A Greener Life

 A Greener Life, by Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott.  Newton Abbot, Devon, United Kingdom: David & Charles Publishers, 2007.  256 pages, Hardcover, $30.00.

 

The term “greener” provokes varying responses. While all sensible people decry the destruction of the environment, in many Chestertonian circles there is a tendency to view self-proclaimed members of the “green movement” as tofu-obsessed hippies who worship the earth, live in tents made from hemp, care more about endangered vermin than human children, and use their own solid waste as fuel; this is by no means a universal application of “green living.” As Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott illustrate in their humorous and readable book A Greener Life, the “green” lifestyle can also be synonymous for a Distributist lifestyle. Although Distributism is never mentioned by name (no big surprise), people who wish to integrate Distributist principles into their lives should give this book some serious consideration.

Wright is best known for her wonderful work on the uproarious television cooking show Two Fat Ladies, co-hosted by Jennifer Paterson. After Paterson’s untimely death, Wright began hosting another show, Clarissa and the Countryman, about British rural life and food cultivation and collection, with her childhood friend Johnny Scott. Over the last few years, Wright and Scott have collaborated on several books about nourishment and the state of the countryside in contemporary Britain.

Like most of Wright and Scott’s books, A Greener Life is beautifully printed.  Their short essays, recipes, quips, and quotes are artfully arranged, with hundreds of gorgeous photographs of flora, fauna, and miscellaneous materials interspersed throughout the book. It is visually attractive and artfully written.

This book is written as a response to the fact that Great Britain is facing a population shift to the countryside, coupled with a growing concern for environmental wellbeing. The authors note that during the Second World War, when nourishment was scarce, the government actively encouraged its citizens to grow their own food and gather edibles from the wild. As prosperity returned, the government thought it no longer necessary for Britain to be gastronomically self-sustaining, and the nation began importing cheap food from around the world, often at the expense of quality. Wright and Scott mourn the fact that chemically treated, tasteless foodstuffs proliferate at soulless supermarkets, and that the British public is often too lethargic or obsessively dietetic to care that they are being fed fourth-rate food. This book is geared towards people who are sufficiently disgusted with the state of edible affairs to actually do something about it.

Whether one has one’s own farm or just a window box, A Greener Life has tips for anyone who wants to work towards a Distributist lifestyle. Although many people might not be able to tackle the book’s bigger projects, such as raising livestock and growing orchards, A Greener Life is filled with many small projects with which even the most resolutely urban Distributist can dabble. These range from simple crafts and preparations, such as a primer on learning how to knit, and recipes for homemade soap, candles, and other household goods; to tips on composting and flower and vegetable garden planting; to a chapter on home brewing, filled with assorted tips on how to create delicious homemade beer, wine, and cordials.

Although the book has a decidedly British slant, the American edition has been edited so people who live in the United States have some specific tips on how to find better-quality farmers’ markets, reliable organic materials, and who to contact in order to protest inferior food production methods. Also, one of the final sections is devoted to tips on how to make your home more energy-efficient, thereby reducing one’s heating bills.

On the rare occasions when the book veers into “extreme green” territory, such as in the closing section that provides tips on how to live more ecologically, the books tends to lose a little of its credibility. While I personally have no problem with lower thermostat temperatures during the winter, I draw the line at the suggestion that showering is rarely necessary and should be infrequent. After reading the story about the woman who engaged in a bit of carbon foot binding and decided to save hot water by not washing her hair for months on end, thereby discovering that after a few months of an unfortunate but not unexpected ratty appearance, her unwashed hair eventually collected enough natural oils to create a permanent, self-sustaining, soft, silky, emolliated veneer, I wanted to rush to the shower and not leave until I had gone through three large bottles of shampoo and about nine pounds of soap. Improper hygiene does not make you environmentally friendly; it makes you disgusting. Thankfully, the overwhelming bulk of A Greener Life is filled with simple sanity and sound advice.

A Greener Life is in many ways an extended version of Gilbert Magazine’s “The Kitchen Distributist,” but there are many other types of information in this book. Wright and Scott use the food and farming industries to illustrate the corruptions and lunacies of the British government, plus the growing craziness that seems to be inextricably linked to the broader culture. A Greener Life should be required reading for all Distributists.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!

The Children's Horror Mysteries of John Bellairs

 JOHN BELLAIRS AND CATHOLIC CHILDREN’S FICTION

John Bellairs, author of numerous fantasy novels, is a beloved yet underappreciated figure in late twentieth-century fiction. Although his work is geared for adolescents, like the best children’s literature, there are no age limits to his audience. Bellairs’ work focuses on brave misfit adolescents paired with elderly friends, who use their knowledge of extremely obscure historical minutiae and Catholic ritual to battle the forces of evil. Parents in search of suitable reading material for their older children ought to look no further than Bellairs.

Bellairs’ corpus can be divided into four categories: his early work for adults, consisting of out-of-print Catholic humor and one Tolkien-inspired novel; the Lewis Barnavelt series, which focuses on the adventures of a boy wizard and his eccentric relatives; the Johnny Dixon novels, and the Anthony Monday books. Uncharacteristically for me, as an adolescent, I never read Bellairs’ adult novel The Face in the Frost or any entries in his Lewis Barnavelt series, although I did as a adult. I did, however, read each entry in the Johnny Dixon and Anthony Monday series at least ten times.

The Dixon and Monday books run along parallel themes: intergenerational friendships, the value of courage, the necessity of knowledge, the fact that a few ordinary people can be a powerful force for good given sufficient tenacity, and the power of Catholicism over diabolism.

Johnny Dixon is an undersized, bespectacled teenager who lives with his kindly grandparents, since his mother is deceased and his father is fighting in the Korean War. Life is fairly dull for Johnny until he meets the irascible, cantankerous, Professor Childermass, a hot-tempered, elderly scholar whose passions include historical curiosities, frosting-smothered cakes, and disgusting cigarettes. Despite their radically dissimilar personalities, Johnny and the Professor become friends, and when paranormal events start occurring, the two team up to save their own lives, and the world as well.

Anthony Monday is a gangly, socially awkward adolescent, whose financially insecure parents often fail to understand their son’s intellectual interests. Anthony’s best friend is the prim yet feisty librarian Miss Ells, a spirited older woman who is just as happy to attack an officious socialite as she is willing to take on the forces of darkness that keep cropping up around the local library.

Bellairs completed eight Dixon books and four Monday novels. Though all are of fine quality, the best of the Mondays are The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, a hunt for a priceless artifact, and the only one of Bellairs’ books to be devoid of the supernatural; and The Dark Secret of Weatherend, an adventure where Anthony and Miss Ells prevent apocalyptic climate change (caused by evil sorcery, not global warming). The black humor and colorful characters make it hard to pick favorites from the Dixons, but two unquestionable classics are The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull, where Johnny, his friend Fergie, and the local parish priest Father Higgins try to rescue the vanished Professor; and The Trolley to Yesterday, where the Professor travels through time in an attempt to prevent the sacking of Constantinople.

The spiritual themes of these books are integral to the plot, never becoming preachy or shoehorning a salutary lesson into an awkward place. There is a rather sly pattern running throughout Bellairs’ work regarding the impotence of evil in the face of goodness. The moral of these books is that with piety, stubbornness, courage, intelligence, and well-directed righteous anger, the gates of hell shall never prevail.

Alas, Bellairs died far too young, passing away in 1991 at the age of fifty-three. A longtime fan, Brad Strickland, completed four unfinished books, and then wrote several original novels based on Bellairs’ characters. I’ve read all of Strickland's Dixon continuation novels, starting with The Drum, The Doll, and the Zombie, Strickland does a fair job of imitating Bellairs’ style, but the spiritual heart of the series is largely missing, and the characterizations aren’t quite up to par, though the books improve as the series progresses.. Another sad loss is the fact that some new editions of Bellairs’ books have jettisoned the illustrations by Edward Gorey that so perfectly captured the atmosphere of the stories.

Chestertonian parents ought to make sure that the works of John Bellairs have a prominent place on their children’s reading lists. The unique blend of horror, humor, mystery, and catechizing is unparalleled in fiction.

–Chris Chan

An earlier version of this article appeared in Gilbert!

 

Terrapin: A Mystery

Terrapin: A Mystery, written by T.M. Doran. Ignatius Press, 2012. 392 pages. Hardcover, $24.95.

 

T.M. Doran’s 2011 novel Toward the Gleam was a tour de force of historical speculative fiction, featuring lots of my favorite authors and a rollickingly absorbing adventure. Terrapin, Doran’s follow-up novel, is very different from its predecessor. Whereas Toward the Gleam was epic in its scope; Terrapin is subtler and more personal, focusing primarily on the conscience and soul of one man, and how the sins of the past can never be forgotten until they are forgiven.

 

Terrapin is the tale of Dennis Cole and his three lifelong best friends, who reunite after decades of misadventures, mistakes, and misunderstandings. The relaxing get-together is thrown into chaos when one member of the party may or may not have been murdered. Other deaths follow, and as the story unfolds, a series of revelations follow, and it is discovered that none of the characters are exactly what they claim to be, or even what they personally think they are.

 

To reveal too much of the plot is to ruin the reading experience. The novel’s storyline is not linear. One chapter is set in the present day, while another is set decades in the past. The theme that “the child is father of the man” runs throughout the narrative, as each flashback illustrates formative events that shaped the minds and souls of the characters.  

 

Readers ought to be aware that Terrapin is not really a traditional whodunit, though readers certainly can study the book for clues that all point towards the truth. The book is a mystery, but perhaps it is best understood as a psychological– and spiritual– study. The disappearances and murders are certainly part of the puzzle, but the heart of the book comes from finding out how all of the men received the intangible scars that mar them, as well as discovering the characters’ secrets, some innocent, some not so innocent. 

 

Terrapin is an artfully written book, but it is a dense one. This is not a criticism, but rather a warning for the casual reader. The book recovers careful study and focus, otherwise the plot, which shifts back in forth in time like the fifth season of Lost, can leave the casual reader baffled, and it can become difficult to differentiate amongst the characters unless one pays close attention. 

 

Ultimately, I found that Terrapin was a rich and rewarding reading experience, although the enjoyment was marred somewhat by the absence of a character that I really liked and genuinely cared about, and would have liked to have been my friend in real life. The characters are intriguing, but the fact that they are persons one might be interested in studying rather than people one would actually want to know dampens the emotional impact of the novel.

 

Philosophically, Terrapin is a book that avoids easy answers while acknowledging that there are some very important questions that every man must ask if he is to be truly alive and genuinely aware of the meaning of life. The best relationship amongst any of the characters is between Dennis and his father, T.A.  Dennis is a part-time mystery writer, but he is constantly disappointed by the fact that the mysteries in his life are not as clearly solvable as those in his books. The many conversations between father and son do not provide concrete answers to the big questions in life, but instead illustrate the mental and spiritual quest that everybody must pursue if they wish to grow closer to God.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!

Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children’s Fantasy

Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children’s Fantasy, by Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008. 100 pages, Softcover, $9.95.

 

I have long believed that kids understand certain aspects of children’s literature that adults often overlook. Children can be very perceptive about the nature of their entertainment, realizing that sometimes adults impose their own personal agendas upon kiddie fare. If an adult tries to trick a child into eating his broccoli by smothering it in chocolate ice cream, it would take a particularly unobservant kid not to notice his dessert’s hidden surprise. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy uses the ice cream of children’s fantasy literature to disguise the broccoli of promoting atheism, but as Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel illustrate in their book Pied Piper of Atheism, this broccoli is of dubious nutritional value.

This short book is divided into several sections. After a brief introduction by Carl E. Olson explaining the content and goals of the book, about half of the book is a monograph by Vere, which outlines the HDM trilogy and points out numerous plot points that parents might find objectionable. Miesel further scrutinizes Pullman’s unpleasant themes in her essay, covering mostly different topics, although there is some overlap.  The volume concludes with a selection of recommended fantasy-based children’s literature.

For those unfamiliar with the HDM trilogy (The Golden Compass, His Subtle Knife (the knife is the only subtle thing in this series), and The Amber Spyglass), I shall summarize it here. A young girl, Lyra, discovers that you can’t trust religious authority, but you can trust a glorified pocket watch, which must be believed without question. Lyra begins a quest, assisted and hindered by two enigmatic scholars, Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, whose true relationship to Lyra ought to come as a jaw-dropping surprise to anyone who hasn’t seen The Empire Strikes Back. With the help of anthropomorphic animal-shaped souls, talking polar bears, a sex-obsessed ex-nun, characters from various alternative worlds, ambiguously gay angels, and Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut through everything except the trilogy’s ham-fisted thematics, Lyra and her pals seek to kill God (known in this book as the Authority) and cripple the Magisterium that rules in His name. I will not spoil the ending of the trilogy, but suffice it to say, it doesn’t end with everyone happily going to church. 

No, I don’t care very much for Pullman’s work, and it’s not because he’s an outspoken advocate of atheism. I can respect an author who writes because he loves atheism, but writing because one hates God and religion (especially Christianity), is a different matter. Vere and Miesel illustrate the not-so-hidden themes of the books, where God is a deceiving villain and the Devil a wise and noble revolutionary, amorous situations between teenagers are depicted as vital for the survival of the universe, oblivion is portrayed as the only endurable afterlife, and virtually all of the religious figures in the book are irredeemably evil and usually murderous child-abusers, although the “heroes” are allowed to slaughter innocent children in the name of “the greater good.”

This book is an excellent resource for adults wondering what their children are learning from their reading material, but this book deals strictly in theory. To be a truly informative resource for parents, Pied Piper of Atheismneeds the children’s perspective. Vere and Miesel are highly intelligent, educated people and gifted literary critics, but to truly help parents understand how Pullman affects children, they would have to cite the reactions of actual children.

Drawing again from my own experience, even when my age was squarely in the single digits, I could tell when an adult who thought that he knew what was best for me was shoehorning a heavy-handed moral into my story. One of my favorite genres as a kid (and now, for that matter) was fantasy fiction. The problem was, even though I loved the genre, I hated much of what I read. I concluded early on that there were two kinds of children’s fantasy writers: authors who make the real world a more magical place for kids by showing them the wonders that the human imagination can create and teaching them valuable life lessons that they can work into their lives even if real monsters and supervillains, and writers who just make the real world seem pallid. Had Pullman’s books been around when I was younger, I would have firmly based him in the latter category due to his attempts to make virtue appear worthless.

More time ought to have been spent exploring Pullman’s literary flaws, thematic aspects notwithstanding. One of the reasons why I could not get into the HDM trilogy is because I simply didn’t like any of the characters, save for the talking polar bear and the cowboy who is killed off much too soon. I have the same reaction to Pullman’s characters as I do to many of the characters in Shaw’s plays: they aren’t red-blooded, three-dimensional personalities that exist on their own, they’re simply sock puppets used to advance the author’s agenda.

Vere and Miesel have constructed a readable and interesting analysis Pullman’s book, without ever devolving into high-handedness or shrillness. The authors dissect the subtleties of the book, providing analysis of the literary and historical references that most casual readers might easily overlook. A number of commentators have argued that classes ought to read the HDM trilogy in order to spark debate. That may be so, but if they’re going to hold a debate, participants ought to read Pied Piper of Atheism as well.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!

Unrest in Eden

Unrest in Eden, by Florence Byham Weinberg.  Kingsport, Tennessee: Twilight Times Books, 2011.  251 pages, e-book, $6.50.

 

I have a very deep and abiding fondness for the historical mystery, a genre that when approached by capable hands, brings the past to life with the added benefit of a murder investigation. Unrest in Eden centers around the experiences of the real-life eighteenth-century character Father Wilhelm Ignaz von Pfefferkorn, a priest who originally belonged to the Jesuit order and served as a missionary amongst Native Americans in the Southwest, but who was jailed for a decade in Spain after the expulsion of the Jesuits. Unrest in Eden is the fourth book in the Father Pfefferkorn saga (some of the books have been revised and retitled since their initial publication), the first three focusing on his experiences in the New World, and later in Spain. I have not read any of the earlier entries in the series as of this writing, but there is no need to read the series in order. Readers who start the series with Unrest in Eden will not be spoiled at all, although some crucial scenes from earlier novels are referenced here.

 

In Unrest in Eden, Florence Byham Weinberg picks up Fr. Pfefferkorn’s story soon after his release from prison. After reuniting with his sister, wrestling with a myriad of health problems, and readjusting to life as a free man, the good father escapes from one dangerous situation, only to find himself embroiled in a murder mystery that is causing a steadily growing scandal in the Church, and escaping from the anti-Catholic persecutions of the increasingly violent French Revolution.

 

I do not know where the historical Fr. Pfefferkorn ends and where Weinberg’s literary creation begins, nor am I clear on whether or not Fr. Pfefferkorn was really a sleuth.  Unrest in Eden is filled with all kinds of little details and factoids in order to bring a bygone age to life. At times, a few lines spoken by some of the characters seemed a little too contemporary to me, but then I remembered a famous remark by Umberto Eco in his lengthy historical postscript to his novel The Name of the Rose, where he observed that many people claimed that certain portions of his book’s dialogue sounded “too modern” to be set during medieval times, and in every single case where a passage was cited as sounding incongruous, that portion was actually quoted near-verbatim from an actual historical source from that time period. For all I know, the lines that seemed out of place to me may actually have come from Fr. Pfefferkorn’s writings.

 

Although the middle portion of the book focuses on a murder investigation, the mystery is wrapped up with approximately a third of the novel remaining. Though clearing an innocent priest’s name propels the plot for several chapters, the soul of the novel comes from Fr. Pfefferkorn attempting to be the best priest he possibly can, wrestling with his personal failings while never succumbing to his flaws, ministering to those around him, and attempting to escape the injustices and persecutions of an increasingly frightening world.

 

The book benefits from the historical notes and selected bibliography at the end, which underscores the immense amount of research that went into this book. The glossary was a handy tool, since there were many German language words that left me puzzled. Additionally, the character list at the end of the book is helpful, especially considering the considerable size of the book’s cast.

 

Unrest in Eden succeeded spectacularly in one of the primary goals of historical fiction– it made me want to learn a lot more about the time period in question. In Fr. Pfefferkorn, Weinberg has discovered a man who has lived a fascinating life. I would just like to know a little more about what the inspiration for her books was really like.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!

Betraying the Nobel: The Secrets and Corruption Behind the Nobel Peace Prize

Betraying the Nobel: The Secrets and Corruption Behind the Nobel Peace Prize, by Unni Turrettini. Pegasus Books, 2020. 304 pages. Hardcover, $27.95.

Everybody claims to want world peace, though different parties have radically opposing views as to how peace should be achieved. The definition of “peace” is equally controversial. Should “peace” be described as an absence of fighting, universal friendship, the abolition of weapons and armies, or the creation of a system supposedly designed for the good of all? What happens when an influential institution pushes a vision of peace that may prove more detrimental to the global order than beneficial? Unni Turrettini addresses that question in her book Betraying the Nobel.

 

Turrettini opens with a blunt declaration that “the Nobel Peace Prize as we know it is corrupt at its core.” She further explains her belief that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is “swayed by popularity and fame instead of standing up for the true values of the Nobel Peace Prize– Alfred Nobel’s intentions of peace and unity.” One of the most important aspects of Turrettini’s work is how she outlines the developments of Nobel’s views on how peace should be achieved, based on his experiences in his personal life and his friendship with Baroness Bertha von Suttner, herself the 1905 Laureate and the first woman to win the prize. General principles of nonviolence, exemplified by the formation of peace congresses, general disarmament, and “fraternity among nations,” are the three criteria outlined by Nobel in his will.

 

Yet even from the beginning of the award’s inception, Turrettini argues, the Committee has largely overlooked Nobel’s original intentions, promoting its preferred causes, and advancing Norway’s role as an international mediator and peacemaker. The Prize Committee has long been staffed with politicians, and Turrettini argues that historically, Laureates have been chosen because their actions advance Norway’s political agenda, rather than due to achieving concrete goals or by following the ideals originally set out by Nobel.

 

Nobel’s vision of achieving peace, according to Turrettini, was heavily shaped by the pacifists, The pacifist movements of the early twentieth century were hotly debated in their own day. Chesterton argued that the principle of total nonviolence was an abnegation of the right to self-defense, and transferring all power to those who were willing to use force to achieve their ends. Chesterton wrote, “They preach that if you see a man flogging a woman to death you must not hit him. I would much sooner let a leper come near a little boy than a man who preached such a thing.”

 

Turrettini’s book is a great overview of the Nobel Peace Prize’s controversies, though significant chapters in the Prize’s hotly debated history have been overlooked. Some prominent antiwar activists such as Sir Norman Angell, whose confident predictions that economic factors would permanently end war, have wound up looking rather foolish over time.  The section on Mother Teresa rehashes Christopher Hitchens’ infamous indictments, while ignoring the many rebuttals of Hitchens that have been published in recent years. Among the Laureates that Turrettini singles out for criticism, the passages on Rigoberta Menchú and Aung San Suu Kyi are particularly well-crafted, though the section on Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank could have used a little more analysis to explore what shortcomings of microcredit are due to inherent flaws in this economic program, and how much is due to unscrupulous moneylenders who are abusing the system for profit.

 

Ultimately, this book serves as an excellent introduction to the ongoing debate on what world peace really ought to look like and how to achieve it, by using the most prominent international symbol of peacemaking as a focus for criticism. There are a handful of factual errors throughout the book, and the more one knows about the figures discussed here, the more one realizes what nuances are not covered.

 

This book triumphs as a conversation starter. When debating issues of war, peace, and humanitarianism, Chestertonians have long addressed the issues that form the heart and soul of Betraying the Nobel, and the book will be an excellent tool for sparking insightful discussions as to how Chesterton’s ideas on peace ought to be applied to international relations. Is peace simply the absence of violence, or is genuine amity necessary?  Should the Committee be bound to Nobel’s worldview now that a century and a quarter has passed since his death, and humanity has had so many horrific experiences to learn from over that time? Do the great humanitarians promote fraternity amongst nations by setting positive examples?  Should the peacemakers of the world work with the governments or actively battle against the self-interested establishment figures? Chestertonians hoping to apply GKC’s ideas to the real world would do well to read Betraying the Nobel and ponder the questions it raises.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!

Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes: The Origins of Sherlockian Studies

Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes: The Origins of Sherlockian Studies– Five Writings by Ronald Knox, edited with an introduction by Michael J. Crowe.  Gasogene Books, 2011.  126 pages.  Hardcover, $32.95.

 

Monsignor Ronald Knox is known for being a famous convert to Roman Catholicism, influenced in part by a pre-Catholic G.K. Chesterton, as well as being a famous Catholic apologist in his own right. Additionally, Knox was a great fan of mysteries, writing several detective stories himself and subjecting crime writing to serious– and not so serious– literary criticism.

 

Knox is generally credited as being the leading architect of what is now affectionately referred to as “The Great Game.” This is a form of pseudoscholarship that treats the Sherlock Holmes tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as if they were actual events imperfectly recorded. Many practitioners of “The Great Game” treat Sherlock Holmes as a real human being. Discrepancies and errors in the Doyle Canon (often referred to as the Sacred Writings) are explained in logical yet imaginative ways. Fans ponder about unrevealed details of Doyle’s characters’ lives, and posit theories about their favorite To cite one famous example, Doctor Watson’s official full name is John Hamish Watson, but in one story, Mrs. Watson refers to her husband as “James.”

 

Knox actually wrote to Doyle for an explanation, and the reply declared that this name mix-up was a simple misprint. Not everyone was convinced. One theorist contended that Mrs. Watson’s tongue slipped and she called her husband by the first name of her secret lover– Professor James Moriarty! More widely accepted by practitioners of The Great Game are the musings of Dorothy L. Sayers, who suggested that Mrs. Watson preferred to address her husband by his middle name due to some negative connotations with the name “John,” and being very English insisted on Anglicizing the Scottish “Hamish” to the more familiar English “James.”

 

This anthology contains all five of Knox’s known writings on Sherlock Holmes, including the essay “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes,” the article that launched The Great Game. Originally meant as a means to both celebrate Doyle’s fiction and satirize the New Criticism of the Bible, this essay opened a window for a new way of looking at mysteries. While parodying intellectual foibles, Knox demonstrated that overanalyzing fiction can also be fun.

 

Doyle was impressed and nonplussed by Knox’s efforts, telling Knox that, “I cannot help writing to you to tell you of the amusement– and also the amazement– with which I read your article on Sherlock Holmes. That anyone should spend such pains on such material was what surprised me.”

 

Other entries in this volume include Knox’s introduction to an anthology of mystery short stories, containing his famous “Ten Commandments of Mystery Writing.” Here, Knox advocated rules of fair play for the crime writer who wished to produce quality fiction and respect his readers. These “Commandments” included dictums such as that the criminal must be a character introduced fairly early on in the story, though the reader must not be privy to the workings of the killer’s mind. Superfluous secret passages, twin siblings, evil Chinese stereotypes, fictional poisons, and supernatural forces are to be largely eschewed, although exceptions can be made in certain cases. Interestingly, many masters of the genre broke Knox’s rules quite brilliantly in several classic works.

 

Two essays of pseudoscholarship are included in this volume, including “The Mathematics of Mrs. Watson,” exploring the backstories of some major characters; and “The Mystery of Mycroft,” which contends that Sherlock’s elder brother was in fact an agent working in collaboration with Professor Moriarty. The volume is rounded out by the pastiche Holmes short story “The Adventure of the First Class Carriage.”

 

Crowe’s introduction gives a brief summary of Knox’s life and intellectual career, as well as the impact on Sherlock Holmes on popular culture. Crowe also provides extensive annotations for details that most contemporary readers will not understand, as well as a very short bibliography of some of the leading works of Holmesian scholarship and pseudoscholarship. 

 

Knox’s legacy of Sherlockian studies continues today. The Baker Street Journal, a publication of scholarly and pseudoscholarly topics connected to Holmesian miscellany, has been in existence since 1946. Ronald Knox and Sherlock Holmes is a valuable read for fans of either of the title figures, classic mystery fans, and anyone who is sick and tired of literary scholarship that makes fiction seem dull and pallid.

–Chris Chan

This review was first published in Gilbert!