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Charlie Mortdecai #3
Something Nasty in the Woodshed
Life always seems to be more complicated than it should be for Charlie Mortdecai: degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and confirmed coward.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed finds Charlie exiled from London due to his growing unpopularity on account of some shady art deals. Taking refuge in a country estate on the Channel Island of Jersey, he embarks on a well-intended hedonistic interlude. But his vacation soon morphs into a macabre manhunt, as Charlie seeks to expose a local rapist whose modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to that of a warlock from ancient British mythology known as “The Beast of Jersey.”
168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Kyril Bonfiglioli
36 books103 followersKyril Bonfiglioli was variously an art dealer, editor, and writer.
He wrote four books featuring Charlie Mortdecai, three of which were published in his lifetime, and one posthumously as completed by the satirist Craig Brown. Charlie Mortdecai is the fictional art dealer anti-hero of the series. His character resembles, among other things, an amoral Bertie Wooster with occasional psychopathic tendencies. His books are still in print and have been translated into several different languages including Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese.
Bonfiglioli's style and novel structure have often been favourably compared to that of P. G. Wodehouse. Mortdecai and his manservant Jock Strapp bear a fun-house mirror relation to Wodehouse's Wooster and Jeeves. The author makes a nod to this comparison by having Mortdecai reference Wodehouse in the novels.
He wrote four books featuring Charlie Mortdecai, three of which were published in his lifetime, and one posthumously as completed by the satirist Craig Brown. Charlie Mortdecai is the fictional art dealer anti-hero of the series. His character resembles, among other things, an amoral Bertie Wooster with occasional psychopathic tendencies. His books are still in print and have been translated into several different languages including Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese.
Bonfiglioli's style and novel structure have often been favourably compared to that of P. G. Wodehouse. Mortdecai and his manservant Jock Strapp bear a fun-house mirror relation to Wodehouse's Wooster and Jeeves. The author makes a nod to this comparison by having Mortdecai reference Wodehouse in the novels.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
August 28, 2019
“It all started — or at any rate the narrative I have to offer all started — at Easter last year: that season when we remind each other of the judicial murder of a Jewish revolutionary two thousand years ago by distributing chocolate eggs to the children of people we dislike.” I’ve read the first three of the Charlie Mortdecai mysteries. Charlie is a shady art dealer who frequently finds himself involved in violent crimes. He has his own butler/thug. My favorite book was the first, “Don’t Point that Thing at Me”. All three point jabs at the proper English characters. The books are snide, rude, designed to offend everyone and frequently very funny. This is what would happen if Wodehouse wrote crime novels. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that crazy about the third book and the ending was really depressing. I doubt that I will read the fourth book, which was finished by another author after Bonfiglioli died.
July 12, 2012
Something in his heart told him to come clean
He was not who he claimed to be
Something in his genes told him to pretend
’twas something for the weekend
These lyrics from The Divine Comedy song have been stuck in my head for days thanks to the opening line of she said there’s something in the woodshed and the jaunty pop number with the dark undertones seemed perfect alongside the idea of a Charlie Mortdecai adventure. Until I read it.
I'm not exactly in the minority in thinking this is the least fun of the three books in this series, Charlie is in Jersey and making fun of the people of the Bailiwick throughout his hunt for a rapist who appears to be drawing on The Beast of Jersey for inspiration.
Mortdecai is at his charmingly offensive and witty best but the story and related paraphenalia let him down here. The witchcraft element comes across as complete and utter nonsense and the location is largely dull after the first few japes at Jersey's expense.
In answer to claims of his hatred and belittling of women, I say sure he's a overt misogynist but it's done it such a way that you'd be hard pressed to actually take offense at him, he's a humourous caricature that pokes more fun at the upper class middle aged white man than anything else.
There are some great one liners and some superb paragraphs, I particularly enjoyed the soliloquy on adopting an old lady as a pet, but it is not enough to save the book in its entirity.
He was not who he claimed to be
Something in his genes told him to pretend
’twas something for the weekend
These lyrics from The Divine Comedy song have been stuck in my head for days thanks to the opening line of she said there’s something in the woodshed and the jaunty pop number with the dark undertones seemed perfect alongside the idea of a Charlie Mortdecai adventure. Until I read it.
I'm not exactly in the minority in thinking this is the least fun of the three books in this series, Charlie is in Jersey and making fun of the people of the Bailiwick throughout his hunt for a rapist who appears to be drawing on The Beast of Jersey for inspiration.
Mortdecai is at his charmingly offensive and witty best but the story and related paraphenalia let him down here. The witchcraft element comes across as complete and utter nonsense and the location is largely dull after the first few japes at Jersey's expense.
In answer to claims of his hatred and belittling of women, I say sure he's a overt misogynist but it's done it such a way that you'd be hard pressed to actually take offense at him, he's a humourous caricature that pokes more fun at the upper class middle aged white man than anything else.
There are some great one liners and some superb paragraphs, I particularly enjoyed the soliloquy on adopting an old lady as a pet, but it is not enough to save the book in its entirity.
July 28, 2024
6/10
Another delightful read in this series. A decent conclusion to the trilogy to be sure, and despite some confusing plot points and an absolutely bizarre ending, I can’t help but continue to thoroughly enjoy the character of Lord Charlie Mortdecai. If this story were not as dark and confusing I would probably still rate it on par with the other two. This is unfortunately the end of the road for this character I have so come to love. I will read the other two anthology stories at some point, but my hopes are not too high.
Another delightful read in this series. A decent conclusion to the trilogy to be sure, and despite some confusing plot points and an absolutely bizarre ending, I can’t help but continue to thoroughly enjoy the character of Lord Charlie Mortdecai. If this story were not as dark and confusing I would probably still rate it on par with the other two. This is unfortunately the end of the road for this character I have so come to love. I will read the other two anthology stories at some point, but my hopes are not too high.
November 19, 2015
A Satanic rapist is on the loose. The victims' husbands (+Mortdecai, as Johanna isn't a target - too many moving parts, or some such excuse) set up a Satanic mass to warn the Satanist that they're in good with the devil, too. Perhaps even more so because their ceremony involves bestiality between a defrocked priest and a chicken. We're talking about a living, feathered and flapping, drunk on rum-and-raisins sacrifice, not a serving of Poulet Borsalino. Though some foodie bloggers would probably dive at the chance to do so: Look, they'd blog. I'm such an extreme foodie that I'm quite literally fucking enjoying the food!
It's s. to s. that the authorities don't take kindly to it. But the Beast of Jersey (as he's dubbed) seems to take it in stride. Not the desired effect, of course. So things get dark. Very dark indeed.
Ears-getting-nailed-to-trees dark. Drinking burgundy wine through a straw dark.
Two standout scenes: The wickedest man in England (who argues that he's actually the wickedest man in Europe) shares his philosophy on the art of seduction. And, in the other, the aforementioned priest demonstrates the hunting and capturing of ghostly voices with tape recorders only to have his sainted mother show up and, well, there you have it. Because a mother always knows.
***
"Whenever you feel like holding someone's hand, have a drink instead - it's better for all concerned in the long run." (pg. 101)
"A moral coward, you see, is simply someone who has read the fine print on the back of his birth certificate and seen the little clause which says 'You can't win'. He knows from then on that the smart thing to do is to run away from everything and he does so. But he doesn't have to like it." (pgs. 166-167)
___________
Note: This is a revised version of my original 2008 review. Revised for the sake of clarity, for the most part. We'll see if the very odd attack on foodbloggers survives if this book gets reviewed sometime again down the line. We're all in agreement that people who eat while typing are the worst. The three "likes" are from that previous era, B.F., before foodbloggers. Those "likes" were much appreciated if transparently charitable votes of confidence towards that manic bit of street preaching. We all each have our history.
Poulet Borsalino, if anyone is curious, is "breast of chicken rolled around gobs of Camembert cheese and deep fried" (pg. 152)
It's s. to s. that the authorities don't take kindly to it. But the Beast of Jersey (as he's dubbed) seems to take it in stride. Not the desired effect, of course. So things get dark. Very dark indeed.
Ears-getting-nailed-to-trees dark. Drinking burgundy wine through a straw dark.
Two standout scenes: The wickedest man in England (who argues that he's actually the wickedest man in Europe) shares his philosophy on the art of seduction. And, in the other, the aforementioned priest demonstrates the hunting and capturing of ghostly voices with tape recorders only to have his sainted mother show up and, well, there you have it. Because a mother always knows.
***
"Whenever you feel like holding someone's hand, have a drink instead - it's better for all concerned in the long run." (pg. 101)
"A moral coward, you see, is simply someone who has read the fine print on the back of his birth certificate and seen the little clause which says 'You can't win'. He knows from then on that the smart thing to do is to run away from everything and he does so. But he doesn't have to like it." (pgs. 166-167)
___________
Note: This is a revised version of my original 2008 review. Revised for the sake of clarity, for the most part. We'll see if the very odd attack on foodbloggers survives if this book gets reviewed sometime again down the line. We're all in agreement that people who eat while typing are the worst. The three "likes" are from that previous era, B.F., before foodbloggers. Those "likes" were much appreciated if transparently charitable votes of confidence towards that manic bit of street preaching. We all each have our history.
Poulet Borsalino, if anyone is curious, is "breast of chicken rolled around gobs of Camembert cheese and deep fried" (pg. 152)
November 29, 2017
The title of this book should be "How Not to Talk About Rape: The Novel." If you feel like women are humans and should be treated as such, and that rape is not so hilarious a topic as to be a great choice for a full-length "humorous" novel in the vein of Jeeves and Wooster, then run as far as you can from this train wreck of a book. There are many discussions of how "rapeable" various women are, comments like how the rapist shouldn't have bothered with Mrs. So & So because all he had to do was say please (since, obviously, women who enjoy sex are sluts and will sleep with any man who asks), step-by-step instructions on how to trick women into bed, and a line about how there are lots of rapeable women in Jersey if you don't mind legs like jugs. Sorry, I listened to the audiobook, can't get my hands on an ebook or print copy from the library and I am not about to spend money on this trash to pull proper quotes. Suffice it to say this book is a nightmare and is only fit for use as an example of how disgusting rape culture is.
May 23, 2016
Сдали издателю сегодня. Прекрасное продолжение дела Вудхауса, с поправкой на то, что главный герой, в отличие от Берти Вустера, не имеет на свой счет никаких иллюзий и совсем не невинный юноша со всеми вытекающими.
На о. Джерси захотелось ощутимо.
К коллизии характеров в книге у меня осталась пара вопросов, сугубо с поправкой на жанр и стиль, но примерно понимаю, в какую (не слишком причудливую) третью церебральную позицию нужно встать, чтобы принять правила авторской игры как они есть.
На о. Джерси захотелось ощутимо.
К коллизии характеров в книге у меня осталась пара вопросов, сугубо с поправкой на жанр и стиль, но примерно понимаю, в какую (не слишком причудливую) третью церебральную позицию нужно встать, чтобы принять правила авторской игры как они есть.
August 11, 2016
review of
Kyril Bonfiglioli's Something Nasty in the Woodshed
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 26, 2014
I enjoy reading crime fiction but doing so is a pretty low priority for me & I don't know enough about the authors to be able to pick out more than a handful that I've ever found very interesting. I like to think that this handful represent la crème de la crème but there may be all sorts of obscure crime fiction writers out there whose work I unjustly neglect. Judging the bk by its cover, Bonfiglioli seemed to have some potential to at least dangle from the edges of the handful - & that's where I place him now that I've read this bk.
The bk's cover led me to expect the protagonist, Charlie Mortdecai, to be an 'anti-hero' of sorts - a not particularly likable character who nonetheless (sortof) solves the crime (or whatnot).. &, yeah, that's what he was for me.. except that he wasn't quite as unlikable as I expected & the bits meant to make him that way weren't that convincing.
Bonfiglioli's actually a pretty literary writer, he's no Mickey Spillane. Each chapter begins w/ an epigraph: "The epigraphs are all by Swinburne, except one which is a palpable forgery." (p 6) "The Swinburne forgery is, in a way, signed." (p 7) I don't really know anything about Swinburne, I may've never read anything by him. The only association I have w/ him is thru a song on The Fugs First Album called "Swineburne Stomp" & attributed to "A. C. Swineburne [&] Ed Sanders". I don't know whether the extra "e" in the Fugs version was something done as a joke to turn "Swin" into "Swine" or a mistake or a way to avoid copyright infringement or what. I didn't try to figure out wch epigraph is the "palpable forgery".
The novel takes place in Jersey Island, a place I know next to nothing about but that interests me b/c it's an independent country that's under the protection of Great Britain but not part of it or a part of France - even tho it's right off France's coast - nor is it part of the European Union (not that that wd've mattered as of the time of this bk's writing). Making things even more politically tricky, I reckon it's more accurate to say that it's right off Brittany's coast - St Helier, Jersey being only an hr & 20 minute ferry ride away from St Malo, Brittany. Brittany being perhaps comparable to the Basque country insofar as its inclusion in France is similarly unpopular as the Basque country's inclusion in Spain is. Jersey has its own language, Jèrriais: "Seyiz les beinv'nus `à Jérri" translating into "Welcome to Jersey" & looking somewhat like French. A French version of the proceeding being something like "Bienvenue à Jersey" w/ "Jersey" probably being something else. Catalan, spoken by the Basque people, being like a mix of French & Castilian (what's generally known as Spanish). Ah! Independence (&/or attempts thereat)!
"Much more important (outside St Helier) are the Honorary Police, who are of course unpaid. They do not wear uniforms — you are supposed to know who they are. Each of the twelve Parishes has a Connétable; under him are the Centeniers, each of whom in theory, protects and disciplines a hundred families and leads five Vingteniers who guard twenty families each. These are all elective posts but elections rarely afford any surprises, if you see what I mean, and in any case there is little competition for these honours.
"No one is legally under arrest in Jersey until a Centenier has tapped him on the shoulder with his absurd, tiny truncheon of office (you can imagine how the Paid Police like that rule)" - p 13
"The Honorary Police of Jersey are used to being teased: all those whom I have had the pleasure of meeting are just, honorable, intelligent and can take a joke." - p 7
The only thing I can remember reading about Jersey prior to reading this novel was The Beast of Jersey, a 'true crime' bk about Edward Paisnel "by his wife Joan Paisnel" (as the bk cover has it) who (according to the bk's back cover) "was a Jekyll and Hyde figure who terrorized the island for eleven years, [who] in 1971 [..] was convicted of thirteen sex offenses against young children."
"Paisnel was obsessed with the powers of evil. In his Hyde moments he wore a hideous rubber mask and nail-studded bracelets. And at home he had a secret room filled with the ritual tools of Black Magic."
SO, I was further engrossed in Something Nasty in the Woodshed when, after the 1st of series of rapes that constitute the central crimes of the story, the similarity of the crime to those of "The Beast" are introduced by the character Sam:
"'The Beast of Jersey,' Sam explained. 'You know, the chap who terrorized the Island for a dozen years; used to creep into children's rooms, carry them out the window, do odd things to them in the fields — not always very nasty — then pop them back into their little beds. The police think that there may have been more than a hundred such assaults but naturally most of them were not reported, for reasons which you will, um, appreciate. He used to wear a rubber mask, most of the victims said that he had an odd smell and he wore bizarre clothes, studded with nails. Just before you moved here they caught a chap called Paisnel, who is now serving thirty years, rightly or wrongly.' - p 27
What the "not always very nasty" instances were, if any, I don't know. Looking thru Joan Paisnel's bk again all the assaults seem nasty enuf to be permanently traumatizing.
"'What was interesting,' Sam went on as I chewed my spleen, 'was that Paisnel kept on saying that it was "all part of something" but he wouldn't say what and he said that when he was arrested he was on his way to meet "certain people" but he wouldn't say whom.'
"'Perfectly obvious,' said George; 'the beggar was one of these witches or witchmasters. It all comes back to me now. The plumber told me all about it when he came in drunk just after Christmas. Seems it wasn't this Paisnel fellow at all, all the locals know who it was, including most of the Honorary Police . . . or did he say Paisnel was just part of it?'
"'That strain again,' murmured Sam, 'it hath a dying fall . . .'
"'Quite right. And this Paisnel had a secret room, hadn't he, with a pottery frog or toad in it and that was supposed to be "part of it " too. And there was one of those Papist Palm Sunday crosses in the car he was nabbed in and they say he screamed when they asked him to touch it.'" - pp 27-28
According to the Wikipedia entry on him, "Edward Paisnel returned to Jersey briefly following his release from prison but moved away due to the strength of local feeling against him. He died in the Isle of Wight in 1994." - ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Paisnel
Something Nasty in the Woodshed being copyrighted in 1972, Paisnel must've been a fresh topic at the time. Bonfiglioli's choosing Jersey as a location & working The Beast into the plot were intriguing factors in my engagement w/ the bk. But if this had been only a rip-off of a disturbing true crime story I might not've liked it at all in the long run. Instead, Bonfiglioli manages to write a fairly rich tale. He sets the tome by beginning w/ this:
"Seven thousand years ago — give or take a few months — a great deal of water left the North Sea for good reasons of its own, which I cannot recall off-hand, and poured over the lower parts of on North-West Europe, forming the English Channel and effectively separating England from France, to the mutual gratification of both parties (for if it had not happened, you see, we English would have been foreigners and the French would have had to eat bread sauce)." - p 9
So Bonfiglioli works in some scholarliness & has a pretty good sense of humor. He's also pretty damned flippant considering some of the horrors of his plot. After George's wife gets raped, George is sitting in an armchair ruminating:
"' Bloody swine,' he growled. 'Raped my wife. Ruined my wistaria.'
"'I'll send me man round first thing in the morning to have a look at it,' said Sam. 'The wistaraia I mean. They're very tenacious things — soon recover. Wistaria,' he added; gratuitously, it seemed to me." - p 25
"A cold coming I had of it, I don't mind telling you, just the worst time of the year for a vigilante patrol. I believe I've already given you my views about the month of May in the British Isles. This May night, as I picked my glum way down to Belle Etoile Bay, was cold and black as a schoolgirl's heart and the moon — in its last quarter and now quite devoid of the spirit of public service — reminded me only of a Maria Teresa silver dollar which I had once seen clenched between the buttocks of a Somali lady who was, I fancy, no better than she should be. But enough of that." - p 159
These are apparently intended to reinforce the narrator's depiction as sexist. In one scene, Mortdecai's inner monologue runs like this:
"You see, we anti-feminists don't dislike women in the least; we prize. cherish, and pity them. We are compassionate. Goodness, to think of the poor wretches having to waddle through life with all those absurd fatty appendages sticking out of them; to have all the useful part of their lives made miserable by the triple plague of constipation, menstruation and parturition; worst of all, to have to cope with those handicaps with only a kind of fuzzy half-brain — a pretty head randomly filled, like a tiddly-winks cup, with brightly-colored scraps of rubbish — why, it wrings the very heart with pity. You know how your dog sometimes gazes anguishedly at you, its almost human eyes yearning to understand, longing to communicate? You remember how often you have felt that it was on the very brink of breaking through the barrier and joining you? I think that's why you and I are so kind to women, bless 'em. (Moreover, you scarcely ever see them chasing cats or fouling the footpaths.)" - p 59
Contrarily, in the author's prelude of sorts he says: "The fictional narrator is a nasty, waspish man: pray do not confuse him with the author, who is gentle and kind." (p 7) It's not too hard to interpret that as a bit tongue-in-cheek. In general, the perspective as presented thru the narrator is also pretty tongue-in-cheek:
"Nothing really had happened in the newspapers that day, either, except that some Arabs had murdered some Jews, some Jews had retaliated on some Arabs, some Indians had perfected an atomic bomb for dropping on Pakistanis and various assorted Irishmen had murdered each other in unpleasant ways. You really have to hand it to God, you know, he has terrific staying power. Jehovah against Mohammed, Brahma against Allah, Catholic against Protestant: religion really keeps the fun going, doesn't it. If God didn't exist the professional soldiers would have to invent him, wouldn't they?" - pp 44-45
Maybe they did.
The author's, Bonfiglioli's, literateness commingles w/ his dubiously separated narrator's: "Nerciat rubbed shoulders with D. H. Lawrence, the Large Paper set of de Sade (Illustrated by Austin Osman Spare)" (p 84) fits in well enuf as a description of the occultist Earl's library (complete w/ the Spare detail) - but I found the narrator's quoting Borges a bit far-fetched: "Borges remarks that we have chosen our own misfortunes. 'Thus,' he explains, 'every negligence is deliberate . . . every humiliation is penitence . . . every death a suicide.'" (p 101)
&, then: "('This is the last and greatest treason: To do the wrong thing for the right reason' sings Alfred Prufrock, if that's the right way round. And if it matters.)" (p 103) Bonfiglioli's being sly here by having his narrator's 'ignorance' twist the quote around: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." - T. S. Eliot, from his play "Murder in the Cathedral" Ok, I reckon it's realistic enuf to have the educated narrator quote arguably the most famous poet in Britain, someone whose works he was probably forced to read somewhere along the line.
A part of what makes Something Nasty in the Woodshed as entertaining as it was for me is the way he does manage to squeeze in a variety of topics in a sufficiently plot-consistent way. EG: He has the defrocked priest who's come to conduct a black mass to scare the hypothetically occultist rapist bring up this:
"'Well, two years ago I read a book by a man called Konstantin Raudive. It's a perfectly respectable book and endorsed by respectable scientists. Raudive claims, indeed proves, that he heard gentle chattering and muttering coming from the unused intervals of tape from his recorder. I had had the same experience but had put it down to the random wirless reception . . . er, radio?'" - p 111
It's amazing to me the ways in wch Raudive's theories crop up now & again in my life - thru my own experimenting w/ them in the '70s (probably thanks to Chas Brohawn); to conversation between myself, Alan Lord, & Istvan Kantor (Monty Cantsin) about them in an igloo in Montréal in February, 1983, as part of the 6th International Neoist Apartment festival; to incorporating Raudive recordings into my movie about Franz Kamin: DEPOT (wherein resides the UNDEAD of Franz Kamin) in 2010.
I also found it interesting the way the narrator's & the defrocked priest's description of the state of mind necessary for paranormal experiences jives w/ my own personal experiences:
"I could have told him, had he the wit to ask, that the necessary conditions were that we should have been playing a real game for several hours, that I should have ingested perhaps a third of a bottle of brandy, that I should have been slightly ahead of my table-stakes by virtue of the ordinary run of cards and that, in short, I should have been in that sort of drowsy euphoria where I was effectively asleep in all bodily departments except my card-sense.'
"'You couldn't have put it any better!' cried Eric. 'All the conditions were there, you see: mild fatigue, mild euphoria, mild depression from the brandy — I'll bet your alpha-waves were at something very like ten cycles per second.'" - p 114
Furthermore, my own experiences w/ excessively drinking Pernod jive wonderfully w/ the following:
"For years I had believed that these lines:
'Shot? So quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave;
Yours was not an ill for mending,
'Twas best to take it to the grave'
were about a horrified young Edwardian who had discovered that he was homosexual. I am in a position to correct literary history in this matter. The lines are about a horrified chap in early middle age who has discovered one morning, that he has not head for Pastis. This, you see, was not the common hangover of commerce, it was a Plague of Egypt with a top-dressing of the Black death." - p 119
Ok, my really bad hangovers have been w/ whiskey but my excess of Pernod mixed w/ water is the only instance of my drinking that I know of that resulted in an almost immediate outbreak of herpes 2. I've never drunk it since.
Is it largely peculiar to mysteries that the main character is obsessed w/ food? Or does such obsessiveness constitute a subgenre across all literature?
"How you deal with the tongue of an ox is as follows: you bid the butcher keep it in his pickle-tub for a fortnight, brushing aside his fanciful pleas that it should be taken out after eight days. Then you rinse it lovingly and thrust it into the very smallest casserole that will contain it, packing the interstices with many an onion, carrot and other pot-herb. Cover it with heel-taps of wine, beer, cider and, if your cook will let you, the ripe, rich jelly from the bottom of the dripping-pot. Let it ruminate in the back of your oven until you can bear it no longer; whip it out, transfix it to a chopping-board with a brace of forks and — offer up grateful prayers to Whomever gave tongues to the speechless ox." pp 127-128
All in all, a good read in the category of fun-to-read-distracting-not-very-important. In other words, I was, once again, distracted from the loneliness of daily life.
Kyril Bonfiglioli's Something Nasty in the Woodshed
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 26, 2014
I enjoy reading crime fiction but doing so is a pretty low priority for me & I don't know enough about the authors to be able to pick out more than a handful that I've ever found very interesting. I like to think that this handful represent la crème de la crème but there may be all sorts of obscure crime fiction writers out there whose work I unjustly neglect. Judging the bk by its cover, Bonfiglioli seemed to have some potential to at least dangle from the edges of the handful - & that's where I place him now that I've read this bk.
The bk's cover led me to expect the protagonist, Charlie Mortdecai, to be an 'anti-hero' of sorts - a not particularly likable character who nonetheless (sortof) solves the crime (or whatnot).. &, yeah, that's what he was for me.. except that he wasn't quite as unlikable as I expected & the bits meant to make him that way weren't that convincing.
Bonfiglioli's actually a pretty literary writer, he's no Mickey Spillane. Each chapter begins w/ an epigraph: "The epigraphs are all by Swinburne, except one which is a palpable forgery." (p 6) "The Swinburne forgery is, in a way, signed." (p 7) I don't really know anything about Swinburne, I may've never read anything by him. The only association I have w/ him is thru a song on The Fugs First Album called "Swineburne Stomp" & attributed to "A. C. Swineburne [&] Ed Sanders". I don't know whether the extra "e" in the Fugs version was something done as a joke to turn "Swin" into "Swine" or a mistake or a way to avoid copyright infringement or what. I didn't try to figure out wch epigraph is the "palpable forgery".
The novel takes place in Jersey Island, a place I know next to nothing about but that interests me b/c it's an independent country that's under the protection of Great Britain but not part of it or a part of France - even tho it's right off France's coast - nor is it part of the European Union (not that that wd've mattered as of the time of this bk's writing). Making things even more politically tricky, I reckon it's more accurate to say that it's right off Brittany's coast - St Helier, Jersey being only an hr & 20 minute ferry ride away from St Malo, Brittany. Brittany being perhaps comparable to the Basque country insofar as its inclusion in France is similarly unpopular as the Basque country's inclusion in Spain is. Jersey has its own language, Jèrriais: "Seyiz les beinv'nus `à Jérri" translating into "Welcome to Jersey" & looking somewhat like French. A French version of the proceeding being something like "Bienvenue à Jersey" w/ "Jersey" probably being something else. Catalan, spoken by the Basque people, being like a mix of French & Castilian (what's generally known as Spanish). Ah! Independence (&/or attempts thereat)!
"Much more important (outside St Helier) are the Honorary Police, who are of course unpaid. They do not wear uniforms — you are supposed to know who they are. Each of the twelve Parishes has a Connétable; under him are the Centeniers, each of whom in theory, protects and disciplines a hundred families and leads five Vingteniers who guard twenty families each. These are all elective posts but elections rarely afford any surprises, if you see what I mean, and in any case there is little competition for these honours.
"No one is legally under arrest in Jersey until a Centenier has tapped him on the shoulder with his absurd, tiny truncheon of office (you can imagine how the Paid Police like that rule)" - p 13
"The Honorary Police of Jersey are used to being teased: all those whom I have had the pleasure of meeting are just, honorable, intelligent and can take a joke." - p 7
The only thing I can remember reading about Jersey prior to reading this novel was The Beast of Jersey, a 'true crime' bk about Edward Paisnel "by his wife Joan Paisnel" (as the bk cover has it) who (according to the bk's back cover) "was a Jekyll and Hyde figure who terrorized the island for eleven years, [who] in 1971 [..] was convicted of thirteen sex offenses against young children."
"Paisnel was obsessed with the powers of evil. In his Hyde moments he wore a hideous rubber mask and nail-studded bracelets. And at home he had a secret room filled with the ritual tools of Black Magic."
SO, I was further engrossed in Something Nasty in the Woodshed when, after the 1st of series of rapes that constitute the central crimes of the story, the similarity of the crime to those of "The Beast" are introduced by the character Sam:
"'The Beast of Jersey,' Sam explained. 'You know, the chap who terrorized the Island for a dozen years; used to creep into children's rooms, carry them out the window, do odd things to them in the fields — not always very nasty — then pop them back into their little beds. The police think that there may have been more than a hundred such assaults but naturally most of them were not reported, for reasons which you will, um, appreciate. He used to wear a rubber mask, most of the victims said that he had an odd smell and he wore bizarre clothes, studded with nails. Just before you moved here they caught a chap called Paisnel, who is now serving thirty years, rightly or wrongly.' - p 27
What the "not always very nasty" instances were, if any, I don't know. Looking thru Joan Paisnel's bk again all the assaults seem nasty enuf to be permanently traumatizing.
"'What was interesting,' Sam went on as I chewed my spleen, 'was that Paisnel kept on saying that it was "all part of something" but he wouldn't say what and he said that when he was arrested he was on his way to meet "certain people" but he wouldn't say whom.'
"'Perfectly obvious,' said George; 'the beggar was one of these witches or witchmasters. It all comes back to me now. The plumber told me all about it when he came in drunk just after Christmas. Seems it wasn't this Paisnel fellow at all, all the locals know who it was, including most of the Honorary Police . . . or did he say Paisnel was just part of it?'
"'That strain again,' murmured Sam, 'it hath a dying fall . . .'
"'Quite right. And this Paisnel had a secret room, hadn't he, with a pottery frog or toad in it and that was supposed to be "part of it " too. And there was one of those Papist Palm Sunday crosses in the car he was nabbed in and they say he screamed when they asked him to touch it.'" - pp 27-28
According to the Wikipedia entry on him, "Edward Paisnel returned to Jersey briefly following his release from prison but moved away due to the strength of local feeling against him. He died in the Isle of Wight in 1994." - ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Paisnel
Something Nasty in the Woodshed being copyrighted in 1972, Paisnel must've been a fresh topic at the time. Bonfiglioli's choosing Jersey as a location & working The Beast into the plot were intriguing factors in my engagement w/ the bk. But if this had been only a rip-off of a disturbing true crime story I might not've liked it at all in the long run. Instead, Bonfiglioli manages to write a fairly rich tale. He sets the tome by beginning w/ this:
"Seven thousand years ago — give or take a few months — a great deal of water left the North Sea for good reasons of its own, which I cannot recall off-hand, and poured over the lower parts of on North-West Europe, forming the English Channel and effectively separating England from France, to the mutual gratification of both parties (for if it had not happened, you see, we English would have been foreigners and the French would have had to eat bread sauce)." - p 9
So Bonfiglioli works in some scholarliness & has a pretty good sense of humor. He's also pretty damned flippant considering some of the horrors of his plot. After George's wife gets raped, George is sitting in an armchair ruminating:
"' Bloody swine,' he growled. 'Raped my wife. Ruined my wistaria.'
"'I'll send me man round first thing in the morning to have a look at it,' said Sam. 'The wistaraia I mean. They're very tenacious things — soon recover. Wistaria,' he added; gratuitously, it seemed to me." - p 25
"A cold coming I had of it, I don't mind telling you, just the worst time of the year for a vigilante patrol. I believe I've already given you my views about the month of May in the British Isles. This May night, as I picked my glum way down to Belle Etoile Bay, was cold and black as a schoolgirl's heart and the moon — in its last quarter and now quite devoid of the spirit of public service — reminded me only of a Maria Teresa silver dollar which I had once seen clenched between the buttocks of a Somali lady who was, I fancy, no better than she should be. But enough of that." - p 159
These are apparently intended to reinforce the narrator's depiction as sexist. In one scene, Mortdecai's inner monologue runs like this:
"You see, we anti-feminists don't dislike women in the least; we prize. cherish, and pity them. We are compassionate. Goodness, to think of the poor wretches having to waddle through life with all those absurd fatty appendages sticking out of them; to have all the useful part of their lives made miserable by the triple plague of constipation, menstruation and parturition; worst of all, to have to cope with those handicaps with only a kind of fuzzy half-brain — a pretty head randomly filled, like a tiddly-winks cup, with brightly-colored scraps of rubbish — why, it wrings the very heart with pity. You know how your dog sometimes gazes anguishedly at you, its almost human eyes yearning to understand, longing to communicate? You remember how often you have felt that it was on the very brink of breaking through the barrier and joining you? I think that's why you and I are so kind to women, bless 'em. (Moreover, you scarcely ever see them chasing cats or fouling the footpaths.)" - p 59
Contrarily, in the author's prelude of sorts he says: "The fictional narrator is a nasty, waspish man: pray do not confuse him with the author, who is gentle and kind." (p 7) It's not too hard to interpret that as a bit tongue-in-cheek. In general, the perspective as presented thru the narrator is also pretty tongue-in-cheek:
"Nothing really had happened in the newspapers that day, either, except that some Arabs had murdered some Jews, some Jews had retaliated on some Arabs, some Indians had perfected an atomic bomb for dropping on Pakistanis and various assorted Irishmen had murdered each other in unpleasant ways. You really have to hand it to God, you know, he has terrific staying power. Jehovah against Mohammed, Brahma against Allah, Catholic against Protestant: religion really keeps the fun going, doesn't it. If God didn't exist the professional soldiers would have to invent him, wouldn't they?" - pp 44-45
Maybe they did.
The author's, Bonfiglioli's, literateness commingles w/ his dubiously separated narrator's: "Nerciat rubbed shoulders with D. H. Lawrence, the Large Paper set of de Sade (Illustrated by Austin Osman Spare)" (p 84) fits in well enuf as a description of the occultist Earl's library (complete w/ the Spare detail) - but I found the narrator's quoting Borges a bit far-fetched: "Borges remarks that we have chosen our own misfortunes. 'Thus,' he explains, 'every negligence is deliberate . . . every humiliation is penitence . . . every death a suicide.'" (p 101)
&, then: "('This is the last and greatest treason: To do the wrong thing for the right reason' sings Alfred Prufrock, if that's the right way round. And if it matters.)" (p 103) Bonfiglioli's being sly here by having his narrator's 'ignorance' twist the quote around: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." - T. S. Eliot, from his play "Murder in the Cathedral" Ok, I reckon it's realistic enuf to have the educated narrator quote arguably the most famous poet in Britain, someone whose works he was probably forced to read somewhere along the line.
A part of what makes Something Nasty in the Woodshed as entertaining as it was for me is the way he does manage to squeeze in a variety of topics in a sufficiently plot-consistent way. EG: He has the defrocked priest who's come to conduct a black mass to scare the hypothetically occultist rapist bring up this:
"'Well, two years ago I read a book by a man called Konstantin Raudive. It's a perfectly respectable book and endorsed by respectable scientists. Raudive claims, indeed proves, that he heard gentle chattering and muttering coming from the unused intervals of tape from his recorder. I had had the same experience but had put it down to the random wirless reception . . . er, radio?'" - p 111
It's amazing to me the ways in wch Raudive's theories crop up now & again in my life - thru my own experimenting w/ them in the '70s (probably thanks to Chas Brohawn); to conversation between myself, Alan Lord, & Istvan Kantor (Monty Cantsin) about them in an igloo in Montréal in February, 1983, as part of the 6th International Neoist Apartment festival; to incorporating Raudive recordings into my movie about Franz Kamin: DEPOT (wherein resides the UNDEAD of Franz Kamin) in 2010.
I also found it interesting the way the narrator's & the defrocked priest's description of the state of mind necessary for paranormal experiences jives w/ my own personal experiences:
"I could have told him, had he the wit to ask, that the necessary conditions were that we should have been playing a real game for several hours, that I should have ingested perhaps a third of a bottle of brandy, that I should have been slightly ahead of my table-stakes by virtue of the ordinary run of cards and that, in short, I should have been in that sort of drowsy euphoria where I was effectively asleep in all bodily departments except my card-sense.'
"'You couldn't have put it any better!' cried Eric. 'All the conditions were there, you see: mild fatigue, mild euphoria, mild depression from the brandy — I'll bet your alpha-waves were at something very like ten cycles per second.'" - p 114
Furthermore, my own experiences w/ excessively drinking Pernod jive wonderfully w/ the following:
"For years I had believed that these lines:
'Shot? So quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave;
Yours was not an ill for mending,
'Twas best to take it to the grave'
were about a horrified young Edwardian who had discovered that he was homosexual. I am in a position to correct literary history in this matter. The lines are about a horrified chap in early middle age who has discovered one morning, that he has not head for Pastis. This, you see, was not the common hangover of commerce, it was a Plague of Egypt with a top-dressing of the Black death." - p 119
Ok, my really bad hangovers have been w/ whiskey but my excess of Pernod mixed w/ water is the only instance of my drinking that I know of that resulted in an almost immediate outbreak of herpes 2. I've never drunk it since.
Is it largely peculiar to mysteries that the main character is obsessed w/ food? Or does such obsessiveness constitute a subgenre across all literature?
"How you deal with the tongue of an ox is as follows: you bid the butcher keep it in his pickle-tub for a fortnight, brushing aside his fanciful pleas that it should be taken out after eight days. Then you rinse it lovingly and thrust it into the very smallest casserole that will contain it, packing the interstices with many an onion, carrot and other pot-herb. Cover it with heel-taps of wine, beer, cider and, if your cook will let you, the ripe, rich jelly from the bottom of the dripping-pot. Let it ruminate in the back of your oven until you can bear it no longer; whip it out, transfix it to a chopping-board with a brace of forks and — offer up grateful prayers to Whomever gave tongues to the speechless ox." pp 127-128
All in all, a good read in the category of fun-to-read-distracting-not-very-important. In other words, I was, once again, distracted from the loneliness of daily life.
January 23, 2022
Although I still did find Bonfiglioli's writing in this novel to be in keeping with his zany and effortlessly funny style, I couldn't get past the premise. A comedy focused on the nefarious work of a serial rapist is, arguably, amongst the most challenging (and certainly ill-advised) undertakings a writer could attempt. In fact, I don't see how even the most adroit novelist could do it without coming across as callous and cruel. Bonfiglioli was no exception.
Although we know Mortdecai to be an undignified lout, which is part of his charm, he really sinks to unforgivable lows in this novel. Numerous lines excusing the rapist, victim-shaming, and deriding women in general left a bad taste in this reader's mouth.
To top it all off, the ending was clearly rushed, badly conceived, and made no sense in the context of the rest of the novel. It was little more than a clumsily forced plot twist added in the feeble hopes of creating closure and bringing the narrative to a meaningful conclusion.
Sadly, Bonfiglioli's hysterical one-liners couldn't salvage this one.
Although we know Mortdecai to be an undignified lout, which is part of his charm, he really sinks to unforgivable lows in this novel. Numerous lines excusing the rapist, victim-shaming, and deriding women in general left a bad taste in this reader's mouth.
To top it all off, the ending was clearly rushed, badly conceived, and made no sense in the context of the rest of the novel. It was little more than a clumsily forced plot twist added in the feeble hopes of creating closure and bringing the narrative to a meaningful conclusion.
Sadly, Bonfiglioli's hysterical one-liners couldn't salvage this one.
September 8, 2014
I checked this book out because a movie based on the recurring character is coming out soon. Most likely the movie won't be as offensive as this book.
This is a humorous mystery series. I haven't read the other books because I had the misfortune of opening this one first. The others might be okay, I don't know.
The problem is that the mystery in this book is the identity of a serial rapist. So, you know, not a good subject to try to be humorous about.
Just a few pages in, the protagonist and his friend discover the friend's wife a mere moment after she was raped. She's still naked and this is described "humorously". This is a *really bad time* to be humorous.
The protagonist recognizes that her distress is real but thinks she's playing it up for effect. I've already gotten rid of my copy so I can't quote the line exactly, but it's something like, "I thought she was acting, but that didn't mean she was *acting*, if you get my meaning." Okay, it is true that sometimes people deliberately act out their own genuine emotions, *but this is a really bad moment to point that out*.
As her husband runs off to attempt to catch the rapist, the protagonist tries to console the victim. She's pulled a sheet over herself; he pats what he thinks is her shoulder but it turns out to be her private parts, and this anatomically improbable error also is played for laughs.
And that's where I stopped reading. I recommend staying away from this book. Try the others, they can hardly avoid being less offensive.
This is a humorous mystery series. I haven't read the other books because I had the misfortune of opening this one first. The others might be okay, I don't know.
The problem is that the mystery in this book is the identity of a serial rapist. So, you know, not a good subject to try to be humorous about.
Just a few pages in, the protagonist and his friend discover the friend's wife a mere moment after she was raped. She's still naked and this is described "humorously". This is a *really bad time* to be humorous.
The protagonist recognizes that her distress is real but thinks she's playing it up for effect. I've already gotten rid of my copy so I can't quote the line exactly, but it's something like, "I thought she was acting, but that didn't mean she was *acting*, if you get my meaning." Okay, it is true that sometimes people deliberately act out their own genuine emotions, *but this is a really bad moment to point that out*.
As her husband runs off to attempt to catch the rapist, the protagonist tries to console the victim. She's pulled a sheet over herself; he pats what he thinks is her shoulder but it turns out to be her private parts, and this anatomically improbable error also is played for laughs.
And that's where I stopped reading. I recommend staying away from this book. Try the others, they can hardly avoid being less offensive.
March 15, 2024
Hilarious!
April 22, 2018
Yes, it's satire.
Yes, it is wittily written.
And I came away feeling decidedly uncomfortable.
I know the relationship with the character of Charlie is intended to be love-hate, and to court controversy and be offensive is precisely what "Something nasty..." is all about. Rape and the occult are subjects that, for me, are a step too far for the funnies.
But I cannot help sensing there's more to it.
The male characters are, all of them, bumbling idiots bent on revenge, and not much concerned for the health of their womenfolk who are terrorised by an ill-scented green-man rapist. Raw animal, these males are, though you would never suspect it from Charlie Mortdecai, who loves life's finer things and once traversed the hallowed halls of supremely elitist male only institutions of higher education! (He doesn't hit it off with the female academic, does he?) Even Satan himself is in hot pursuit of this all too awful serial naturist. The defrocked male-in-a-frock-priest dies in the throws of a bestial act performed on an altar cloth sporting a well-hung man ready for action. The priest is promptly discarded, the other men merely slightly inconvenienced by his passing - having to miss a meal. Sacrilege! And in the final reveal it turns out that all too civil an expression of male lust for a friend's wife is at the root of all this evil. The male human is the real beast here, in spite of all the sophistication of moneyed upper class domesticity. And really, what becomes of academic learning if the best that men can achieve with it is a seance? Men might even keep old women as pets, why not?
Well, men, not even Charlie, come out of this one well. Hence my discomfort.
I stifled many a chuckle, and I cringed once too often. Charlie's alternative universe is, well, alternative. Much can be forgiven, then. So, be prepared to be merciful.
But there is a beast in men that civilised society's best - learning, faith and justice / universities, church and law - ultimately fails to I check. There is more to Mortdecai this time than meets the eye.
Yes, it is wittily written.
And I came away feeling decidedly uncomfortable.
I know the relationship with the character of Charlie is intended to be love-hate, and to court controversy and be offensive is precisely what "Something nasty..." is all about. Rape and the occult are subjects that, for me, are a step too far for the funnies.
But I cannot help sensing there's more to it.
The male characters are, all of them, bumbling idiots bent on revenge, and not much concerned for the health of their womenfolk who are terrorised by an ill-scented green-man rapist. Raw animal, these males are, though you would never suspect it from Charlie Mortdecai, who loves life's finer things and once traversed the hallowed halls of supremely elitist male only institutions of higher education! (He doesn't hit it off with the female academic, does he?) Even Satan himself is in hot pursuit of this all too awful serial naturist. The defrocked male-in-a-frock-priest dies in the throws of a bestial act performed on an altar cloth sporting a well-hung man ready for action. The priest is promptly discarded, the other men merely slightly inconvenienced by his passing - having to miss a meal. Sacrilege! And in the final reveal it turns out that all too civil an expression of male lust for a friend's wife is at the root of all this evil. The male human is the real beast here, in spite of all the sophistication of moneyed upper class domesticity. And really, what becomes of academic learning if the best that men can achieve with it is a seance? Men might even keep old women as pets, why not?
Well, men, not even Charlie, come out of this one well. Hence my discomfort.
I stifled many a chuckle, and I cringed once too often. Charlie's alternative universe is, well, alternative. Much can be forgiven, then. So, be prepared to be merciful.
But there is a beast in men that civilised society's best - learning, faith and justice / universities, church and law - ultimately fails to I check. There is more to Mortdecai this time than meets the eye.
July 17, 2019
Don't start with this book if you are just jumping in to the Mordecai pond...
I enjoyed the 1st and 2nd book even though the plot of the second was a little hard to follow at times. I can forgive that because Mordecai is such an engaging anti-hero. Johanna and Jock are great characters and in the last book become counter points to Charlie's worst tendencies. The plot is not what drives these books (which is a strange sentence to write about a book). For me it is the descriptions that spring from Mordecai himself, they are lavish, pontificating, at times cringeworthy, and at others endearing. Clearly he is a sad, alcoholic who holds the world at an arms distance. For example during the first 2 books and half of the 3rd he spends time convincingly telling us that he is a coward and he is okay with it. That he has no need for love and romantic entanglements. But what is really interesting about the character Mordecai is by the time we reach the end he has run out of excuses, the veneer has completely worn off. He is unable to save Johanna, a woman that he is married to and has fallen deeply in love with much to his chagrin. He is brought to tears in front of her. The "friends" that he has put stock in are gone. There is no revenge to be had, essentially these events have completely dismantled his amour of witticism and dry refrain. He doesn't even have a witty rebuke for Jock at the end and instead tells him to, "just get out Jock." I know it's not told that well, but the character of Mordecai is an intriguing one. Maybe this is a turning point for the character. Maybe there is hope for him yet? I mean he has got Johanna and Jock.
I enjoyed the 1st and 2nd book even though the plot of the second was a little hard to follow at times. I can forgive that because Mordecai is such an engaging anti-hero. Johanna and Jock are great characters and in the last book become counter points to Charlie's worst tendencies. The plot is not what drives these books (which is a strange sentence to write about a book). For me it is the descriptions that spring from Mordecai himself, they are lavish, pontificating, at times cringeworthy, and at others endearing. Clearly he is a sad, alcoholic who holds the world at an arms distance. For example during the first 2 books and half of the 3rd he spends time convincingly telling us that he is a coward and he is okay with it. That he has no need for love and romantic entanglements. But what is really interesting about the character Mordecai is by the time we reach the end he has run out of excuses, the veneer has completely worn off. He is unable to save Johanna, a woman that he is married to and has fallen deeply in love with much to his chagrin. He is brought to tears in front of her. The "friends" that he has put stock in are gone. There is no revenge to be had, essentially these events have completely dismantled his amour of witticism and dry refrain. He doesn't even have a witty rebuke for Jock at the end and instead tells him to, "just get out Jock." I know it's not told that well, but the character of Mordecai is an intriguing one. Maybe this is a turning point for the character. Maybe there is hope for him yet? I mean he has got Johanna and Jock.
June 9, 2024
Probably my favourite of the three 'Mortdecai' mysteries. The third and last in Bonfiglioli's magnificent trilogy is a little different from the preceding two novels: less absurd, less nasty, less grandiose, but the actual prose is as witty as ever. The main character contrives to be one of the most waspish and egocentric personalities in literature and yet he remains strangely engaging! Unlike the other two novels, *Something Nasty in the Woodshed* is set entirely in one location -- Jersey. The archaic customs of that strange island inform part of the (not entirely watertight) plot.
Black magic is the main backdrop to the action and the book reads like a more sophisticated version of a Dennis Wheatley thriller. There are some uncomfortable touches -- the xenophobia, the trivilisation of rape, etc -- that makes one wonder exactly why Mortdecai deserves his status in the reader's mind as a hero: his main saving grace seems to be that he has better taste in food and art than the really evil people! But the ending is one of the most downbeat I have ever read and it can certainly be said that Mortdecai doesn't get it all his own way.
Black magic is the main backdrop to the action and the book reads like a more sophisticated version of a Dennis Wheatley thriller. There are some uncomfortable touches -- the xenophobia, the trivilisation of rape, etc -- that makes one wonder exactly why Mortdecai deserves his status in the reader's mind as a hero: his main saving grace seems to be that he has better taste in food and art than the really evil people! But the ending is one of the most downbeat I have ever read and it can certainly be said that Mortdecai doesn't get it all his own way.
July 31, 2018
It was the first Charlie Mortdecai novel I picked up and it will also be the last one. Although the author's writing style is brilliant, the story itself is ridiculous; an unknown, masked perpetrator of Satanic nature roams the island and rapes local women. The rape no matter how you turn it, is not a funny subject, and accompanied with the continuous insults to women ("quite frigid", "transcendentally stupid", "frailer sex", "rapable women"), about every third page, it truly makes this book highly misogynistic. It seems, the author is trying to demean women as much a possible. The story is meant to be a satire, and to be fair, there were some very brilliant passages, which made me chuckle, yet these were few and far between. The ending was incredibly lazy and downright bizarre, almost as if the author didn't quite understand where he was going. Very disappointing read. I have given it two stars only because of Charlie's wife Johanna and manservant Jock, the two characters that were actually half-decently developed, yet barely featured in the story.
August 11, 2020
Though the subject of rape is definitely not one for amusement, it’s the only sensible choice to make the plot of the third Mortdecai book work, though it tarnishes an all too easily worked out (for me at least) implausible plot filled with tangents. Still, I continue to love Mortdecai’s manservant/bodyguard, Jock, most of all, and if you’re one upset by politically incorrect classism and sexism, then none of these books are for you. Anyone who’s reached book three knows how antisocial and pretty much anti anything except booze, Mortdecai is. Take him as he is or don’t. There are some classic lines, as always. There are two other books (one finished by another writer when the author died and murmurs are only one is worth a read) but for the moment I’m unsure if this is where I will stop.
June 3, 2015
Trigger Warning: The entire book is a search for a local rapist. I did not enjoy this book. They treated rape quite a bit too lightly for me. The main character and 2 of his associates decide to try a to capture a local rapist. The subject wasn't treated very respectfully (don't try to tell me I cannot take a joke) and I did not enjoy it. There wasn't enough Joanna or Jock (the best parts of the previous 2 books) therefore the book feels a bit stale.
August 13, 2008
Fantastically well written first person perspective of a chauvenistic pig. The end kind of peters out, as it does with all Mordecai mysteries, but this really is a case of it being the journey, not the destination.
Charlie's often morally corrupt inner-thoughts and notes to the reader make it an absolute joy to read.
Charlie's often morally corrupt inner-thoughts and notes to the reader make it an absolute joy to read.
December 14, 2008
The final Mordecai book. I will miss him and all his horribleness though his misogynist rants in this one made it hard to find him even slightly endearing, though a surreal musing on how we should all keep an old person as a pet was unpleasantly entertaining. The nasty goings on of the plot whiz by in descriptions of meals, people and other non sequiturs and this book has an enigmatic ending.
December 18, 2018
The title is a British expression to denote a traumatic or unpleasant experience in one's life, especially something shocking, or distasteful that is concealed, or kept secret.
Copyright 1972. Oh, how times have changed.
The book begins to idyllically describing the Island of Jersey and various aspects of it from flora, fauna, to architecture...then spends little time before Mortdechai's friend's wife is raped. Even the reaction of everyone looks so condescending with several "there, theres". I would like to think that it is both an exposure of the prevailing attitudes.
The debate about even reporting the rape is shocking to modern ears; they never do because of the 'disgrace', albeit, it is made clear that by the next morning, the news had spread through the island.
As this is the time of the rise in interest of Witchcraft, and the link of it to Satanism, and its rise, tossing that into the story makes this a very strange book indeed; referencing the Malleus Maleficarum is a surprise. Set around May Day, Walpurgisnacht, makes it a perfectly wicked connotation. The discussion of Witchcraft, and the "Old Religion" draws entirely upon folklore, and transcripts of what witches did for their Sabbath; killing babies, flying ointments, and ritual sex-- in this case, the rapes. After consulting a Witchcraft expert from his old university, Mortdechai finds a defrocked priest to perform a specific mass, The Mass of Saint-Sécaire, so as to banish the serial rapist; assuming he is a Witch and thus believe in the rites efficacy. The priest turns out to be very interested in various psychic phenomena; a rather nice guy, but dies while performing the ritual.
The ritual is one mentioned in The Golden Bough.
The book's darkest turns are when within the last few pages, the rapist is discovered to be their close friend who started the rapes as revenge for another character having sex with his wife (the one in the beginning that claimed rape to cover the infidelity) and is beaten to death by the man that cheated on his wife because he is the first raped. She is so brutalized, and traumatized that she goes catatonic, and eventually kills herself. Upon hearing the news of this, her husband (the one that cheated with the other's wife, mentioned above) promply kills himself. Mortdechai's wife is also raped savagely. The somber ending brings the weight of the subject home, even if handled --what seems barbarically to modern ears -- with silence as they agree to never discuss it.
A very strange ending to the trilogy. Each work unique in itself, and thus, one could read each without reading any other.
Copyright 1972. Oh, how times have changed.
The book begins to idyllically describing the Island of Jersey and various aspects of it from flora, fauna, to architecture...then spends little time before Mortdechai's friend's wife is raped. Even the reaction of everyone looks so condescending with several "there, theres". I would like to think that it is both an exposure of the prevailing attitudes.
The debate about even reporting the rape is shocking to modern ears; they never do because of the 'disgrace', albeit, it is made clear that by the next morning, the news had spread through the island.
As this is the time of the rise in interest of Witchcraft, and the link of it to Satanism, and its rise, tossing that into the story makes this a very strange book indeed; referencing the Malleus Maleficarum is a surprise. Set around May Day, Walpurgisnacht, makes it a perfectly wicked connotation. The discussion of Witchcraft, and the "Old Religion" draws entirely upon folklore, and transcripts of what witches did for their Sabbath; killing babies, flying ointments, and ritual sex-- in this case, the rapes. After consulting a Witchcraft expert from his old university, Mortdechai finds a defrocked priest to perform a specific mass, The Mass of Saint-Sécaire, so as to banish the serial rapist; assuming he is a Witch and thus believe in the rites efficacy. The priest turns out to be very interested in various psychic phenomena; a rather nice guy, but dies while performing the ritual.
The ritual is one mentioned in The Golden Bough.
The book's darkest turns are when within the last few pages, the rapist is discovered to be their close friend who started the rapes as revenge for another character having sex with his wife (the one in the beginning that claimed rape to cover the infidelity) and is beaten to death by the man that cheated on his wife because he is the first raped. She is so brutalized, and traumatized that she goes catatonic, and eventually kills herself. Upon hearing the news of this, her husband (the one that cheated with the other's wife, mentioned above) promply kills himself. Mortdechai's wife is also raped savagely. The somber ending brings the weight of the subject home, even if handled --what seems barbarically to modern ears -- with silence as they agree to never discuss it.
A very strange ending to the trilogy. Each work unique in itself, and thus, one could read each without reading any other.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2020
„Všechno to začalo o Velikonocích. V době, kdy si připomínáme dva tisíce let starou justiční vraždu židovského revolucionáře tím, že dáváme čokoládová vajíčka dětem lidí, co nesnášíme.“
Typická anglická komediální kniha. Celou dobu je to zábava a na konci všichni umřou. Dobře, to trochu přeháním, ale zase ne tak moc. Navíc se knihy točí kolem tak veselých věcí jako jsou satanské sekty a znásilňování. Pravda, hlavní hrdina, který sám sebe prohlašuje za anti-fenimistu a o ženách se vyjadřuje jak o podivných bytostech s polovinou mozku, si to zase tak moc nebere, ale jelikož ty oběti byly ženy jeho přátel, musí se pustit do pátrání. A jelikož dojde k názoru, že za tím stojí satanisti, zbývá jediná možnost – uspořádat černou mši, aby vylákal satanisty z nory.
Jo, není to ten nejgeniálnější plán.
Což mi trochu vadilo. Ani v ostatních knihách nebyl Charlie Mortdecai zrovna génius, spíš takové zkřížení Bertíka Woosterů s markýzem De Sadem, ale tady v podstatě to, co dělá, nemá skoro žádný význam… tedy, pokud významem nepočítáme ustavičné zhoršování situace. A coby záminka ke komentování všeho a všech. Je to rasistický, sexistický, necitelný a věčně nalitý elitář.
Ale je to anglický román, takže k tomu to asi patří.
„Spát v té samé posteli s příslušníkem opačného pohlaví je barbarské, nehygienické, neestetické a od vynálezu elektrické dečky i celkem zbytečné. (…) Až narazím na ženu, se kterou bych chtěl strávit v posteli celou noc – včetně spánku, myslím – budu vědět, že jsem zamilovaný. Nebo senilní. V té době nejspíš už oboje.“
Forma v téhle knize posílá v souboji obsah do bezvědomí už v prvním kole. Což je ostatně případ všech Bonfiglioliových knih (tedy, napsal jen tři a půl, než se mu konečně povedlo umřít na následek nezřízeného pití), děj je tu jen motiv pro slovní eskapády… což se ovšem v tomhle případě podařilo vyvážit dost temným koncem.
Pokud byste si tohohle autora chtěli vyzkoušet, česky mu vyšli tři knihy… a nemějte mu za zlé, že jedna byla zfilmována s Johnem Deppem v hlavní roli.
Typická anglická komediální kniha. Celou dobu je to zábava a na konci všichni umřou. Dobře, to trochu přeháním, ale zase ne tak moc. Navíc se knihy točí kolem tak veselých věcí jako jsou satanské sekty a znásilňování. Pravda, hlavní hrdina, který sám sebe prohlašuje za anti-fenimistu a o ženách se vyjadřuje jak o podivných bytostech s polovinou mozku, si to zase tak moc nebere, ale jelikož ty oběti byly ženy jeho přátel, musí se pustit do pátrání. A jelikož dojde k názoru, že za tím stojí satanisti, zbývá jediná možnost – uspořádat černou mši, aby vylákal satanisty z nory.
Jo, není to ten nejgeniálnější plán.
Což mi trochu vadilo. Ani v ostatních knihách nebyl Charlie Mortdecai zrovna génius, spíš takové zkřížení Bertíka Woosterů s markýzem De Sadem, ale tady v podstatě to, co dělá, nemá skoro žádný význam… tedy, pokud významem nepočítáme ustavičné zhoršování situace. A coby záminka ke komentování všeho a všech. Je to rasistický, sexistický, necitelný a věčně nalitý elitář.
Ale je to anglický román, takže k tomu to asi patří.
„Spát v té samé posteli s příslušníkem opačného pohlaví je barbarské, nehygienické, neestetické a od vynálezu elektrické dečky i celkem zbytečné. (…) Až narazím na ženu, se kterou bych chtěl strávit v posteli celou noc – včetně spánku, myslím – budu vědět, že jsem zamilovaný. Nebo senilní. V té době nejspíš už oboje.“
Forma v téhle knize posílá v souboji obsah do bezvědomí už v prvním kole. Což je ostatně případ všech Bonfiglioliových knih (tedy, napsal jen tři a půl, než se mu konečně povedlo umřít na následek nezřízeného pití), děj je tu jen motiv pro slovní eskapády… což se ovšem v tomhle případě podařilo vyvážit dost temným koncem.
Pokud byste si tohohle autora chtěli vyzkoušet, česky mu vyšli tři knihy… a nemějte mu za zlé, že jedna byla zfilmována s Johnem Deppem v hlavní roli.
December 30, 2021
Oof. Bit of a tough one, and probably closer to 3.5 stars than four.
On the plus side: Though the crisis is distasteful, the book was written with clever quips, asides, mirth, and a masterful gift for making jokes that come from between the lines. Bonfiglioli is a wonderfully clean and erudite writer, and the reader comes to really enjoy this rotten cad, Mortdecai. Also, the British Folk Horror angle was really well done, researched, and enjoyable.
On the minus: Dark, dark book. Horrid resolution that left me feeling quite shitty - and very out of tone with the rest of the novel.
Would I recommend it? If you like well-born, British protagonists who are moral cowards (I do, i.e., Flashman), you’ll enjoy about 99.9% of this book. The ending displeased me, but it was a pleasant(ish) ride getting there.
On the plus side: Though the crisis is distasteful, the book was written with clever quips, asides, mirth, and a masterful gift for making jokes that come from between the lines. Bonfiglioli is a wonderfully clean and erudite writer, and the reader comes to really enjoy this rotten cad, Mortdecai. Also, the British Folk Horror angle was really well done, researched, and enjoyable.
On the minus: Dark, dark book. Horrid resolution that left me feeling quite shitty - and very out of tone with the rest of the novel.
Would I recommend it? If you like well-born, British protagonists who are moral cowards (I do, i.e., Flashman), you’ll enjoy about 99.9% of this book. The ending displeased me, but it was a pleasant(ish) ride getting there.
February 4, 2020
It is a rule of thumb that if one tries to emulate P.G Wodehouse, one will fail. This is one such example of this theory in action. A similarly paced dollar-store version of the dearly loved characters seems to present itself in this book, talking about the endlessly hilarious and stomachachingly funny crime of rape. And when I say ‘endless hilarious’ and ‘stomachachingly funny’ I actually mean ‘endlessly messed up with a dumpster fire of misogyny on the side’. This books is absolutely a desperate try-hard, and as for accidentally grasping a vagina post-rape? Hard off. This was pathetic and irritating and I wish I didn’t even bother to pick it up.
February 7, 2018
Four stars or five? I thought the second Mortdecai novel, After You with the Pistol, was a bit lacklustre compared to the first, but this one's really on top form again. Really very funny and enjoyable. I was thinking I wouldn't bother with the fourth and fifth books, since the fourth one was finished posthumously by a 'literary mimic' and the fifth is about a *different* Mortdecai, but after finishing this one I'm not sure I'm quite ready to say goodbye.
July 12, 2018
Kyril Bonfigilioli was a kind of debauched P G Wodehouse. His Mortdecai stories crackle with wicked wit to make you laugh out loud. This one has a very dark and sinister tone too, with a serial rapist at large in Jersey, with black magic undertones. Mortdecai, our narrator, remains hilarious, although the ending leaves a bitter aftertaste, like the most gorgeous mouthful of the darkest chocolate. Great stuff.
October 22, 2020
I bought this a few years ago, I was taken by the positive comments from, amongst others, Stephen Fry. I bought the four books and I read the first two back in 2015. I wasn't very impressed but i thought i would read the last two.
Sexist, racist self indulgent rubbish might be praising the books too much. Stephen Fry on the reverse of this book describes it as "...disreputable and delightful". The former yes, the latter, absolutely not.
Just don't bother.
Sexist, racist self indulgent rubbish might be praising the books too much. Stephen Fry on the reverse of this book describes it as "...disreputable and delightful". The former yes, the latter, absolutely not.
Just don't bother.
July 25, 2021
The 3rd book of "Charlie Mortdecai" series, this time Charlie and his wife are moving to Jersey island, where quite soon the boring monotony of the countryside is breached by the series of attacks on women. Charlie and his friends have more and more original ideas on how to protect "the neighborhood". The ending of the series is the strangest one, still the humour is there, the plot is not obvious at all - but generally the atmosphere is much more strange that in the previous ones
March 7, 2019
This is the third instalment in the Charlie Mortdecai trilogy - another entertaining crime mystery: on this occasion Charlie is living in Jersey, Channel Islands when a series of rapes occur in the community and Charlie and his friends set out to investigate. Amusing, even though very non-PC - 8.5/10.
December 30, 2023
Charlie finds himself exiled from London, and living on the Channel Island of Jersey. When a local rapist is afoot, Charlie, and several of his friends who wives were victims, set out to catch him, but finds themselves dealing with a mythological and warlock known as The Beast of Jersey. Tongue and Cheek humor abounds throughout the third installment of the Charlie Mortdecai trilogy.
March 9, 2024
Bonfiglioli is palpably running out of steam by this stage. The sparkling writing of the first novel is still just about evident in a few places. However, the overall tone borders on mean spirited, while the attempt to render Wodehousian comedy from a story about serial rapist is badly misconceived.
September 23, 2024
Started and finished date - 22.09.24 to 23.09.24.
My rating - one star.
I Really didnt like this book, Both the atmosphere and writing was fine but the paced of plot felt rush. I didn't like the characters and I feel like they needed to be flash out bit more and the ending of the book was okay. I like The cover of book.
My rating - one star.
I Really didnt like this book, Both the atmosphere and writing was fine but the paced of plot felt rush. I didn't like the characters and I feel like they needed to be flash out bit more and the ending of the book was okay. I like The cover of book.
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