Have His Carcase: Chps 10 - 12

[nineveh_uk]

So Harriet and Peter have picnicked (and very sensibly not eaten until after swimming, as our parents always advised), sized one another up in their respective bathing suits, and decided that the mysterious hiker and the mysterious hairdresser dunnit. It's time for another chat with the police.

Comments

[rabidsamfan]

Dang. Now I really want to find my copy of the book! I think the rabbit line is about the rabbits that greyhounds chase, but I can't be sure.

HHC is easier to take than Five Red Herrings as far as endless dialogue goes, though. I pretty much enjoy it when Peter and Harriet are tossing words at each other.

[azdak]

want to find my copy of the

Greyhounds chase hares, though.

I always assumed the line was just a humorously horrible thing to say to someone, I didn't realise it might have an actual etymology.

[azdak]

Er, I don't know what happened to that quotation there, but the line I intended to cite was I think the rabbit line is about the rabbits that greyhounds chase. Sorry about that. My computer clearly thinks it's more intelligent than me, and, as you can see, it's wrong.

[nineveh_uk]

At least the endless dialogue in HHC isn't written in fake Scots ;-)

[nineveh_uk]

I try not to get carried away, but I fear it is moderately obvious that I do like Harriet/Peter as a pairing ;-) I adore the H/P relationship scenes in HHC, the fact that there is obviously something there, but Harriet can't acknowledge it, and Peter is making a complete hash of it.

[azdak]

I don't mind the endless theorizing about whodunnitnhow, what I don't about HHC (pace truepenny) are the constant references to detective novels. I find that kind of meta-ising really annoying, not least because I can't believe that writing detective novels would make a person any use at all at solving an actual crime (and, as we can see from Gaudy Night, it doesn't *koff koff*). It's an extended version of the "This is just like a book!" line that tends to crop up in jolly children's adventure stories, and makes me want to yell "That's because it IS a book you stupid wanker!"

(I take my lit crit very seriously).

[nineveh_uk]

not least because I can't believe that writing detective novels would make a person any use at all at solving an actual crime

I don't think that's really argued though. The detective novels provide a framework for them to look at some of the wackiness, with the idea that the murderer might read them (which Christie will reference in 1938 in Appointment with Death), but as far as the resolution goes, they don't really have anything to do with it, as that's simply the pieces falling into place as soon as they realise the medical evidence is wrong. Of course, that could make the detective story stuff even more pointless... But then I sometimes like a bit of that sort of self-consciousness, or even just leaving in of some artistic scaffolding, in my reading.

[azdak]

I sometimes like a bit of that sort of self-consciousness

I don't object to it in principle, but I think this way of doing it is really clumsy. De gustibus non disputandum, though, and it's definitely a matter of taste. And I don't dislike the whole book, just this particular aspect of it.