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03-11-2019, 07:12 PM | #1 | |
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April 2019 Discussion • The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is the April 2019 selection for the New Leaf Book Club.
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Last edited by issybird; 04-15-2019 at 12:30 AM. |
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04-15-2019, 12:31 AM | #2 |
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The Daughter of Time's time has come. What did we think of it?
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04-15-2019, 12:45 AM | #3 |
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More soon, but a solid four stars. Though the Derek Jacobi narration was a bust. But this wasn't a great book for audio anyway, if you don't already know a lot about the English kings and their offspring.
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04-15-2019, 01:12 AM | #4 |
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I expect there will be two conversations going on: one about the book, and another about the mystery discussed in the book. To stick with the book for now, here's what I prepared when I finished reading it...
I think it was an interesting idea for a book published in 1951, and was reasonably well handled considering the constraints (book length, audience expectation and so on). As such the book earns about a 3/5 from me: worth reading but unlikely to ever revisit. I do have trouble working out how it came to get voted into all-time best lists ... but then the book faces a big hurdle with me: I detest Inspector Alan Grant. Please excuse what follows, especially the length, I need to get this off my chest and then maybe I can talk about the book more calmly. (Some parts in spoilers to make it look shorter. ) Dear Alan Grant, how do I loath thee? Let me count the ways. Here is a small selection of quotes that, to my mind, mark him as a smug, self-satisfied and arrogant son of a ... Scotsman: Spoiler:
Grant's name calling isn't humorous, it's derogatory. He's always looking down his nose at everyone else (although perhaps not Marta). At best he's condescending, but much of the time I think he's worse than that. Plus there is his major offence: “I see that you have managed to read at least one of the books I brought you—if the rumpled jacket is any criterion.” A rumpled book jacket! No trial is needed, put him up against the wall. Now. We won't bother waiting for dawn. And to top it all off, he's just not that smart. Spoiler:
It is possible to have dislikeable detectives and still have it work. I never particularly liked Christie's Poirot, but she sensibly makes him a figure of some ridicule so that the audience has reason to feel superior while still admiring his "little grey cells". Tey's Grant is all arrogance and self-satisfaction while also being outright wrong about so many things as to seem just silly, but this is never acknowledged by the characters or the author; they don't seem to see it. I might have had more patience, but the first book (The Man in the Queue) was a did-not-finish for me a few months ago, and for all the same sorts of offences. |
04-15-2019, 07:15 AM | #5 |
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I liked the premise of this book, a Scotland Yard detective trying to solve the 500 yr. old cold case of the missing princes. I also didn't like Grant at first but somehow he became Hugh Grant in my mind as I was reading. This helped tremendously ! All of a sudden I understood Grant and he became affable and only mildly irratating. I saw him in a different light. Lol. " Tell me what I'm missing old chap ?" He was working his theory looking outside of the box. Looking at faces and asking everyone who came into his hospital room what they thought. Was King Richard iii really as bad as everyone thought ? Or was he framed for the murders ?
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04-15-2019, 07:55 AM | #6 |
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I entirely agree with gmw and will post more at length later; for now, I'll only observe that misogyny is also a significant factor. Of the working class characters, only Sergeant Weller is granted the dignity of his personhood and regarded as intelligent and worthy in himself, while remaining, of course, an underling.* Certainly not the nurses, or Grant's housekeeper! Marta is an exception, but even at that she's dismissed as rather stupid and someone who operates on instinct.
*C'mon, who didn't want Williams to say, "Run your own bleeding errands; I'm off the clock," when sent to the bookstore? |
04-15-2019, 08:47 AM | #7 |
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Well, I enjoyed the book, and I don’t know how much that was influenced by my early affection for it because it made me look at Richard III with new eyes.
Yes, of course the attitudes referred to by gmw and issybird are appalling to us. But I think they were absolutely normal in England for 1951, when the book was published. I’m not suggesting that makes them okay, but I don’t think Tey should be cast into outer darkness for reflecting the attitudes of the day. I think the reason the book was voted to be the best mystery ever, or whatever that title was, is because it was such a different approach, and a very successful one, in getting a lot of people interested not only in the question of “Did he or didn’t he?”, but also in the idea that there are many different versions of history. Also of course the need to go back to original documents, rather than relying on one person’s version of what happened. One thing I really enjoyed this time around was the easy access that the Internet gives us to so many of these documents. I would never have dreamed I could read the Titulus Regius back when I read the book all those decades ago. But I did read it with much fascination online a few days ago. |
04-15-2019, 10:10 AM | #8 | |||
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There was a line in the book: "It was shocking how little history remained with one after a good education." My reaction was: It is shocking how Shakespeare has rewritten history. My history teachers never tried to correct the history we were learning in English classes, but how can we not be influenced by his powerful, but entirely fictional, representations of so many key figures from history? Quote:
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04-15-2019, 12:36 PM | #9 | |
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04-15-2019, 12:39 PM | #10 |
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I absolutely don't agree about the level of misogyny in this book as exhibited by Grant. Yes, it's certainly more than we would countenance today, or even in any book written in the last 20 years. But get a grip, folks -- it was written 65 years ago! That level of casual misogyny was completely within character. Did all books written then have it? Certainly not. But more than enough did for me to cut some slack for this one. One doesn't need to like Grant (and really, we hardly know anything about him from this look at his character) to appreciate the story, and the things it's saying. This is, after all, not a book about Grant, but a book about the detective process, about who writes history and why we need to be cautious about it, but finally about Richard III, of course.
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04-15-2019, 12:47 PM | #11 | |||
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Another concept I loved was "tonypandy" -- they 1953 equivalent of "fake news". And why it's so important to go to original, contemporaneous, sources and not accept some later retelling of an event or person, no matter how exalted the person doing the retelling.
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04-15-2019, 12:57 PM | #12 | |
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04-15-2019, 01:54 PM | #13 |
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Stuck on your back, with no stimulation except ceiling tiles and the contemporaneous equivalent of Maeve Binchy, and you'd be a cranky patient too.
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04-15-2019, 03:43 PM | #14 |
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Sadly, both of my libraries say I have at least 2 weeks to go before I will be able to get my copy. That probably means I won't be able to join in this month.
I have read The Graveyard Book and it is "available soon" so I should be fine on next month's selection. |
04-15-2019, 03:44 PM | #15 |
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I had to look up what" tonypandy " meant I've never heard of it before reading this book. I was also surprised how angry Grant was at Thomas More. He seemed to single him out above the others. Although I think it was because not many would doubt him.
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