Inspector Morse
Oct. 4th, 2007 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI never got hooked on the TV series. I watched an episode or two. Gentle, middlebrow stuff, not really for me.
But the book was lying there and I wanted a change from Dickens.
The first surprise was it's not very well written. Awkwardness, pomposity, uncertainty of tone, too many adjectives and adverbs- all the marks of the literary amateur. I thought this was going to be at the high end of the market and it's not. Morse is a culture-buff, but his reported judgements are banal; Keats is a "fine poet. ...You should read him, Lewis", Wagner is "exquisite", the spires of Oxford are "stately". Dorothy Sayers or P.D. James this ain't.
The second surprise was- hold on a minute- Morse is a porn-fiend. How very unJohn Thaw. He gripes at the News of the World for not being racy enough, he thumbs through a suspect's collection of "supremely pornographic" Scandanavian magazines and barely represses the urge to pocket one, he sends Lewis to do some detecting and passes the afternoon in a strip club, he appraises women in a way that may have been less offensive in 1976 than it is now.
Also he drinks too much. I don't know where the drink driving laws stood in the mid 70s but there's no doubt if he were around today he'd be persistently over the limit.
A bit of a saddo really. I suppose that's the point. He's a crap policeman who gets his results by woolgathering. A not uninteresting conceit.
The Oxford setting goes for less than I imagined it would. A lot of places are name-checked but otherwise this could be anywhere in middle England.
The final test of a whodunnit is whether it foxes you or not. I already have my eye on a suspect- and not the one that's been foregrounded to put us off the scent. We'll see...
But the book was lying there and I wanted a change from Dickens.
The first surprise was it's not very well written. Awkwardness, pomposity, uncertainty of tone, too many adjectives and adverbs- all the marks of the literary amateur. I thought this was going to be at the high end of the market and it's not. Morse is a culture-buff, but his reported judgements are banal; Keats is a "fine poet. ...You should read him, Lewis", Wagner is "exquisite", the spires of Oxford are "stately". Dorothy Sayers or P.D. James this ain't.
The second surprise was- hold on a minute- Morse is a porn-fiend. How very unJohn Thaw. He gripes at the News of the World for not being racy enough, he thumbs through a suspect's collection of "supremely pornographic" Scandanavian magazines and barely represses the urge to pocket one, he sends Lewis to do some detecting and passes the afternoon in a strip club, he appraises women in a way that may have been less offensive in 1976 than it is now.
Also he drinks too much. I don't know where the drink driving laws stood in the mid 70s but there's no doubt if he were around today he'd be persistently over the limit.
A bit of a saddo really. I suppose that's the point. He's a crap policeman who gets his results by woolgathering. A not uninteresting conceit.
The Oxford setting goes for less than I imagined it would. A lot of places are name-checked but otherwise this could be anywhere in middle England.
The final test of a whodunnit is whether it foxes you or not. I already have my eye on a suspect- and not the one that's been foregrounded to put us off the scent. We'll see...
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 12:27 pm (UTC)I kind of think what the author is trying to say here is NOT that Morse is a complicated man and a culture buff, but that he is a PHONEY. We all know people like this, who pretend to love opera but only know of one opera, who pretend to love Beethoven but only know one symphony by name. I can't imagine that fans of the show would have stood for Morse being the leering letch that his character in the books actually was.
That's my opinion, anyway. The Morse books kept me company when I was having a battery of medical tests...
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 01:15 pm (UTC)I'm all for flawed detectives. Knights in shining armour- like Lord Peter and Adam Dalgleish- leave me cold. Give me vain, finicky little Poirot any day!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 01:20 pm (UTC)Dalgleish isn't really a knight in shining armour, he's kind of passive aggressive and has committment phobia. And Dorothy L. Sayers was in love with her main character, I think that's why he's so 'perfect'.
In my opinion, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 07:19 pm (UTC)I read one of the Dalgleish books a long long time ago. Sayers is a good writer; I just wish Wimsey wasn't so wonderful. I think it's wrong for detectives to be love objects. For me detecting and romance just don't mix.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 02:32 pm (UTC)>>>>I kind of think what the author is trying to say here is NOT that Morse is a complicated man and a culture buff, but that he is a PHONEY
I disagree. I think that the problem is in the writing. I don't know anything about the author, but perhaps it's he who doesn't know enough to be more expansive on the subjects he has the character discussing.
I can't recall any suggestion in the books or the TV series that Morse isn't the Oxford graduate, choir member etc that he claims to be. I love that moment when he finds out that the booby trapped tape is the "worst ever recording - I wouldn't have it in the house".
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 05:13 pm (UTC)I still think that you are over-estimating the author.
I once counted three "so very"s on one page. An author who can do that is also an author who is likely to give his character banalities to say, whatever the situation might be, but I see that your interpretation is a possible one.