, and focused on men (except for to some degree Amanda, who is always described as "innocent," "childlike," "trusting" and also is unfeminine and a mechanic) -- and how ultimately unnecessary to the plot. Which sucks because the plot is actually reasonably strong in terms of the mystery, but I couldn't enjoy it because this nasty, insulting bile about women kept coming up over and over, even when it had nothing to do with what else was going on.]<br />

This book is a challenge for many of today's fans of Margery Allingham. It is a great mystery, complex and beautifully written, with many twists and a rich cast of suspects. Allingham generally plays fair with her clues while distracting the reader from the truth with her sometimes enigmatic but always insightful descriptions of the intricacies of human interaction. Her characters are mostly vivid and original, and she has a gift for getting her sleuth, Campion, emotionally entangled in the action (a type of mystery I greatly prefer to the procedural or the detached observer type of story).<br /><br />BUT--the "buts" loom pretty large in this book, and as readers' sensibilities change with the passage of time, this book becomes increasingly difficult to enjoy. Minorities and immigrants are referred to in distasteful ways, even by our hero. Foreignness seems to give the author an opportunity for stereotyping, which is all the more jarring because her British characters are so individualized. And sexism is rampant--I might even say gratuitous, especially when I compare this book to those of Dorothy Sayers. There is one marriage proposal that is second in horribleness only to Mr. Darcy's <i>grande betise</i> at Hunsford in all my reading days. I nearly threw the book across the room to see an admirable female character throw herself, her career (and those of others), and her dignity so blissfully away.<br /><br />I tried to shut out all the squeam-inducing bits and admire the rest of the gifts Allingham so bountifully displays, and for the most part succeeded. But the content warning has to stand.<br /><br />I did figure out the perpetrator quite early on, but the hows still absorbed me and the suspense of bringing the wicked one to justice kept me on the edge of my seat.

The sexism in this book was utterly appalling to me. It ruined a decent detective story. It's easy to say "oh, it was written in 1938, it's just of it's time", but that's a terrible argument considering that three years earlier Dorothy L. Sayers had written the intelligent, feminist detective story Gaudy Night.

This book could essentially be renamed "A Tale of Four Career Women". Written 'between the wars', you can almost see the author wrestling with old and new conceptions of what it is to be male and female - sometimes using statements which are teeth-grindingly appalling. Some of these statements come out of Campion's mouth (including the memorable suggestion that what his sister wanted to cheer her up was a "good cry or a nice rape" - there's a word used in a way we don't usually use it!).<br /><br />The first woman is Georgia, an accomplished and completely self-absorbed actress. Furtherance of her career is one of the pivots this story turns upon, but it is more Georgia's self-indulgence rather than her career which drives her to go through husbands (and painfully neglect her sadly-situated child Sinclair).<br /><br />The second woman is Val - Campion's sister - an extremely successful couturier discovering love rather later than usual and suffering for it.<br /><br />The third is Amanda Fitton - aircraft mechanic, inventor, brilliant, valiant, cheerfully playing partner to Campion's detective endeavours.<br /><br />The fourth hovers in the background, the devoted, unattractive secretary.<br /><br />The mystery itself is intriguing and complex, but it is the way these women deal with romantic possibility which is what the book appears to be about.<br /><br /><input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="3c3607c8-70ea-4edd-9f8d-b1c2ec6b1f2d" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="3c3607c8-70ea-4edd-9f8d-b1c2ec6b1f2d">Georgia is a 'timeless' woman - her self-absorbed 'outside society' approach could be found in any age. She is a serial user of men.<br /><br />Val is not nearly so modern as she thinks. She's immensely successful, head of her own company - and wearied by it, lonely, actually saying yes without hesitation to a proposal which starts: "Will you marry me and give up to me your independence, the enthusiasm which you give your career, your time and your thought?" It's really hard to feel pleased about that particular marriage, even though I've no doubt it's intended to be a happy one. Her beau, Alan Dale, views a wife as property - all in a very gentlemanly style - but clearly stated.<br /><br />Amanda is Amanda, indefatigable, entirely her own self. There's never a suggestion that Amanda stop being a mechanic, stop being an inventor. She is, once again, a partner in foiling a crime.<br /><br />The secretary, after a life of rather one-sided service, gets out while the going is good. She was not a nice person, but I am always just a bit sorry for devoted secretaries.</label><br /><br />Along with the embedded sexism of a bygone age, there's also a sour dash of racism to stumble over. But, numerous wincing aside, it's a clever story and Amanda Fitton makes up for the rest.

Published in 1938, this is the tenth mystery featuring Albert Campion. In this book we get to meet his sister, Val, a fashion designer, as well as becoming reacquainted with Amanda Fitton from an earlier mystery and who, I believe, he marries later in the series. <br /><br />Campion is involved in the discovery of the remains of a man, lawyer Richard Portland-Smith, once involved with the actress, Georgia Wells. Georgia is a friend of Val and now remarried to Raymond Ramillies. Like so many Golden Age novels, Georgia, as an actress, gets fairly short shrift. Indiscreet, unable to resist taking the attention of any man (including plane designer, Alan Wells, who Val is in love with), prone to gossip and self-obsessive, she finds herself surrounded by murder and intrigue and, soon, Val is implicated. It is up to Campion to unravel the mystery and remove the scandal of gossip from Val. <br /><br />I am becoming fond of Campion, although it has taken me a while to enjoy the series. I will continue and hope that Amanda becomes more involved in future mysteries.<br /><br />

This is the tenth Albert Campion novel, and was first published in 1938.<br /><br />Interestingly, the reader is introduced to Campion’s hitherto unknown sister, Val, a successful dressmaker to the rich and famous, and there is the return of the intrepid Lady Amanda Fitton, an old friend with whom he becomes more intimately involved. Indeed, Campion has his hands altogether full with the fairer sex in this tale.<br /><br />The plot holds water as a murder mystery, and together with the period antics of London high society it was a sufficiently satisfying ride; I was always pleased to pick up with the journey wherever I had left off.<br /><br />Margery Allingham is in a league of her own when it comes to literacy, and the prose is entertaining in its own right. The downside of this, however, is slow progress at times, and there were certain characters whom I confused or struggled to place. (This may be down to my erratic reading habits.)<br /><br />If there is a flaw, I would return to the plot. It is not a spoiler to say there is more than one death, and what is never quite apparent is the motive that underlies these events. The corollary is an underlying feeling of sailing with no rudder, and of wondering just where it is all heading.

I do like Allingham's books; even their vices, such as quite a dense style that could be understandably considered awkward at times, and plots that depend on fanciful characters and coincidences, appeal to me. But I've come to realise that I don't actually like her detective, Campion, that much, and that was particularly the case here. Most of all, this is one of those weird misogynistic novels women write sometimes, when you get the sense they would like to believe women weren't inferior, because the thought, and the implication for human life in general, is crashingly depressing when anyone really thinks about it, but can't manage it. Campion thinks weird misogynistic thoughts about his own sister, Valentine, because, I think, if only she wasn't a woman she'd be as good as him, and he kind of likes her and she's his relative so this inferiority depresses him. And then Valentine receives the most chilling proposal I've ever read, in which he informs her not only that she'd have to give up her business and he'd be making all the decisions, and that she'd be his mate as in plumber's mate, his possession, but that while he'd like to feel he could discuss things with her, that would be just as and when he chose, not as her right. Sometimes you see things that make you suddenly realise fully just how impossibly twisted and cramped and false inequality makes life.

3.5 stars - I listened for this reread, knocked down from the 4 stars I gave it years ago on a first read when I first discovered Allingham. I’ve decided after reading Ngaio Marsh, and rereading Allingham, Christie and Sayers, that I prefer the writing styles of the last two. I don’t know if it’s the passage of time, or personal taste, but with Marsh and Allingham, as clever as they are, I often reread passages trying to figure out what they are trying to say.<br /><br />This story starts out with the discovery of a body, and our hero, Albert Campion, trying to figure out which of the self-centered, wealthy, shallow suspects (including his sister, fashion designer Valentine), may have been responsible. Two more deaths follow, and almost a murder disguised as suicide of Campion himself, before the bad guy is uncovered - an exciting ending. I think the fun and exciting twist of an ending may have sucked me in years ago, and earned four stars!<br /><br />This time, however, after more years spent reading and rereading mysteries, the ending didn’t quite make up for all the time spent among the truly awful band of suspects - I could cheerfully strangle the obnoxious actress for the misery she single-handedly causes to several characters! - but it did give an interesting look at the Bright Young Things among the wealthy London elite of the 1930s. <br /><br />I also truly enjoyed, as always, time spent with Lugg, the dogged Inspector Oates, and the delightful Amanda - I may reread the earlier books where we first meet the young Fittons, they were fun. <br /><br />Here, everyone is terribly sophisticated and blasé about open infidelity, drugs and self-centered society types like the obnoxious actress, Georgia - I’m no prude, but it was annoying. And the proposal received at the end, from a character who had been courting the woman receiving the proposal, until he openly and very publicly dumped her for a selfish, married man-eater, was truly sickening. I know it’s another time and all, but ick!<br /><br />I prefer a more straightforward murder mystery a la Christie, or shadowing ECR Lorac’s Inspector Macdonald as he hunts down clues in rural England or war torn London! But the audiobook was enjoyably narrated and well acted, and helped convey Allingham’s meaning more than the passages I read in my paperback copy, so I think I’ll stick with audiobooks for future Allingham reads.

Lovely, mysterious, and peaceful ( for a murder mystery). That said, anyone whining about the cultural milieu needs to realize that time is linear and novels are pinned to when they are written. You don't like the characters, the language, or what the author says? Fine, stick to reading last week's NYT best sellers--they're obviously for you. Oh, and one more thing: it's FICTION folks-- not the flaming Constitution.<br /><br />Whew. I didn't realize how annoyed I was at the reviewers with modern axes to grind on a 1938 novel. If you aren't one of them, go read it, it's a wonderfully crafted mystery.

The only thing that really hurts this book is that you have to take it in the context of its time. There is blatant racist and sexist content, but it *was* written in 1938, when the world was still ignoring what Hitler was doing in Europe, so that's not really surprising. I'm not saying that should be ignored, but don't throw out the good with the bad because aside from that the book is *very* good (in fact, if not for that I would've given it five stars).<br /><br />Now, I'll be honest, this is Albert's long-awaited (by me) reunion with Amanda Fitton from Sweet Danger, which is why I read it. But the book is enjoyable for reasons above and beyond the delightfully in-denial nature of their relationship: we meet Campion's sister for the first time and the mystery is tricky enough that, while I called a couple of plot twists, I didn't figure out the whodunnit until Allingham allowed the reader to. Agatha Christie may be the Queen of Crime, but surely Allingham deserves at least a princess tiara? *g*<br /><br />It's a pity the BBC Campion series didn't go long enough to tackle this one--I would have loved to see how they handled it. :-)