Tricrepicephalus

Carry On Secret Service

2010-11-20T14:30:00.007+02:00

How could one not love a film in which John Gielgud plays the action hero?

Quite impossible.

And as an added bonus the film has Madeleine Carroll and Peter Lorre. Need one say more? I'm very much afraid one does.

Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936) is based on W. Somerset Maugham's splendidly bleak and realistic spy novel (or maybe it's a collection of short stories, I'm not entirely certain) Ashenden (1928). The script is by Charles Bennett and Alma Reville and makes a pig's ear of everything. (The movie is not to be confused with Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent - which Hitchcock also, slightly confusingly, filmed in 1936 as Sabotage).

Gielgud plays an officer and erstwhile novelist who returns from the front, only to find himself officially dead and enrolled in the secret service as "Ashenden". Then, with no training and precious little instruction, he's sent off to Switzerland to bump off a spy. To make him even more conspicuous he's given a partner, known as The Hairless Mexican (because he's neither hairless nor Mexican!) alias the General, played flamboyantly by Lorre.

The General is a fellow who manages to cause commotion and make scenes wherever he goes - obviously an invaluable asset and the perfect companion for the secret agent who wishes to remain inconspicuous.

And to top everything off the head of the Secret Service, R, spuriously has decided Ashenden ought to be a married man because the novelist was a bachelor, so in his Swiss hotel room Ashenden - much to his surprise - finds a wife.

Clearly a well oiled piece of machinery this British Secret Service.

The first thing Ashenden and the General do is eliminate the naughty enemy spy. But, turns out they get the wrong fellow. This causes the hysterical Mrs Ashenden to go right off the whole spy business. She leaves Ashenden and inadvertenty goes off with the real spy.

Ashenden and the General dashes off after her and the spy. They catch the spy on the train and are about to do away with him when the silly goose Mrs Ashenden again gets hysterical; she will have none of this killing stuff. She even threatens to expose Ashenden and the General to the Germans soldiers aboard the train, which of course would mean instant death to them all.

Then the train is bombed by the British. Our protagonists pull through, unscathed. Ashenden finds the severely wounded spy among the debris and is about to strangle him but at the last moment he can't do it. The General has no scruples. He'll shoot the spy. But first a cigarette. The spy snatches the gun and shoots the General, then expires.

Ashenden and Mrs Ashenden embrace. The wicked have been punished and love vanquishes all. The end.

Not much is left of Maugham's extremely fascinating moral ambiguities and the realism with which he depicts the slightly dreary life of a spy. It's all a bit seedy and grimy. The things one has to do are nasty in a banal way, nasty and sordid and remarkably unglamorous. Hitchcock, like always, is content with a brainless pot-boiler that's just a poor excuse for an insipid romance.

However, I'm right fond of the film. Lorre gives one of his very best performances as the randy and slightly ludicrous little hit man with no morals whatsoever. He'll as soon cut your throat as shake your hand. Lorre is positively chilling when he smiles - this, surely, is a man to watch out for. At the same time there is innocence in the performance, a certain childlike naïveté, as he wasn't really aware of the fact that he does perform nasty deeds. He whines, he tries to seduce every woman he meets, he plots his cunning little plots whit the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, he gets angry and pulls a tantrum when a woman is denied him. In a curious way he is, at the same time, lovable and lethal, slimy and seductive. Quite clearly he is the star of the show and justly so.

Madeleine Carroll's role is just stupid. She, on the other hand, is a delight, as ever. There seems to be very little romance between her and Gielgud but she radiates with such luminance that one hardly even notices just how spinsterish Gielgud manages to be in the romantic scenes. Such a great pity she didn't do more films.

One thing has to be said about Hitchcock's movies. Mostly the scripts make absolutely no sense whatsoever plot-wise. Yet somehow he manages almost to obfuscate that crucial fact and still make the films work, at least on other perhaps more visceral levels. One scarcely even notices that the plot is absolute rubbish and wouldn't fool a child. But it does fool most everybody. Most of the time. Perhaps one is unreasonable in one's foolish demands for a non-idiotic plot fit for a mentally adult audience. Probably one is.

Before the End

2010-11-13T23:22:00.004+02:00

The penultimate entry in the Granada Holmes series, The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes, isn’t half bad, actually. I recalled it being far worse.

The tricky thing is that by now they’re starting to run out of really meaty stories. I hesitate to call the remaining stories weak, but the incontestable fact is – by this time they’ve pretty much done the scorchers and are left with the more challenging stories.

In some of the stories there is no crime. This, obviously, makes it jolly difficult to structure them dramatically. Inevitably the viewer must feel at least slightly cheated by the anticlimax.

In these stories the script is crucial. Not to mention the directing and the acting. Mood and atmosphere may prevail where plot is absent. Fortunately Brett is still quite good, though some signs of strain are visible.

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax is the archetype of a Holmes story: a damsel in distress and the villain trying to get at her money. The atypical feature of the story is that the villain is in no way a member of the family, nor does he attempt to marry Lady Frances.

The Thor Bridge is slightly more difficult. No crime, well none that can be prosecuted, so the story requires a bit of padding. The result is quite good, all things considered. There is melodrama but it is kept under control. There is no crime in Shoscombe Old Place either. Here too some considerable padding is required. So what the director does is that he shows a lot of the old lady in her veil. Which is a mistake. Put a veil on a young man and he still moves like an young man. This works admirably in a text, not so much when it is filmed.

The same applies to The Creeping Man. Here too we don’t really have a crime; it’s just the old professor taking simian hormones for purposes of rejuvenation. But when we see this old professor, actually see him, acting like an ape and swinging from trees from the effect of the hormones, it doesn’t work at all. The more we see the less we believe. Mere glimpses work, an old man beating his chest and running on all four simply makes one smile wryly, or erhaps wince. Otherwise the episode is very good. Pity that Doyle didn’t write more stories with natural science like this in them – this one has almost a feel of science fiction.

The Illustrious Client is, once again, archetypical Doyle: a lethal villain preying on a lady of means an entrapping her into a disastrous and ominous marriage. Quite splendid, especially the villain who’s played by the absolutely marvellous Anthony Valentine: a fellow who simply can’t help being delightfully shifty and untrustworthy, but in a quite delightfully gentlemanly and urbane manner. Valentine, by the way, also played Raffles in the 70s series about the gentleman thief and master cricketer. A couple of days before the Brett version I happened to watch the 60s version with Douglas Wilmer. In this one Baron Gruner was played by Peter Wyngarde, and in such a chilling fashion that one sincerely fears for Holmes’s life. Ripping stuff. Otherwise I have to say the newer version is superior. They had a lot more money to burn and it shows.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery is the only proper mystery of the lot, a hideous murder and a classic tale of Sherlockian detection. Peter Vaugh is a superb villain, a murderer for whom one almost feels sorry. The script is solid. It’s by John Hawkesworth and it shows. If only he could have scripted more episodes.

In all the aforementioned episodes Brett is still quite excellent, keeping his mannerisms under control delivering a solid and well crafted performance. Sometimes he may seem a tad too eager but probably the scripts are to blame for that. Having to pad they tend to overuse Holmes. So often Brett has nothing to do, only to emote. That’s never good.

The Case-book is concluded by three feature length episodes: The Master Blackmailer, The Eligible Bachelor and The Last Vampyre. They are not on the double DVD I just purchased and I can’t say I’m too distraught by the fact. These episodes mark, very clearly, the end of the series. They’re padded, punched up and perverted beyond belief. The first has certain qualities, the other two are just silly and have nothing to do with Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

After this – destruction. But even the next instalment has some remarkably good episodes, erratic in the extreme as the rest may be.

Loot

2010-11-04T16:24:00.004+02:00

I know this is slightly ungentlemanly, but I can't help but wonder about the financial arrangement between Holmes and Watson.

Holmes does of course handle the most demanding aspect of the cases, the brain work, but Watson does chip in. He provides company, muscle, moral support. He provides a sounding board. He is in every sense of the word the great detective’s assistant. So what happens when the grateful clients whips out the old check book? Does Watson get his just cut? Or does Holmes hang on to the entire loot?

This is never mentioned by Watson. The subject of money is coarse and not to be mentioned in genteel society.

Watson has his practise, of course. However, it never seems to thrive. He's also willing to abandon it at a moment's notice, whenever Holmes has need of his help. This, surely, cannot be good for business. So it seems inevitable that he does need the cash, his cut of the loot; after all he is a family man.

Occasionally the cases are pro bono or Holmes chooses to waive the fee. At other times he collects in abundance. The prime example is in The Priory School where Holmes collects a cool £6000 from the Duke of Holdernesse

"The fact is, your Grace," said he, "that my colleague, Dr. Watson, and myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a reward had been offered in this case. I should like to have this confirmed from your own lips."
"Certainly, Mr. Holmes."
"It amounted, if I am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds to anyone who will tell you where your son is?"
"Exactly."
"And another thousand to the man who will name the person or persons who keep him in custody?"
"Exactly."
"Under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those who may have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep him in his present position?"
"Yes, yes," cried the Duke impatiently. "If you do your work well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly treatment."
My friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of avidity which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes.
"I fancy that I see your Grace's chequebook upon the table," said he. "I should be glad if you would make me out a cheque for six thousand pounds. It would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross it. The Capital and Counties Bank, Oxford Street branch, are my agents."

£6000 is an enormous sum. Any of it going to Watson? Doesn’t seem like it.

"In that case," said Holmes, rising, "I think that my friend and I can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our little visit to the North. There is one other small point upon which I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his horses with shoes which counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it from Mr. Wilder that he learned so extraordinary a device?"
The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense surprise on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a large room furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case in a corner, and pointed to the inscription.
"These shoes," it ran, "were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall. They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the Middle Ages."
Holmes opened the case, and, moistening his finger, he passed it along the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.
"Thank you," said he, as he replaced the glass. "It is the second most interesting object that I have seen in the North."
"And the first?"
Holmes folded up his cheque, and placed it carefully in his notebook. "I am a poor man," said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust it into the depths of his inner pocket.

What if the shoe were on the foot? What if it were Holmes assisting Watson in the surgery? Not doing anything terribly difficult but still being helpful and doing his bit? Would Holmes expect to be paid for his fair share of the work when the patients coughed up? I rather suspect he would. Even if he pottered around in the surgery merely to help his friend. I mean fair is fair, innit?

What about other famous detective duos? Does Hastings collect when Poirot gets paid? Mais non - not bloody likely. Nero Wolfe seems exemplary in this respect: he actually pays his minions steady wages no matter what. Raffles and Bunny also share the loot. In their case it is actual loot as they’re thieves and not detectives. Honour among thieves, eh what?

Maybe Holmes and Watson have another kind of deal. Maybe Holmes keeps all the dosh they get off clients, while Watson’s remuneration is the material he gets for his stories.

"I am glad to meet you, sir," said he, putting out a broad, fat hand, like the flipper of a seal. "I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler. (. . .)”

This is what Mycroft utters upon meeting Watson. Obviously the stories are well known, therefore they must sell and bring in money. But also they serve as a mighty promotional tool for Holmes: they’re in fact his best ads.

Or is it like this: Holmes is the professional, Watson the amateur. The professional gets recompensated for his efforts, the amateur gets to tag along.

The money clearly is an awkward topic. It makes one cringe. It isn’t at all gentlemanly to demand money for services rendered. And it’s quite shocking to demand it from a lady – a gentleman simply doesn’t accept money from a lady. Doing so would make the fellow a – dashed cad.

The ideal would be to be an real and true amateur; amateur in the sense of not charging for one’s services. But that is only possible for one of independent means. Holmes doesn’t have a fortune so he has to work. He has to live on something. Watson at least has his surgery to fall back on. Holmes has nothing else than his detective skills. I’ll grant that he could be an actor, he could be a musician, he could very well be a dozen other things if he so chose. That, however, would mean abandoning being a full-time detective. Then he’d be a mere hobbyist. A dabbler. Everything his malicious slanderers claim him to be.

Courtly ideals and filthy lucre go not well together. One cannot be a parfait knyght, save the damsel in distress from the fires-spewing dragon, and then turn around and grab the damsel's scrip.

Not cricket, old fellow.

Perhaps this is the way to see the partnership: Watson is in fact Holmes’s sponsor.

By not taking a cut of the profits Watson ensures that Holmes has enough money to keep going – to keep on solving the crimes and to keep on unmasking the villains. This isn’t a business. Holmes isn’t in it for the lucre. So the money is in fact irrelevant – it’s only valuable so far as it enables him to continue his work.

Being a detective isn’t Holmes’s profession – it’s his mission.

Sherlock 2100

2010-11-01T23:52:00.013+02:00

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century is a fairly curious illustrated TV series. It's science fiction, obviously, and doesn't shun a cliché. Any cliché. If one is able to ignore the fact that Holmes looks like a far too pretty escapee from the Backstreet Boys, that most Londoners sound either like Cockneys or Americans (and sometimes like American Cockneys), the police are all basically cretins, Holmes repeats "elementary" like a ruddy parrott at every turn, the plots are essentially redundant, and that the series clearly is aimed at an audience with the mental age of six and a half, one may even enjoy it. I rather do.

Moriarty has come back to terrorise New London. Actually it's his clone, but who cares. Inspector Beth Lestrade (the old Inspector Lestrade's great granddaughter or something) at once sees that only one man can vanquish such naughtiness: Sherlock Holmes. Good thing then that Holmes's body is preserved in honey (!) and stored in the cellar of Scotland Yard. And good thing too that a there's a boffin what looks exactly like Conan Doyle what knows how to quicken and rejuvenate Holmes. And as a Holmes must have a Watson, a Watson is provided: a robot who (or that? - or maybe we really must think of it as a whom) has been programmed to think of himself as Watson.

New London is a grim and surprisingly gothic place, very much out of Blade Runner with its sky scrapers, flying cars, nano technology and other cyberpunk mores: it's high tech yet also at the same time dilapidated and seedy, it's new and shiny and futuristic on the outside and has an underbelly that's a right heap of crumbling brick and rusting iron.

However, while the city may be straight from Blade Runner the car chases are straight from Star Wars and the dialogue standard fodder straight from a cheap comic book.

Holmes has his trusted magnifying glass while Watson has seemingly unlimited access to all data bases and has the ability to analyse any found substance on the spot. Very handy. Holmes status is not as independent as it once was. This time around he does take the occasional private consulting job but mostly he works for the police, with Lestrade as his supervising officer. Holmes isn't at all as distant as he used to be but Watson is still the more human one. Even if he is a robot or compudroid.

The stories aren't particularly Holmesian, well not classically so, but at times they do follow the original plots, sort of, even give them a nice and novel twist or two. Or sometimes they merely use an old title. Like in The Resident Patient. Here there is no patient, resident or otherwise. Percy Blessington has invented a method to morph people's DNA, and the way they look. This will come very handy to Moriarty when he attempts to take over the world by substituting a world leader with his dead ringer dummy. But Holmes foils it.

In The Hounds of the Baskervilles there's a crime spree in New London and sightings of phantom hounds - on the Moon. Obviously this falls under the jurisdiction of the New London police, how else. Holmes doesn't go with Lestrade and Watson, he of course already is on the Moon. The hounds seem to be large wolf like creatures that jump on the Moon dome and howl mightily. This, Holmes observes, is strange as there is no atmosphere on the Moon and therefore the howling outside the dome shouldn't be heard. Holmes hacks into a Lunar mainframe and investigates. The howls seem to going directly into the emergency broadcast system.

Holmes ventures outside the dome and proves that the giant hound is nothing but an illusion. A virtual hound. But there is another one, one that attacks people and kidnaps children. Maybe it's the phantom hound of Lunar legend? Holmes seems sceptic. The villain turns out to be Moriarty who's taken over the Moon (by kidnapping a couple of children!) and is about to try to take over the Earth "by reprogramming the Lunar defence network to unload its firepower on Earth's major communication facilities". Holmes foils the plan and Moriarty flees, almost managing to destroy the Lunar centre Galileo City.

In the The Red-Headed League it seems that certain criminals want the police - and Holmes - to cotton on to the league. Mr Wilson, the newest recruit, owns a dingy chip shop and has a dodgy assistant - who indeed put him on to the league. This time around it's forgery and art theft from the National gallery. And Moriarty, as per usual, is behind it all. The ultimate scheme is to kidnap the wealthiest man in the world. Holmes dresses up as the intended victim and foils the dastardly scheme. Moriarty gets away, yet again, just by dashing off. In The Six Napoleons the Napoleons in question are flying cars, "the most sumptuous luxury vehicles ever built". The ornamental crystals on them are destroyed. Why? Turns out one of the crystals is a new and potent power source. In The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire Lot the vampire feeds on data. Moriarty wants to catch the data vampire for his own purposes. Turns out the vampire is a hacker - a young girl who is in fact trying to hinder Moriarty. Holmes foils Moriarty's villanous scheme and Moriarty flees.

In A Case of Identity a hacker pretends to be a police costable in order to gain access to New Scotland Yards mainframe. In the Blue Carbuncle the item in question is a talking blue gremlinesque doll that every child wants for Christmas. And there's one doll in particular that everyone is after - especially Moriarty. The storyline seems to owe more to Schwarzenegger's Jingle all the Way than to Doyle. Anyway, the doll makers have come up with robot intelligence and Moriarty wants the intelligent doll so he can build his own robot army and conquer the world. Which beggars the question: Isn't Watson supposed to be an intelligent robot? If so, what's the fuss about? If he isn't, well what bloody use is he to Holmes? Moriarty's plan is foiled by Holmes and the fact that the doll doesn't much like the idea of working. Definitely one of the better episodes. In The Crooked Man Mr and Mrs Barclay have a violent row behind closed doors. When the door is broken down by a household robot Mrs Barclay is found fainted on the floor and Mr Barclay has mysteriously disappeared. There's some strange fur found and ominous claw marks. Barclay is a genetic engineer, by the way. Everyone familiar with Doyle's story can guess where this is going.

The graphic work isn't bad. Some of the voice acting is pretty horrible, most of it quite competent. Moriarty is actually very good. The science fiction elements aren't innovative but reasonably fresh and well used. This being a kiddie show murders are of course out. Which sort of diminishes the Holmesian spectrum of cases.

Art it ain't. Canonical it ain't. Holmes it ain't. It's basically Punch and Judy. But it is tolerably amusing anyway.

Once More Unto the Breach

2010-10-28T19:32:00.005+03:00

I'm probably not far wrong if I claim that Henry V is Laurence Olivier's best Shakespeare movie.

It was made in 1944, during the war, so there is a definite patriotic tendencity in the offing, not surprisingly. But there is very little pathos and the patriotism seems somehow wholesome and clean spirited.

The movie is set up as a play at the Globe, that great wooden O, played by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men on the first of May 1600. First there is some magnificent William Walton, as English music as you can get, then the camera majestically sweeps the Elizabethan London (a rather good scale model, actually) with its trees, thatched roofs, chimneys sprouting smoke, and the bluer than blue Thames leisurely making its way through the city. The camera zooms in on the Globe. The flag is just being raised so we know there’s about to be a performance; our play – Henry V. Then we get a tour round the Globe and see the musicians, staff, the genteel audience sitting along the walls of the theatre and the groundlings bustling and prattling in front of the stage: it’s all delightfully unceremonious and unspectacular. A boy with a sign appears on the stage. The sign "The Chronicle History of Henry the Fift with his battell fought at Agin Court in France". The audience starts to settle down. Then the chorus, played by Leslie Banks (who for me always is and will be the supremely evil count Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game) struts out and starts declaiming. Everything is still very casual with members of the audience actually sitting on the stage, right beside the actors and the action.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt –

Then a cunning cinematic trick, the chorus approaches the camera and directs his words directly to the film audience:

On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

The camera pulls back and the boy with the sign reappears. Now we’re in King Harry’s antechamber and the play proper begins with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely scheming to protect the riches of the church. After the scene we follow the actors backstage for a quick and dizzy glimpse of the what goes on behind the scenes. The King makes his appearance. Usually this scene – Henry’s justification for going to war against France – is extremely boring, now it’s played for laughs with almost slapstick humour. This is in fact quite curious and bold: this is after all a wartime movie about an important English war. The attempts to justify war are downright ridiculed and mocked. The lack of pathos seems absolutely refreshing.

The scene shifts to the street in front of the Boar’s Head – that merry and familiar stomping ground of dear old Falstaff – as it starts raining and the groundlings seek cover as the actors just get drenched. Robert Newton, as is his wont, does an excellent Ancient Pistol: mellifluous and bombastic and with the gravitas of a sort of comedic James Mason. This is the death scene of Sir John Falstaff. In the play he never appears and is only mentioned by others: he’s been cut out of the play as he’s been cut out of the King’s life.

In the movie Falstaff does get screen time, as is only right and proper, and his death scene is shown, echoing lines from his last meeting, with prince Hal in the second part of Henry IV. This Falstaff is just an old man, a reed, bereft of life and devoid of wit. He’s still breathing but already dead. He’s a hollow shell. It’s all profoundly tragic. They say he cried out of sack.

Then it’s off to France and the dreamy and more than slightly decadent French court. The scenes are no longer played on the stage of the Globe, they’re abstract but still clearly studio scenes with their painted artificiality and deliberately cardboardy settings – a typical contemporary theatrical stage setting, in fact. The shots and scenes become increasingly realistic when the battle commences, but there are still definite artificial elements. It looks almost as if the scenes were shot outdoors, until one sees the painted backdrop. And then the rocks no longer look that natural. But maybe it is an outdoor shot, and the backdrop is there to conceal it?

Olivier delivers his speeches magnificently, stirring both his men and the audience into a frenzy. The mood has definitely shifted. No longer are we served crude but amusing slapstick.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

And then, of course, the mood changes back we get more slapstick with Nym, Pistol and Bardolph, and the humorous squabbles of Fluellen, Macmorris and Jamy. But now there is a strong undercurrent of seriousness, a tangible core of do or die. This piece isn’t about a war that was fought centuries ago, it’s about the war that is being fought right now. The scene in which Harry roams the nocturnal camp incognito and discusses the war with his more humble subjects at a fire may be the finest in the picture.

The English are severely outnumbered. It should be but a light feat for the French to wipe them out. But: the French may have the numbers – the English have Harry.

When it’s time for the big battle the scene shifts yet again and now we really are outdoors, under a very clear and blue sky, the scene becomes realistic – and we get the glorious, riveting St Crispin Day speech:

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Of course this is insanity, but very noble, beautiful and inspired insanity.

The battle scene isn’t half bad: lots of horses, lots of archers. When the archers let off their arrows in a black cloud of death one almost feels sorry for the French knights. Then pretty soon it’s all chaos.

After the battle we again return to the more theatrical and artificial settings in the court of France where Harry woos and wins the fair French princess Katharine. Then we’re back at the Globe for Harry’s nuptials (with Kate as a boy, obviously). The chorus concludes the play.

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden be achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

We zoom out of the Globe, through London, back into the skies, and encounter the credits accompanied by ripping choral music by Walton.

Olivier’s Henry V may well be patriotic war time propaganda – but first and foremost it’s art. Just like Shakespeare’s play.

Branagh's Henry V ain't bad, it's his best Shakespeare film by far, but Olivier's is better.

När han vaknar

2010-10-27T21:58:00.004+03:00

.
.
Petri Salin:
När han vaknar

När Sherlock dör första gången dör han inte. När Sherlock dör första gången blir han odödlig. Han besöker dödsriket, blir smord, blir en halvgud.

När Sherlock dör andra gången dör han inte. Han bara försvinner. Han lämnar efter sig allt. Hans lägenhet är som den alltid var, ostörd, orörd, alla hans ägodelar på sin plats. Hans pipa, hans pistol, hans tobaksfyllda toffel, hans violin, hans plagg. Hans förstoringsglas. Allt väntar på honom, allt bara väntar på hans återvändo.

När Sherlock dör andra gången slumrar han, dold för världen, och vi vet att en dag skall han återvända.

När han vaknar.

(Reichenbachin jälkeen)

Quick, Watson - to the Cinny!

2010-10-27T18:46:00.001+03:00

Pursuit to Algiers (1945) is the twelfth entry in the Rathbone-Bruce series and a pretty weak one at that. Not entirely without interest, however.

The script is based on a throwaway line in The Norwood Builder. Well, based is perhaps too strongly put.

"At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months, and I, at his request, had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask - an incident which only explained itself some years later when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes's, and that it was my friend who had really found the money. Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had stated, for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case of the papers of ex-President Murillo, and also the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which so nearly cost us both our lives. His cold and proud nature was always averse, however, to anything in the shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his successes - a prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been removed."

Holmes and Watson are about to go on their hols. But of course duty calls, the kingdom of Rovinia needs Holmes desperately. The king has been assassinated and now Holmes must see to it that the young prince, who has been abroad studying, doesn't meet the same fate but gets safely home. Holmes and the prince take an areoplane and leave the sulking Watson, as stupid as ever or maybe even more so, to make his trip on board the Dutch steamship Friesland.

Friesland seems absolutely brimming with shady characters. Some of the passengers just lurk in their staterooms. On the radio Watson hears a shocking piece of news: the plane Holmes and the prince were in has crashed. No survivors.

But, turns out that Holmes and the prince have been aboard the ship all along and the aeroplane was simply a ruse. And obviously the assassins too are on the ship, ready to pounce.

At the dinner table Watson recounts the strange adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra. And of course the camera zooms away and only returns for his very last words. Better that way. At least in this movie.

Really the most interesting thing about the movie is the trio of assassins - Mirko, Gregor and Jodri - who bring life to the otherwise trite movie. Two of them seem to have escaped from The Maltese Falcon: Mirko is a rather clumsy but amusing Joel Cairo and Gregor is an inflatory and less witty and scathing Gutman. But as assassins they are quite hopeless. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to beat these chaps.

Of course the villains still get the upper hand, even if they are hopeless, and they kidnap the prince. But it's all right, the prince isn't the prince at all but a dummy. The real prince has been masquerading all along as a steward. Rah-rah. Case solved. Oh and Holmes also stumbles upon some very valuable jewels with no connection to anything at all that only recently have been stolen in London. The end.

Oh dear. One has to ask: what the devil has any of this to do with Sherlock Holmes? The mind boggles at this remarkable stupidity. Really, Rathbone, you ought to be ashamed of your participation in this unadulturated idiocy.

Young Sherlock Holmes (1986) didn't please me much when first I saw it almost a quarter of a century ago. Now I saw it for the third time and found it surprisingly pleasant. It is a quality production: the acting is fine, the settings work, the plot is not bad at all. It seems like a cross between Harry Potter and Young Indiana Jones: good humoured and quite clever.

This time, to my surprise, I immensely enjoyed the movie. It was exciting, funny, and a bit sad. Anthony Higgins makes a splendid villain and one can't get a better narrator than Ralph Richardson. Even if he is a bit schmalzy.

I do, however, still have reservations about the script. Great reservations. It's simply to pat. At one stroke, literally, the boy Holmes meets Watson, Lestrade and acquires his deerstalker, Inverness cape and his briar - and becomes immune to women. All the cliché trademarks. And his teacher Rathe turns out to be Moriarty really.

This last detail escaped me previously as it comes after the credits. So I'd never seen it. Can't say that I'm too impressed. Far too pat. It just won't do to explain away simply everything.

But the movie is great fun and worth a dozen Rathbone films.

Metropolis Re-visited

2010-10-27T13:21:00.004+03:00

The curious and quite interesting thing about Fritz Lang's Metropolis is this: every time one sees it it's quite different. Literally. Well, at least for me.

Partly this has to do with the music. With silent movies music plays an incredibly big part. Every time the score is different, so is the movie. An interesting way to test how much music really does mean to the silent movie is to watch the movie with no music whatsoever. Usually the movie becomes quite unwatchable. It simply makes no sense whatsoever.

I don't know how many times I've seen Metropolis but every time I have seen it does have a different score. Sometimes contemporary, sometimes ghastly rock by the extremely ghastly band Queen or horrible Ennio Morricone (spoiling it all pretty thoroughly).

But also it is different. They keep cutting it. And sometimes they even find new footage - meaning of course old footage restored. So I probably haven't seen two versions with quite the same footage.

This makes one's experience of the movie eternally variable, constantly different. At times the score makes the movie unbearable, at other times the cuts make the plot well nigh unintelligible.

Originally Metropolis was 153 minutes long, so most of the versions I've seen have been severely butchered. Most? All of them.

The longest version I've seen is probably the 2 hour restored version by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung from 2001. It's also the most true one. They've tried to restore all the scenes and where scenes are missing they indicate what happens in them. Another thing: they use the original musical score of the 1927 premiere.

This version makes most sense by far of all the versions I've seen of the movie. In the other versions the motives of several key players have always been, well, shall we say odd. Here things seem more logical, the plot more even. Especially the plot lines with Josaphat and The Thin Man have been cut severely, almost entirely, in all other versions. Here there is much more motivation and explanation. The plot lines are there for a reason.

Rotwang's central, not to say crucial, character is also more fully explored. Now the destruction of the city seems to be quite logical.

Metropolis needs to be a long movie. It is science fiction, but it is also and essentially a parable, a biblical tale, and moves with a majestically slow pace. It isn't a fast and modern psychological drama - far from it. So every cut dimishes its power and majesticity.

There's still a good half hour missing, vanished, so we'll never be able to see it as it was meant to be seen.

Unless there's a miracle. Such as there was with the earlier Lang film Vier um die Frau. This movie was lost for the longest time, until it recently was re-discovered in South America.

Miracles do happen.

(Oh good lord - when I check the web I find that an even longer version has been found in Buenos Aires in June 2007 with an additional 25 minutes of original footage - thus making it an almost complete version of the 1927 premier. Good show!)

Elementary, My Dear W!

2010-10-04T00:25:00.017+03:00

"Elementary, my dear Watson." The quote of quotes. Holmes's signature tune. The one Sherlockian catchphrase everybody knows. The one thing Holmes always, always, says. It's a standard. Only thing is, Holmes never said it in the Canon. Doyle never wrote it.

This, by now, is common knowledge. So the question is: who did say it? And when and where, exactly?

There are instances in the Canon where it's almost said. In The Crooked Man Holmes comes awfully close. He says "elementary" but fails to add the mandatory tag of "my dear Watson."

"I see that you are professionally rather busy just now," said he, glancing very keenly across at me.
"Yes, I've had a busy day," I answered.
"It may seem very foolish in your eyes," I added, "but really I don't know how you deduced it.
"Holmes chuckled to himself."I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."
"Excellent!" I cried."
"Elementary," said he.

In Wisteria Lodge we get this bit of dialogue:

"But what was he to witness?"
"Nothing, as things turned out, but everything had they gone another way. That is how I read the matter."
"I see, he might have proved an alibi."
"Exactly, my dear Watson; he might have proved an alibi. (. . . )"

Which, one has to admit, while not exactly it, is still almost in the vicinity.

Elementatry is used in seven Canonical stories: the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the short stories A Case of Identity, Wisteria Lodge, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, The Blanched Soldier and of course the aforementioned The Crooked Man.

First time "Elementary, my dear Watson" actually was uttered was on the silver screen, by Clive Brook in the first Holmes talkie Sherlock Holmes, based on Gillette's famous play, in 1929. It stuck.

However, in The Films of Sherlock Holmes the authors Steinbrunner and Michaels make no mention of Brook's Holmes coining the infamous phrase. But they do offer us this little gem of immortal dialogue when Holmes hears of Moriarty's prison sentence:

HOLMES: The only man to use scientific methods as I use them . . . A marvelous man. And now he's gone.
ALICE: And we shall soon be going. You haven't forgotten your promise?
HOLMES: Forgotten? Lock up the laboratory, Watson. Unload my pistols.
WATSON: Yes, my dear Holmes. But where are you going?
HOLMES: I'm ashamed of you, Watson, after all these years. Where are your powers of deduction. A beautiful girl . . .
ALICE: An impetuous lover . . .
HOLMES: A menace removed . . .
ALICE: What can follow but wedding bells!
HOLMES: We're off to apply for a special license!
ALICE: Sherlock Holmes and wife, farmers!
HOLMES: Sherlock Holmes - new laid eggs for sale!
WATSON: Incredible, my dear Holmes! Amazing!
HOLMES: Elementary.

Other sources give the last line as "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary."

I've absolutely no idea if the phrase actually does occur in the movie as it's one of the Holmes films I've never seen. The common census seems to be that it does occur. Fair enough.

In Gillette's play, the basis for Brook's movie, we have: "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow." Almost. But not quite. Forgot the "Watson", old fellow.

So. Where does the infamous phrase first appear? In writing, I mean. Never mind the talkies.

The answer might be slightly surprising. The word on the street is: it first appears in a 1915 novel. The text itself was written and serialised a few years in a magazine called The Captain as early as 1909-10 by a future master of English prose. The book is something of a turning point in his career. Previously he'd written mostly stories for boys, humorous school stories, now he's reaching out for a larger and more adult audience. The book features his earliest big character and one of his juiciest. Don't ring a bell? I'm not surprised.

The author: the future knight of the realm Sir Pelham, but then still only plain old P.G. Wodehouse. The novel: Psmith Journalist.

Psmith Journalist is one of those early Wodehouse novels where he doesn't have his ducks in a row, not quite yet. It's very funny, for the most part, but it's also an occasionally uneasy mix with melodrama, social commentary and gritty crime - all in a jolly jumble. Later Wodehouse would learn to purge his material and purify his humour. The over-all result here is slightly heavy and patchy.

Psmith follows his trusted friend Mike to America on the latters cricketing tour. Not having much anything to do with his time he appoints himself sub-editor of a magazine for children, Cosy Moments, and forthwith transforms the magazine. Into what? Well obviously, at least to the inimitable Psmith, to a socially conscious fighting unit with the sole purpose of bettering the living conditions of the unfortunate inhabitants of a certain slum-like tenement in New York.

The really interesting thing is how Wodehouse incorporates the infamous gangs of New York into his story. One of the key players in the story is Bat Jarvis, who closely resembles that nasty purveyor of iniquity Monk Eastman (of whom Borges writes in his book A Universal History of Infamy and Herbert Asbury in his Gangs of New York). Eastman was a particularly vicious gang leader whose gang was so large that it split into warring factions when he was in jail so that he had to form a new one. Another noteworthy thing about Eastman (and also Jarvis) is that he owned a pet shop and had an amazing fondness for cats. I wonder if the tendency of villains to stroke cats in a menacing way - Ernst Stavro Blofeld! - originates from Eastman?

The gangs of New York and the social injustice and misery of tenements is not the most happy material for Wodehouse. It's too real. It simply isn't funny. Therefore the book only works in parts. The realism is too real and causes anxiety. The tenements are not funny. Real gangsters and real killings aren't funny. Even if Psmith is there to bring light comic relief.

Anyway, Sherlock Holmes is much mentioned in the book as Psmith fancies himself something of a successor of the famous detective. And frequently uses his "Sherlock Holmes method" to deduce things.

Sherlock Holmes always was a big influence on Wodehouse, much bigger than most people seem to realise. Jeeves and Wooster. Holmes and Watson. The analogy is clear and fully intended. The stories follow the mechanism of the Holmes stories with amazing accuracy. We have Jeeves as the solver of intricate and seemingly impossible puzzles, quizzical quandries and other dashed difficult cases involving aunts and overly eager fiancées, and Wooster acting as his trusted and utterly baffled chronicler. Even the names echo their roles. Wooster - Watson. Jeeves - Holmes. Only that funnily enough Wooster believes himself to be the Holmes character. Well mostly.

Elementary, my dear Wooster.

I think it's quite possible that Wodehouse really learned how to be Wodehouse when he found a way to do humorous Sherlock Holmes stories. That gave his humour much needed solid structure and liberated new dimensions of comedy.

But, hang on.

Upon re-reading Psmith I find that the word on the street is wrong. The Internet is wrong. Wikipedia is wrong. The phrase does not occur in the book, well at least not in my 1979 Penguin edition.

Right. Doyle didn't coin it. Wodehouse didn't coin it.

So, whence then does it hail?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Post scriptum:

There's me with egg on my face. Occured to me to check it out electronically. Google Books and a couple of other sites had the whole book in electronic form. So I had a look, and sure enough, this is what I found in chapter 19 of Psmith Journalist:

"I fancy," said Psmith, "that this is one of those moments when itis necessary for me to unlimber my Sherlock Holmes system. As thus.If the rent collector had been here, it is certain, I think, that Comrade Spaghetti, or whatever you said his name was, wouldn't have been. That is to say, if the rent collector had called and found no money waiting for him, surely Comrade Spaghetti would have been out in the cold night instead of under his own roof-tree. Do you follow me, Comrade Maloney?"
"That's right," said Billy Windsor. "Of course."
"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary," murmured Psmith.

Bugger. It was there, all the time it was there, and I missed it. Wodehouse did coin the phrase after all. Oh dear. Can't even read any longer.

Orlacs Hände

2010-09-26T14:54:00.026+03:00

Robert Wiehe directed two great classics: Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari in 1919 and Orlacs Hände in 1924. In both movies Condrad Veidt is, in an extremely grotesque fashion, mixed up with other people's murderous schemes.

The protagonist Paul Orlac (Veidt) is a pianist - not only a supreme master of the instrument but perhaps the greatest virtuoso of his time. There is a terrible accident and Orlac loses what is most precious to a pianist: his hands. "His hands . . . for God's sake . . . his hands!" his wife cries out in anguish to the doctor. "Save his hands . . . his hands are his life . . ."

The doctor promises to do his best and he does manage to save Orlac's hands. But there's something a little odd about them. Why do people keep staring at his hands? Why is there a man who laughs at him when looking at his hands? Orlac wonders and wonders, getting more and more anxious. He has nightmares - a giant hand reaches for him surrealistically as he lies on his hospital cot.

Awakening from his nightmare Orlac finds a note on his bed. He reads it and is aghast: "Your hands couldn't be saved . . . Dr Serral gave you different hands . . . the hands of the executed robber and murderer Vasseur!" Orlac looks at his hands in horror. It's as if the hands no longer are a part of him but have a bizarre will of their own. He faints on the floor.

He confronts the doctor. It is true.

The thought of a murderer's hands starts to drive him insane. He vows never to touch another human being with his soiled hands. He tries playng the piano - it's hopeless. His new hands can produce only vile cacophony. He looks up old newspaper articles about Vasseur's crimes. When he comes home he finds a dagger sticking out of his door. A dagger with an X on the handle. A dagger like the one with which Vasseur performed his horrid deeds. He pulls it out and cluches it to his breast, then furtively hides it inside the grand piano.

His hands have become like claws, all wizened and withered: "Damned . . . cursed . . . hands!"

When night falls and darkness descends upon the house the hands draw, pull, him towards the grand piano. He's almost like a somnambulist, the hands control him and he follows them in absolute horror; he's utterly helpless. He stabs the air in front of him with his knife, slashing it to ribbons.

There's a mysterious and sinister looking man in a long black cape and floppy hat who's been following Orlac. He seems to have some menacing hold over Orlacs maid. He's trying to force her to do something, something against Orlac. At the same time the creditors are closing in. As Orlac no longer can play, he's got no income. And the debts keep on piling. Orlac's wife goes to his father. He's a rich man. He can save them. The father refuses, coldly and sadistically stating that he would want Orlac to become a destitute pauper: he hates his son.

His wife entreats and begs Orlac. He must go to his father - surely Orlac's father must help them. He must.

Orlac goes to his father's house. He finds the door unlocked. This is highly unusual as the door is always locked and closely guarded by a trusted servant. The house seems empty. In one room Orlac finds his father lying on the floor - with a dagger sticking out of him. It's the dagger with the X on the handle. The murderer Vasseur's dagger. Orlac alerts the police.

One of the detectives recognises the dagger. With his magnifying glass he examines the prints on it and proclaims them to be - Vasseur's! Vasseur is dead but his hands still murder! How is that possible?

Orlac flees the scene of the crime in horror. The sinister man in the long black cape follows him. It's the same man who laughed at him in the hospital. "You are your father's heir," the man says to Orlac, "you will pay me a million francs." "Why," says Orlac. "For my hands," the man says, then reveals the mechanical contraptions he has instead of hands: it's the executed murderer Vasseur!

The same experiment the doctor did with Vasseur's hands his assistant did with Vasseur's head! Vasseur shows him the scar on his neck where his head was removed and then, after the re-animation, re-attached.

And now, if Orlac doesn't pay him a million francs by tomorrow the police will receive information that it was Orlac who killed his father. The evidence against Orlac is quite overwhelming. The maid saw him with the dagger. The fingerprints are from his hands. He has the motive. It's quite open and shut.

Orlac knows he has to pay. His wife says no; he must go to the prosecutor and tell everything. He does so and the prosecutor immediately signs out a warrant for his arrest. The detective, however, stops this. He has Orlac get the money and meet the blackmailer. When he does, the police strike. "Vasseur" turns out to be a hospital assistant called Nera and well known to the police. The scar and the missing hands are only fake. He fesses up to blackmail but not murder.

The murder was done with Vasseurs hands, not his. Orlac, Nera points out, now has those hands. Orlac is arrested. But just then Orlac's wife and maid burst in. The maid comes clean. She knows all. She's been the murderers unwilling assistant: it was Nera who killed old Orlac. He knew Vaisseur and had rubber gloves made from his hands, gloves with Vaisseur's prints. And what's more, Vaisseur never murdered anyone. It was Nera who framed him for a murder he himself commited.

Vaisseur's hands are clean, not the hands of a murderer at all. And that means that Orlac's hands too are clean.

The real culprit is arrested and all ends on a happy note.

Orlacs Hände is not as expressionistic as Caligari but it does have its fine moments, especially when the camera lingers on the crushing anguish of Orlac, the sheer terror on his face when he believes himself to be doomed to murder somebody, the panic when his hands literally lead him on to terrors unknown.

Will he murder? Did he murder? These are the focal points of the movie.

However, everything is resolved far too easily and conveniently. It was all a frame-up. It really amounts to a sell-out and I for one feel cheated at the end. It would have been so sweet if his hands had been those of a murderer and had had a will of their own. It would have been even sweeter if the murderer had come back from the dead. Alas and alack, that was not to be. The supremely titillating supernatural elements prove to be just fake. This leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

I much prefer the ambiguous ending of Caligari - now that one really leaves a powerful after taste and lingers under one's skin literally for ever. Never for an instant do we get relief from the opressing atmosphere of the film, never for once do we feel it's over and we can relax. The tension lives on and simply keeps growing even after the ending. Therefore the impact is immeasurably more potent.

Orlacs Hände shows great potential but fails to live up to it. The gripping scenes don't quite make up for the sell-out ending. Not quite.

Tanckar om jordens skapnad

2010-09-25T23:58:00.018+03:00

Det blev lite tal om finlandssvensk science fiction på Ahrvid Engholms Skriva-lista precis efter Finncon - just angående vår panel visavi ämnet. Det var då som Zen Zats (Sveriges turbator, ungefär) Bertil Falk, lite i förbigående, sprängde nyhetsbomben. Den äldsta science fiction-boken skriven på svenska torde vara Tanckar om jordens skapnad från 1741. Och boken var skriven av en viss Johan Krook som, påpekade Falk, hör och häpna, var från Finland!

Nå, i princip är detta ingen nyhet. Det står faktiskt redan i Sam J. Lundwalls bibliografier. Lundwall skriver: "Krook föddes 1713 i Finland, troligen i Nyland, och disputerade 1737 i Uppsala. 1746 återfinns han i Åbo som preses för en filosofisk avhandling. Han blev sedan hovsekreterare. "Tanckar om jordens skapnad" kan sägas vara Sveriges första science-fictionroman. Författaren inleder arbetet med att konstatera att man "i denna här wår tid, med icke mindre beswär än omkostnad, endteligen wil weta: [...] den rätta beskaffenheten af wår jord, hennes yttra figur och skapnad, om hon, som man i de äldre tider godt och enfaldeligen trodde, skal wara lik en pankaka, eller som man nu i de nyare disputerar, antingen hon är mera lik en citron, än såsom en hollendsk ost." Huvudpersonen ger sig upp i ett luftskepp för att titta på jorden och väl ute i rymden blir hans nyfikenhet så stor att han far till månen. Där upptäcker han ett berg av glasflaskor som innehåller jordbornas förlorade förstånd. Han far tillbaka till jorden utan att ha fått besked om jordens skapnad, men väl om "rätta distantien emellan förnuft och dårskap". Böök skriver om boken att "denna berättelse är framställd i ett maner, som tillhör det odrägligaste man öfver huvud kan tänka sig". Författaren dog 1778 i Stockholm."

Men att Krook både: a) skrev den första svenska science fiction-boken och b) var från Nyland är något som, hittills, gått åtminstone mig helt förbi, fast Lundwalls bibliografiska prestationer icke är mig helt obekanta. Jag misstänker att jag inte är helt ensam i den saken.

Men vem var då denne Krook? Inte mycket utöver det Lundwall nämnde tycks vetas om honom. Men lite finns det nog på nätet. Lagus studentmatrikel vet detta om honom: "Krook, Johan. Borgo. p. 327 || Hans far p. 221. Gymnasist i Borgå 1728. Student 1730. Uttog testim. i k:m 8.8.1733. Student i Upsala 25.9.1733. Respondens der 1737 u. Grönbergh, 1737 pro gradu u. Ullén. Magister der 1737. Præses i Åbo 14.6.1746 för „Theses philosophicae“, resp. Sam. Krogius. Blef hofsekreterare."

Helsingfors universitets studentmatrikel har detta att förtälja: "kl. 1730 Johan Krook 5734. Vht: Hollolan kirkkoherra, FM Bengt Krook 4308 (yo 1698, † 1749) ja Katarina Printz. Porvoon lukion oppilas 7.10.1728 – 1730. Ylioppilas Turussa kl. 1730 [Krook] Johan. Borgo _ 327. Ylioppilas Uppsalassa 25.9.1733 Joh. Benedicti Krook Nylandus. Respondentti Uppsalassa 24.3.1737 pro exercitio, pr. käytänn. filos. prof. And. Grönwall. Respondentti Uppsalassa 28.6.1737 pro gradu, pr. teor. filos. prof. Petr. Ullén. FM Uppsalassa 30.6.1737. Preeses Turussa 14.6.1746. — Hovisihteeri. † Tukholmassa (Riddarholm) 1.9.1778. Naimaton."

Och ytterligare: "Viittauksia: HYK ms., Index s. 108b. — V. Lagus, Studentmatrikel I (1889–91) s. 402 (LXXXII); Turun akatemian konsistorin pöytäkirjat XII 1726–1731 (julk. T. Carpelan, 1948) s. 497, 499; Turun akatemian konsistorin pöytäkirjat XIII 1731–1738 (julk. T. Carpelan, 1952) s. 179 (8.8.1733, erlade chartae sigillatae afgifften för ett testimonium), 182, 238; Turun akatemian konsistorin pöytäkirjat XV 1742–1747 (julk. V-M. Autio, 1968) s. 160 passim; A. Jörgensen, Nyländska avdelningens matrikel 1640–1868 (1911) #382; Uppsala universitets matrikel II 1700–1750 (utg. A. B. Carlsson, 1919–23) s. 240; B. Lunelund-Grönroos (julk.), Matriculum gymnasii Borgoensis 1725–1809. SSJ 17 (1946) #68. — J. H. Lidén, Catalogus disputationum I. Disp. Upsalienses (1778) p. 219, 481; A. Bergholm, Sukukirja I (1892) s. 738 (Krook. Uudenmaan suku. Taulu 2); K. G. Leinberg, Dissertationes academicæ Fennorum extra patriam. BNF 58 (1900) #68; J. Vallinkoski, Turun akatemian väitöskirjat 1642–1828. HYKJ 30 (1962–66) #2107P."

Alltså född i Borgå (Borgo!), far kyrkoherde i Hollola, släkten starkt infesterad av kyrkofolk. Men sedan tar det slut.

I sitt mail nämnde Falk att Lunds universitetsbibliotek råkade ha ett exemplar av Krooks bok. Men, eftersom mannen då levde, skrev och publicerade sin bok i Sverige, fanns det ingen orsak att anta att man i Finland skulle hitta hans bok. Inte sådär bara. Det att han var född i Finland var en ganska incidental bagatell. Vem kom ihåg honom idag? Vem kom ihåg hans bok? Vem hittade bokens anknytning till Finland? Nej, det faktum att mannen som skrev Sveriges första science fiction-bok var från Finland var nog ett föga känt faktum i hans gamla hemtrakter.

Det var när jag i helt andra ärenden besökte vår nationalbibliografi Fennica som jag kom på att ta en titt om boken, möjligtvis, kunde finnas nämnd där. Och denna språkligt tämligen schizofrena anteckning hittade jag i registret: "Författare: Anticthon, salanimi, k. 1778. Titel: Tanckar om jordens skapnad, eller Fonton Freemassons äfwentyr, till högwälborne herr grefwen **** och nu med anmärckningar till trycket befordrat af Anticthon. Förlag: Stockholm : tryckt hos Lorentz L. Grefing, 1741. Omfång: [1-3] 4-80 s. ; 4:o. Anmärkning: Nimiösivulla myös: [motto] O! Proceres, censore opus est, an haruspice nobis? Juven. Arkit: A-K4. Material: monografi. Verkets språk: swe. UDK-klassifikation: 839.7 -3 11/12. Annan författare: Grefing, Lorentz Ludvig (kirjapaino, Tukholma, 1739-1769. Samling: KANSALLISKOKOELMA (käyttö vain lukusalissa). Signum: Reenpään kok. Filosofia."

Vilket då betydde att Universitetsbiblioteket (eller Nationalbiblioteket som det officiellt heter nuförtiden) ägde ett exemplar, och helt slumpmässigt, vågar jag påstå, eftersom det handlar om en donation. Men egalt! De hade ett exemplar - ett exemplar som man fick läsa!

Så till Unionsgatans branta backe styrde jag mina steg och innan jag visste vad som hände höll jag Krooks revolutionerande opus i mina händer. Det kändes - ja - ganska magnifikt. Att läsa en svensk science fiction-bok från 1741 i originalupplaga är inte något man gör varje dag precis.

Bokens text var inte alltför lätt att förstå eftersom vårt bekanta alfabet endast användes i vissa utländska citat. För övrigt var det att tolka de olika kufiska tecknen: och dessutom tycktes versalerna inte alls ha något att göra med sina respektive gemener. Och vice versa.

Men det blev gjort. Och boken blev läst.

Själva ramberättelsen är enkel. Berättaren Fonton Freemasson vill äntligen få reda på vilken form Jorden har. "Högvälborne herr grefwen har sig wäl bekant, hvad man i denna wår tid, med icke mindre beswär än med omsorgnad, wil egentligen weta: iag menar den rätta beskaffenheten af wår Jord, hennes yttra Figur och skapnad, om hon, som man i de äldre tider godt och enfaldigen trodde, skal vara lik en pannkaka, eller som man nu i de nyare disputerar, antingen är mera lik en Citron, än såsom en Hollendsk Ost."

"Minsan det går/ei längre an/at krypa i det tysta."

Han lyckas bygga en flygande maskin eller egentligen ett "luftskiep" och sätter ut. Skeppet tar honom upp, allt högre upp genom himlarna, ut i rymden där synen av alla dansande stjärnor och majestetiskt kretsande himlakroppar helt hypnotiserar honom. "I betracktan af denna widd blef jag wäl förstörd, bestört för denna myckenheten skull, förskräckt utöwer en så widlöftig storlek, men därhos kär uti denna deras fägring, och ännu mera undrande nyfiken at se alla uti en ständig rörelse, utan att ändock röra hvarandra. Jag glömde alltså bort icke allenast mig sielf, at iag war en dödelig, utan ock min hemvist, jorden."

Världsrymden förför Fonton Freemasson till den grad att han helt glömmer bort sin ursprungliga intention. "Jag såg nu intet mindre efter, än som det, om hon är flat, fyrkantig, rund, aflång (. . .), om hon stödiar sig på stolpar, på fyra par Oxars ryg, som de i Japan mena, på fyra Elephanters, som Indianerne föregifwa, eller om hon ledig och lös swäfwar i luften: Om hon får behålla den äran de gamla henne tillagt, att var en orörlig medel=punct et centrum för hela werlden, eller ock om hon med de nyare Philosophers samtycke, måste taga sig den mödan uppå, och i följe med de andra Planeterna löpa om kring Solen."

För att inte segla alltför djupt i rymden och där hopplöst förirra sig styr Fonton Freemasson sitt luftskepp mot Månen och landar där. Han upptäcker strax att det finns liv på Månen: växter och djur - och sedan stöter han på månmänniskor. Dessa ligger på en klart högre nivå än vi nere på Jorden men trots det inser de att Fonton Fremasson inte är ett djur och accepterar honom i sitt sällskap.

En dag är månmänniskorna ute och jagar vilt och Fonton Freemasson tappar bort sig. Det är då han gör sin upptäckt. När han vandrar vilse stöter han på ett berg av glasskärvor. Berget påminner honom om en "Bruna-hög" (?) eller en "Ätte-backe". När han studerar skärvorna noggrannare märker han att bland dem finns även hela glasflaskor.

"Omsider som iag ännu vid närmar påsende förmärkte, at dessa här omtalta glas de vore teknade med Romerska sifror, och iag sålunda kände igen något som war hemma ifrå jorden, så wiste iag då intet mera hwarken hwad iag skulle säja eller tänka, här stannade hela min lilla inbillnings gåfwa, det war mig en sak som iag intet kunde begripa, ty lämnar iag det såsom et (. . .) och tänker intet vidare här uppå, utan mera huru iag, utan någon särdeles anfäktning, skulle komma ifrå detta förtrollade stället." Och: "Mån, likasom Rom fordom=dags af Albae ruin, får terricolarum interperentia, igenom the earthli folly profiterar, fastän tiden går, och sättet huru detta sker, skulle blifwa så obegripligt härefter, som okunnigt det hafwer warit alt härintils."

Det tar en stund men sedan börjar Fonton Freemasson förstå vad det handlar om, vad de kryptiska glasflaskornas hemlighet är: Månen drar till sig det mänskliga förnuftet som det drar till sig tidvattnet. Vi tappar delar av vårt förstånd, det evaporerar till Månen där det sparas i glasflaskorna.

"Sålunda så fant iag icke allenast på denna här häritida obekanta sanning, at nemligen wår Siäl, på wist sät, äfwen som wår krop och hela den öfriga jorden ständigt evaporerar, at hon ock i brist af näring och behörig skötsel, kan aldeles mista sin styrka och sit förnuft, utan ock, få i ansende sielfwa contexten, at endel af wåra Poëter samt Philosopher, icke utan orsak, ansedt wår jord för en Planet, som är öfwer alt full besatt med förnuftelöst Folk: 'Tous les hommes sont Fous & maigre tous leurs foins, Ne different entre eux, que de plus ou de moins.' Mindes vult decipi, at hela werlden sielf gierna wil wara dåraktig och på alt sät blifwa bedragen."

Fonton Freemasson känner behovet att söka fram sin egen flaska och återskapa sitt förnuft. Men vilken flaska är hans? Det kan han inte veta. Han ber månmänniskorna att få återvända hem och de ger honom tillstånd. Men det verkar inte riktigt bli av. Månmänniskorna vill gärna höra om hur allt är på jorden och Fonton Freemasson berättar hur vi har det. Månmänniskorna är enormt roade. Fonton Freemasson å sin sida vill gärna höra om hur saker och ting är på Månen och månmänniskorna berättar för honom. Fonton Freemasson är minst sagt fascinerad.

Men ändå börjar han längta hem. Det är ju nästan hans plikt att sprida sin nyfunna kunskap. "At wi Bröder i Apollo hafwa en oinskränkt påfunds makt, wi ha låf at resa til himlar, afgrunder, stiernor och nya werldar at wid hemkomsten wisa Folck sina dårskaper." Så han återvänder till jorden och sin käraste Eucharis.

Men kan han vara tillfreds med sin tidigare existens, efter allt han sett och lärt sig och upplevt? Nej, det kan han ej. "Ei gör iag på slutet så godt som wåld på mig sielf, och tager så fram mit luftskiep, ställer det uti fria luften, sätter mig däruti, och då man icke utan förundran afwaktar, hvad iag hade sinnet at företaga, så ser man mig fri ledig och lös sakta swäfwa uti ren och stilla luft, til dess iag helt ich hållen omsider så försvan utur alles theras åsyn." Ett elegiskt slut: Fonton Freemasson återvänder till Månen.

Ett klassiskt mönster, satirikerns grundredskap - helt som tex. hos Swift. Vi reser till ett främmande land eller en främmande land, skådar vår egen dårskap, och till slut äcklas av både våra medmänniskor och samhället vi lever i.

Jag vet inte egentligen om Krooks bok kan kallas prosa. I Universitetsbibliotekets samling är boken klassificerad som filosofi. Det kan handla om olika tiders olika litteraturuppfattingar. Tanckar om jordens skapnad är för våra ögon en ganska orolig melange vetenskap, filosofi, essäistik och skönlitteratur. På 1740-talet gjorde man inte sås stor skillnad - allt vad belles-lettres. Filosofi och naturvetenskap - finns det någon skillnad? Allt handlar ju om tankar.

Krook är exceptionellt beläst. I texten nämner han föregångare inom fantastiken som Cyrano de Bergerac, Dominicus Gonzales, Athanasius Kircher, Jesuiten Pater Daniel och Astolphus, samt även Ariosto och Vergelius. Dock inte tex. Swift. Av naturvetenskapare nämner han Doctor Wilkens, Hugenius, Fontenell, Gracian, Balfac, Copernicus och Galilaeus Galilaei (som han stavar dem). Det är solklart att han känner till litteraturen, både den moderna och den klassiska, att han vet vad vetenskapsmännen och filosoferna anser om de kosmiska frågorna. Det är inte problemet med boken.

Problemet är att han hela tiden verkar känna sig tungt förpliktad att påminna läsaren om sin vida kunskap och beläsenhet. Sällan lyckas Krook prestera en enda mening utan ett lärt citat. Det är helt normalt för honom att belasta en enda sida med tre eller fyra långa citat, ofta på tre eller fyra olika språk: engelska, franska, latin, forngrekiska. Huruvida citaten är relevanta är icke frågan. Det kan en som inte läser forngrekiska knappast avgöra. Men i varje fall gör citaten texten tungläst och ibland så gott som oläslig.

Läsaren är inte intresserad av vad Aischylos har att säga - läsaren vill veta vad allt underligt och fascinerande det finns på Månen. Hurdana månmänniskorna och deras samhälle är. Allt detta så gott som förtiger Krook. Han ger oss nästan inga narrativa detaljer. Han beskriver inte månsamhället. Han avslöjar inte varför månmänniskorna ligger på en högre nivå än vi. Vi får aldrig veta vad de tänker, vad de känner, hur de lever. Vi måste bara tro på Fonton Freemasson när han säger att de är bättre än vi. Ytterst frustrerande. Istället citerar Krook.

Han citerar klassiska greker och romare. Han citerar moderna fransmän. Han citerar italienare. Han citerar dramer. Han citerar dikter. Han citerar vetenskapliga texter. Han är inte intresserad av att skriva en berättelse. Han är inte ens intresserad av att formulera ett filosofiskt traktat - främst verkar han vara intresserad av att bevisa hur lärd och beläst han är. Inte någon värst lovande premiss för en science fiction-bok.

Och Krooks prosa? Om det finns ett kantigt, konstgjort, konvoluterat sätt att uttrycka en icke fullt färdigt formulerad tanke, så väljer Krook detta sätt. Och krånglar till det hela med ett par irrelevanta citat. Krooks meningar är lika långa som de är diffusa. När han kommer till paragrafens slut verkar han inte längre själv komma ihåg vad det var han skulle säga. Men ingen skada skedd - ett Vergilius-citat räddar allt.

Ändå har boken sina kvaliteter. Det här är en ganska intressant produkt av upplyssningstiden eller åtminstone upplysningsandan. Jag misstänker starkt att den skämtar rätt fritt med tidens tankegångar och karakteristiska griller: tankar vår tid så gott som helt har glömt bort. Detta gör att boken inte alls fungerar som den borde. Namnet på huvudpersonen - Fonton Freemasson - ja det måste ju vara en hänsyftning till frimurarna? Men vad betyder det? Jag har ingen aning. En annan sak som slår mig är hur okristen boken är, rent av ateistisk. Kanske det beror på att Krook är prästson. Intressant, i varje fall.

Trots allt är det inget under att Krooks bok är bortglömd. Det är ingen stor orättvisa an sich. Tanckar om jordens skapnad är en stökig bok och tungläst som bara vad: främst något för akademikern.

Men faktum kvarstår: den första svenska science fiction-boken är skriven av Johan Krook från Finland. Och riktig science fiction är det det handlar om: en helt stilren utopi och satir.

Det är något man kan vara ganska stolt över. Därför tycker jag vi kan förlåta Krook hans något klumpiga text - det är inte alltid lätt att vara först.

Post scriptum - Reichenbachin jälkeen

2010-09-25T02:49:00.008+03:00

Sherlock Holmes-tarinoita on kirjoitettu satoja. Tuhansia. Niitä on kirjoitettu aivan liikaa. Doyle itse kirjoitti niistä tasan 60 kappaletta. Loput ovat muiden käsialaa.

Suuri osa mukaelmista, kopioista, pastisseista, kunnianosoituksista, plagiaateista, törkeistä varkauksista – miten niitä tahtookaan kutsua – on yrityksiä kopioida Doylen tyyliä ja teemoja. Toinen lähestymistapa, nykyään niin yleinen, on naittaa Holmes tarinassa toisen tunnetun kirjallisen tai historiallisen hahmon kanssa. Sherlock Holmes ja Dracula. Sherlock Holmes ja Viiltäjä-Jack. Sherlock Holmes ja Tohtori Jekyll. Sherlock Holmes ja Buffalo-Bill. Sherlock Holmes ja Freud. Sherlock Holmes ja Ctulhu. Sherlock Holmes ja Teddy Roosevelt. Sherlock Holmes ja Dracula. Taas.

Idea heittää Holmes toisten kirjallisten hahmojen kanssa samaan soppaan oli varmastikin aluksi ihan raikas ja virkistävä, ja voi olla ihan hauska vieläkin, mutta toisto tappaa. Kuinka monta Sherlock Holmes ja NN-tarinaa suurinkaan Sherlock Holmesin ystävä lopulta jaksaa lukea?

Yksi seikka tuntuu yhdistävän melkein kaikkia myöhempiä Holmesista kirjoittavia: he eivät koskaan ole täysin ymmärtäneet Holmesin hahmoa eivätkä siten tarinoiden ydintä. Yksi Holmes-tarinoiden vastine löytyy keskiajan ritarirunoudesta. Holmes on ritari ja Watson hänen aseenkantajansa ja trubaduurinsa. Ritaritarinoissa pelastetaan pulassa olevia neitoja ja kukistetaan lohikäärmeitä – samaa tekee Holmes. Mutta. Ritaritarinoissa rakkaus on pääosassa. Holmes-tarinoissa harvemmin. Vai miten sen asian kanssa oikein onkaan?

Ehkä meidän pitäisi ymmärtää Holmes-tarinat eräänlaisina käänteisinä ritaritarinoina joissa sankari ei saakaan pelastamaansa neitoa vaikka kukistaakin lohikäärmeen? Rakkaudettomia tarinat eivät silti ole. Muotoilen asian toisin: rakkaus on kaikissa Holmes-tarinoissa pääosassa mutta käänteisesti – rakkauden puutteen muodossa. Rikokset tapahtuvat rakkauden puutteesta. Rakkaus pitää perheet koossa. Sen puute hajottaa ne ja tappaa perheenjäsenet. Henkisesti tai fyysisesti. Tai ehkä henkisesti ja fyysisesti.

Tarkkaan Holmesinsa lukenut on huomannut että melkein jokainen rikos kaanonissa on rikos perhettä vastaan. Rikos voi aluksi näyttää muulta mutta lähempi tarkastelu osoittaa teesini oikeaksi. Mistä The Hound of the Baskervillessä on pohjimmiltaan kyse? Isosta verenhimoisesta kummituskoirasta? Ei. Koira on rekvisiittaa. Kyse on perheenjäsenestä joka kokee itsensä syrjäytetyksi ja yrittää tappaa kaikki jotka seisovat hänen ja suuren perinnön välissä. Mistä The Sign of Fourissa on oikeasti kyse? Ei suinkaan aarteesta vaan siitä että majuri Sholto on tehnyt suurta vääryyttä kuolleen rikostoverinsa perheelle: nuorelta naiselta on varastettu hänen perintöosuutensa ja siten tulevaisuutensa (tosin myös Jonathan Smallin rikostoverit, Tonga varsinkin, on pakko nähdä Smallin surrogaattiperheenä – joten ehkä toinen kirjan alkuperäisistä ja tärkeistä rikoksista on brittiupseerien rikos Smallin ”perhettä” vastan). Charles Augustus Milvertonissa nimihenkilö kiristää uhrejaan intiimeillä ja ajattelemattomilla kirjeillä. Se ei ole hänen oikea rikoksensa. Yksi uhreista murhaa Milvertonin. Sekään ei ole tarinan varsinainen päärikos. Oikea päärikos on se että Milverton rikkoo perheitä. Holmes ja Watson eivät ilmianna lain omiin käsiinsä ottanutta murhaajaa poliisille.

The Solitary Cyclist on varsinainen tyyppiesimerkki Doylen Holmes-tarinasta. Päähenkilöä, sihteeri Violet Smithsonia, seurataan. Perheetön Violet pelkää turvallisuutensa puolesta. Tarina huipentuu siihen että yksi Violetia vainoavista rikollisista yrittää mennä väkisin hänen kanssaan naimisiin jotta pääsisi käsiksi Violetin perintöön. Violet ei edes ole tietoinen sukulaiselta tulevasta perinnöstään. Tarinassa konkretisoituvat Doylen tärkeimmät teemat: perhe, raha ja turvaton ja yksinäinen nainen eli a damsel in distress. Rikollinen yrittää käyttää avioliittoa rikoksentekovälineenä. Avioliitto soisi hänelle takaoven Violetin omaisuuteen. Avioliitto ja perhe ovat taloudellisesti itselliselle naiselle turva ja suoja mutta myös mahdollinen ansa ja äärimmäinen cul-de-sac. Vaimo on aina aviomiehensä armoilla kuten tytär on aina isänsä armoilla.

Perhe on Doylelle pyhä. Mikään rikos ei hänen mielestään ole niin vakava ja vastenmielinen kuin rikos perhettä vastaan.

Jos valtionsalaisuus varastetaan niin tarinan oikea rikos ei löydy varkaudesta. Naval Treatyssä Watsonin ystävältä varastetaan tärkeä dokumentti jonka joutuminen vääriin käsiin vaarantaa kansakunnan turvallisuuden. Varas paljastuu miehen langoksi. Mutta mikä on hänen varsinainen rikoksensa? Tietenkin se että hän petti perheensä. The Second Stainissa vakooja murhataan. Tärkeitä papereita on jälleen kadonnut ja valtion turvallisuus jälleen vaarassa. Vakoojan murhaajaksi paljastuu hänen mustasukkaisuudesta seonnut vaimonsa ja motiiviksi miehen uskottomuus. Tarinan ytimestä löytyy siis jälleen toinen rikos, suurempi rikos, rikos perhettä vastaan. Salaiset asiakirjat ovat pelkkää rekvisiittaa – puhdas hitchcockilainen mcguffin.

Valtio on abstraktio. Yhteiskunta on liian suuri sana jotta se merkitsisi mitään. Perhe sitä vastoin on aina läsnä. Perhe on konkreettinen. Perhe on lihaa ja verta.

Holmesin hahmo kuvastaa perheen tärkeyttä kaanonissa. Holmes on yksinäinen susi, tunnekylmä, vailla siteitä, vailla perhettä. Suhde veljeen on etäinen. Muita sukulaisuussuhteita ei juuri olekaan. Hänen perhetaustassaan on ilmiselvästi jotakin hämärää. Luultavasti, kuten niin monet Holmes-tuntijat arvelevat, hänen lapsuudessaan on tapahtunut jotakin todella pahaa – ja selvästikin ydinperheen piirissä. Muuten se ei olisi koskettanut Holmesia niin syvältä, niin tuhoisin seurauksin. Mutta juuri sen takia Holmes osaakin ammattinsa niin hyvin. Hän tietää mitkä vaarat ydinperhettä uhkaavat. Ja mitä niistä voi seurata. Hän on yliherkistynyt perheen sisäisille rikoksille.

Watson on monella tapaa Holmesin vastakohta. Heitä tuntuisi kuitenkin yhdistävän se että kummallakaan ei ole pahemmin perhesiteitä. Siksi kai he ajautuvatkin yhteen ja ystäviksi. Watsonilta mainitaan kaanonissa ainoastaan veli. Veli on ollut alkoholisti ja sittemmin kuollut. Ehkä Watsonkin tulee rikkinäisestä perheestä? Tätä Doyle ei paljasta mutta viitteet vaikuttavat selviltä. Watsonin selviytymisstrategia on kuitenkin päinvastainen kuin Holmesilla. Watson yrittää paikata tilannetta menemällä naimisiin ja perustamalla oman perheen. Holmes ei kykene edes siihen.

Watsonin veljen alkoholismia vain sivutaan. Alkoholismi oli arka paikka Doylelle. Hänen isänsä oli alkoholisti ja se rikkoi hänen oman lapsuusperheensä. Alkoholismi oli hänen isänsä rikos, rikos perhettä vastaan. Hänen äitinsä rikos oli melkein yhtä paha. Äiti suljetutti isän pakkolaitokseen. Äiti myös aloitti suhteen toiseen mieheen, perheen kotona asuvaan vuokralaiseen, isän vielä asuessa kotona. Tämä rikkoi perheen rippeetkin. Äidin ja vuokralaisen suhde jatkui koko äidin loppuiän, vielä tämän mentyä naimisiinkin. Vuokralainen oli ammatiltaan lääkäri ja avainasemassa kun Doylen isä suljettiin hullujenhuoneeseen raivotautisena alkoholistina. Doyle ei koskaan antanut kummallekaan anteeksi tätä. Eikä isällekään jonka alkuperäinen rikos oli aiheuttanut koko katastrofin ja kaatanut korttitalon viimeistä korttia myöten.

Holmes-tarinoiden rikokset ovat hämmästyttävän usein juuri perheiden sisäisiä. Ne juuri ovat kaikkein pahimpia. The Copper Beechesissä isä ja isän uusi vaimo ovat vanginneet edellisestä avioliitosta syntyneen tyttären jottei tämä voisi mennä naimisiin rakastettunsa kanssa – ja viedä mukanaan perintöosuuttaan. A Case of Identityssä kuvio on melkein sama: äiti ja äidin uusi mies juonivat tytärtä vastaan jotta tytär ei menisi naimisiin ja veisi talosta omaa perintöosuuttaan. The Speckled Bandissä isäpuoli tappaa tytärpuolistaan yhden ja yrittää tappaa toisenkin. Motiivi on jälleen sama: tyttöjen perintöosuus.

Doyle selvästi kammoaa uusperheitä. Isät tahtovat päästä eroon edellisen liiton tyttäristään, äitipuolet vainoavat lapsipuoliaan, velipuolet kiduttavat ja yrittävät tappaa uudesta liitosta syntyviä lapsia. Taustalla on pakko olla Doylen oma henkilökohtainen trauma ja ydinperheen hajoaminen. Paradise lost. Vanhempien itsekkyys ja heikkous tuhoaa koko perheen.

The Cardboard Boxissa mies tappaa vaimonsa ja tämän rakastajan ja lähettää heiltä leikkaamansa korvat vaimon sisarelle. Vaimon sisar on tarinan alkuperäinen konna, hän alun perin saattoi petolliset rakastavaiset yhteen. Tässä tarinassa lienee totta enemmän kuin siteeksi, tuumaavat Holmes-oppineet, ja jollakin tasolla kuvio heijastaa Holmesin vanhempien ja vuokralaisen traagista triangelidraamaa.

The Priory Schoolissa herttuan avioton poika kidnappaa avioliitossa syntyneen pojan ja yrittää tappaa tämän koska tuntee tuleensa väärin kohdelluksi. The Golden Pince-nezissä Holmes selvittää professorin murhatun sihteerin tapausta. Tapaus osoittautuu murhan sijasta vahingoksi. Tekijä on professorin vaimo – jonka professori Venäjällä petti ja joka petoksen takia joutui vuosikymmeniksi vankilaan, syyttömänä. Tarinan todellinen konna ei siis olekaan tappaja, vaimo, vaan professori.

Tällaiset arkiset, todet ja syvältä kouraisevat kuviot eivät pastissimaakareita kiinnosta. Ei. Heille pitää olla jotain raflaavampaa, jotain isompaa. Pastisseissa ja mukaelmissa supersankarin viittaan puettu Holmes laitetaan lähes aina pelastamaan kruununjalokivet ja taltuttamaan superrikolliset. Mikään ei voisi olla Holmes-tarinoiden perusluonteelle vieraampaa. Jos Doylen tarinassa varastetaankin jalokiviä niin syy on aina intiimimpi ja motiivi löytyy perhepiiristä. Jalokivet eivät ole Doylesta kiinnostavia. Perhe on.

Holmesin supersankariviitta on silti ainakin osittain Doylen omaa syytä.

Päättäessään enemmän tai vähemmän ex tempore tappaa Holmesin pois hänen oli pakko keksiä Holmesille tämän arvoinen vihollinen. Joku joka realistisesti ajatellen olisi Holmesille tiukka vastus. Joku joka todella voisi saattaa Holmesin päiviltä. Joku joka oli – melkein superkonna. Holmes päihitti superkonnan. Se taas teki hänestä melkein – supersankarin.

Vielä mielenkiintoisempaa on Holmesin kuolema Reichenbachin putouksilla. Holmes kuolee mutta ei kuole. Mytologiaan suuntautunut voisi muotoilla asian näinkin: Holmes palaa kuolleista.

Tämä tekee Holmesista vähintäänkin mytologisen heeroksen. Harvassa ovat ne sankarit jotka ovat käyneet Manalassa ja palanneet takaisin maan pinnalle. Orfeus. Gilgamesh. Jeesus. Puolijumalia ovat he, aivan eri kastia kuin tavalliset sankarit. Ei löydy heidän uroteoilleen mittaa, ei määrää.

Holmes palasi kuolleista ja siten kaanonia on lupa lukea mytologisten lasien läpi. Jos olisin uskonnollisuuteen taipuvainen sanoisin: uskonnollisten lasien läpi. Kuolleista palaaminen tekee Holmesista täysin ainutlaatuisen yksityisetsivien parissa. Kuolleista palaaminen tekee Holmesin työstä melkeinpä pyhää.

Näin nähtynä Holmesin voi melkein kokea supersankarina.

Ehkä puolijumalana.

Kiehtova mysteeri on myös se missä Holmes kolme kuollutta vuottaan vietti. Niistä vuosista – hiatuksesta – tiedämme yleisesti ottaen hyvin vähän. Watsonille Holmes kertoi käyneensä Tiibetissä, mikä tuntuu loogiselta jos ajattelemme hiatusta hengellis-mystillisenä jaksona Holmesin elämässä. Mitä hän siellä teki? Mitä hän siellä näki? Mitä hän siellä oppi? Emme tiedä. Voimme vain arvailla ja spekuloida.

Myös sen tiedämme että jonkin aikaa Holmes kiersi maailmaa norjalaisena. Silloin hän käytti nimeä Sigerson. Muuten vuodet ovat meille tabula rasa. Mutta pastissien tekijälle se vasta herkkua onkin.

Emme tiedä mitä Holmes kuolleena ollessaan teki. Yhdestä voimme silti olla varmoja: se oli jotakin merkittävää.

Reichenbachin osuutta ei siis ole mitään syytä vähätellä. Juuri paluu Reichenbachista tekee Holmesista erityisen kiehtovan hahmon, suorastaan vastustamattoman. The Final Casen ja The Empty Housen mytologis-uskonnolliset vinkit ja implikaatiot ovat ilmiselviä sille joka viitsii ne nähdä.

Reichenbachin jälkeen mikään ei enää ollut entisellään.

Holmesin mytologisia ulottuvuuksia on mukaelmissa käsitelty luvattoman vähän. Minua juuri ne kiinnostavat. Miksi yrittää kopioida Doylen tekstejä? Siinä jää auttamattomasti kakkoseksi ja erittäin nololla tavalla. Doylea ei päihitä kukaan, eikä varsinkaan hänen kotikentällään. Ja miksi pistää Holmes mekaanisella tavalla ottamaan mittaa tunnetuista henkilöistä? Se on temppu joka vanhenee hyvin nopeasti.

Huomattavasti mielenkiintoisempaa on lähestyä Holmesia viistosti, melkein takakautta, yrittää jollain tapaa käsitellä Holmesin myyttiä ja myytin merkitystä. Etsiä siihen uusia näkökulmia, jopa uudistaa sitä. Tai ehkä peräti dekonstruoida sitä. Juuri näin toimivat Holmes-pastissien kiinnostavimmat tekijät kuten esimerkiksi Nicholas Meyer ja Michael Dibdin. Lukijan on vaikea enää kokea Holmes samalla tavalla kun on kerran lukenut heidän kirjansa (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution ja The Last Sherlock Holmes Story). Kokemus on puhdistava, suorastaan katharttinen.

Minusta mielenkiintoista pastississa ei ole se kuinka ovelan superkonnan Holmes saa kiinni. Holmes ei ole James Bond eikä hänen tarvitse ollakaan. Eikä se erityisen mielenkiintoista ole sekään miten nerokkaasti Holmes dedusoi – mikä onkaan rasittavampaa kuin että Holmes-parka joutuu pastississa pastissin perään kertomaan asiakkaalleen, kenkien ja housunlahkeiden kunnon perusteella, missä tämä on juuri ollut ja mitä tehnyt. Mielenkiintoista on se että nähdään Holmes uudella tavalla, että valotetaan ja nostetaan esille uusia puolia hänestä. Että puretaan hänen myyttiään ja kootaan palaset hieman uudella tavalla. Että inhimillistetään Holmes.

Holmes ei ole pahvikuva. Holmes ei ole marionetti. Holmes ei ole klisee. Tai ainakaan hänen ei tarvitse olla.

Itse en ole lähtenyt kopioimaan Doylen alkuperäisiä tarinoita. Osin siksi etten osaa, osin siksi etten uskalla. Doyle teki sen jo. Ja teki sen paremmin: siis keksi konseptin ja vielä loppuvaiheessa plagioikin itseään – usein erittäinkin pätevästi.

Kuten leikkisästi tavataan sanoa: Holmes selvisi hengissä Reichenbachista mutta ei se enää entisensä ollut. Aika hyvä silti.

Joten olen lähestynyt Holmesia myytin tai myyttien kautta ja pyrkinyt avaamaan niitä parhaani mukaan tai kuten on tuntunut tarpeelliselta. Ehkä olen vähän hämärtänytkin niitä, jos se on tuntunut tarpeelliselta. Holmes-mytologiaa ei ihan hetkessä tyhjennetäkään.

Mitään yhtenäistä mytologiaa tarinani eivät muodosta. Päinvastoin. Jokainen tarina lähestyy Holmesia ja Reichenbachia aivan omasta näkökulmastaan ja valottaa tapahtumaa (ja Holmesia) täysin itsenäisesti. Toisiaan näkökulmat, ideat, ratkaisut ja oivallukset lyövät iloisesti korville. Jokaista tarinaa voisi pitää yhtenä näkemyksenä asiaan.

Ylösnousemus ja kuolema on novelleista perinteisin ja mutkattomin, Suuri kirjasto kokeellisin. Liebestodissa Holmes saa maistaa Tristanin roolia. Vai onko hän sittenkin Marke? Tai kenties Melot? Wagneriaani ymmärtää, muille novelli on hepreaa. (Kuunnelkoot Tristan und Isoldea niin ymmärtävät.) The Fallissa Holmes saa tuta Borgesin kaksoisolentotematiikkaa. Sankari on aina enemmän sidoksissa konnaan kuin haluttaisiin tunnustaa. Jin ja jang. Doktor Steinerin talossa on enemmän kuin ripaus Shelleyn Frankensteinia. (Novelli huipentuu Suomessa siksi että kirjoitin sen Suomeen sijoittuvien Holmes-tarinoiden kokoelmaa ajatellen – mutta kokoelmaan saatiinkin tarpeeksi tarinoita joten annoin novellini muualle julkaistavaksi.) What the Thunder Said on Reichenbach katsottuna T.S. Eliotin ja James Frazerin tekstien kautta: The Waste Land kohtaa The Golden Boughn. Syystä tai toisesta yhdistän aina Reichenbachin kärsimysnäytelmän pääsiäiseen.

Ymmärrän hyvin ettei maailma tarvitse minun Holmes-tarinoitani. Mutta minulle oli kuitenkin tarpeellista kirjoittaa ne: minä tarvitsin niitä enemmän kuin maailma. Maailma antanee syntini anteeksi. Jos ne jotakuta toista huvittavat niin hyvä niin. Mutta onneksi Holmes on niin jykevä hahmo ettei kaadu, ei edes horjahda, vaikka kuka mitä siitä kirjoittaisi. Se omalla tavallaan antaa luvan vaikka mihin.

Ja onhan plagiaattimaakarilla jo Doylen oma lupa väärinkäyttää Holmesia, lupa jonka Doyle 1890-luvulla antoi William Gillettelle tämän Holmes-näytelmää varten: ”You may marry, murder or do what you want with him.”

Tämähän jo melkein velvoittaa ottamaan vapauksia Sherlockin kanssa. Rajana on vain mielikuvitus.

Petri Salin, Helsingissä 17.09 2010

Tarinat ovat alun perin ilmestyneet seuraavasti:

1) Ylösnousemus ja kuolema - Juri Nummelin (toim.): Sherlock Holmes Suomessa (turbator, 2010)
2) The Fall - www.tricrepicephalus.blogspot.com
3) Suuri kirjasto - Usvazine 1/05 ja Jäätynyt Kokytos (turbator, 2009)
4) Doktor Steinerin talossa - Portti 2/10

Liebestod ja What the Thunder Said saavat tässä ensijulkaisunsa.

The Fall

2010-09-07T21:12:00.005+03:00

The Fall
by Petri Salin

Body bruised, mind shattered, he drifted along the shooting waters of death. All was silent: he'd gone deaf. The sharp rocks had cut him badly and shredded his flesh like they had torn the clothes off his back. Stone had met bone; stone had crushed bone. The rocks had taken no notice of him, to the water he was merely a fleeting inconvenience soon to sink out of sight and disappear forever. Dismembered, disjointed, but not disquieted he floated on. His ribs had caved in, punctured a lung and other hidden organs, made breathing both impossible and unnecessary. The angry blows to his head ensured that he felt not a thing, or didn't care if he did. The water wasn't cold like the slow blood in his veins, not cold at all but just right for him to close his eyes and slip into sweet sweet oblivion. He could feel the spirit leave his mauled carcass and reach up, up to that distant point where the waters began and beyond. The water cradled him softly, tenderly washed his cuts, wrapped him in its invisible funereal shroud, ready to be delivered. Then everything was black: the water, the sky, the bottom of the river. The blackness glowed, beckoned to him. It was a soft, comforting blackness and he wanted to become part of it.

The farmers found him unconscious far downstream among the sundry debris from the Falls and fished him out. At first they believed him quite dead. He looked hardly human any more, just a sack of loose skin and bone fragments unlikely held together by the merest chance; a fit meal for the fish. By any rights he ought to have been dead. They already dug a hole in the ground for him and sent for the priest from the village. Only then did someone discover, by accident, that there was still life in that sorry corpse of his. The priest gave him last rites anyway, just in case. It seemed the prudent thing to do. Everybody knew he never would survive. They tended to his wounds as best they could and set his broken bones and tried to feed him. He had no face any more, just grimly ravaged tissue, blotched and bloated, and tiny lifeless eyes staring out from deep narrow slits. His hair had gone all white. They bandaged him and prayed. No one thought to send for a doctor. Waste of money. He was as good as dead and they all knew it. He especially.

Somehow he didn't die. That confused them, frightened them even. They were simple peasants and superstitious, so they decided to call it a miracle and accepted it on faith. He didn't know how long he'd been in their attic. Time lost its meaning, day and night became one. Recovery came in painful fits. But it came. Each night he was back at the Falls, once again fighting his enemy to the death. Some nights he defeated the enemy, other nights his enemy defeated him. It was all the same, somehow. It took him the longest time to learn to speak anew. His jaw never seemed to heal properly. He didn't mind, there was very little to say. One day he got on his feet and took his first shaky steps. The season had changed, it was sombre autumn now and nature was preparing for its long sleep just as he was waking up from his own one.

When he was strong enough he started helping out on the farm. What else was there for him to do? Where could he go? Home? Did he have one? If so, where was it? He didn't know. The life was simple, rigorous and regular. That pleased him for some reason. It didn't matter who he was, what he was, it only mattered what he did on the land. The land was everything, the people working it nothing. The land gave life. To him. Water killed him, land rebirthed him.

The dreams kept haunting him. It was the same dream all the time, over and over again, every night, but it kept getting more vivid and detailed with the passing of time. Finally he could see the faces of the men in the struggle. His own. His enemy's. The faces frightened him and he kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming. One night he didn't go back to sleep. He couldn't. He dressed, took his few belongings and the odd coins the farmer had given him in pay and left, never to return. It was time. First he returned to the Falls, to that ominous place where it all had happened. To the point of origin. He stood there a good long while, staring down into the abyss that had swallowed him and chewed him up but refused to digest him. The fight. He saw every blow exchanged, he saw it all as if it were happening again right in front of his eyes: the savage fight between him and his enemy, the fight primaeval and eternal. The fight final.

He traced his steps back to the gasthof and saw the owner who did not recognise him. The owner took him for a tramp and ordered him off. He started walking. When it was dark he slept in a barn or any abandoned shed, or outdoors if he found nothing. When it was light he walked. Slowly he made my way to France, drifted from village to village, town to town, worked for his living doing whatever odd jobs he could find. To his surprise he found that his French was excellent, often too good for the menial positions he had. So he roughened it and played his humble part to a perfection. He saved money and in Calais he had plenty for a ferry. He'd also gotten some decent clothes and shaved off his beard. He looked like a gentleman, and behaved like one as well. He could have fooled anyone.

The nocturnal London with its ghosts greeted him in total silence, its sharp silhouette piercing the sky as ominously as ever. He made his way through the preternaturally swelling fog to Baker Street. The street slept, dreamed, waited – for what? The front door was locked, naturally. He picked the lock without quite knowing how. Inside everything seemed unfamiliar, he saw everything as if through a glass, darkly. He picked up objects in the conscientiously dusted study and held them in his hand, desperately seeking a connection; he found none. The study seemed never to have been abandoned at all, only temporarily vacated and its owner lurking about somewhere in the deep shadows just around the corner. Next morning he saw the Doctor. He didn't go to him, something stopped him. He spied on the Doctor for a week before making himself known to him.

He chose his moment carefully. The Doctor was alone, his practise done for the day, all the patients gone. The Doctor was washing up and preparing to go home when he entered. Surgery hours are over, come back tomorrow, the Doctor said without properly looking at him, or is it something quite urgent? It is urgent, he said, in a way. Well, let's have a look at it then, the Doctor said. Don't you know me? he said. The Doctor stopped drying his hands and looked at him. Don't you know who I am? he said, his tone even, almost flat. The Doctor's face betrayed puzzlement, then alarm, finally fear. It cannot be! the Doctor cried out. It is, he said. But you are dead, the Doctor stammered, you died at the Falls. Clearly I did not, he said, then he embraced the Doctor. Let me have a proper look at you, the Doctor said with tears in his eyes, come over to the light. He did so. You've changed, the Doctor said after a good long while, you're different, I almost didn't recognise you. Maybe I did die a little, he said, but now I'm back. The Doctor accompanied him back to Baker Street where they dined and spent the evening, chatting away long into the night. He didn't tell the Doctor the truth about his time away, of course he didn't, but instead made up a fantastic yarn about the Far East and hinted strongly that there were things he never could go into, never could reveal, not even to a close friend like the Doctor.

In the coming months he picked up the old life, saw clients, solved problems; just like before the Falls. His memory started coming back to him in fits and starts. Yet every night the dream still haunted him, every night he was back at the Falls grappling with his enemy. He had thought that his return would dispel the dreaming. He had been wrong. He went on with his life; yet every morning whilst shaving, whilst looking in the mirror, the same question haunted him: which of them was he? Was he Holmes or Moriarty?

That was the one thing he could not remember.

God is in the Details

2010-08-31T18:15:00.010+03:00

"If you would like to see a case of coal-gas poisoning come here at once." This little note was received by Doctor Littlejohn in January 1877 in Edinburgh. It was sent by another doctor, an acquaintance of Littlejohn's, who was attending a woman called Elizabeth Chantrelle. As it happened Doctor Littlejohn did want to see a coal-gas poisoning, so he went. With him he took a friend of his, a certain Doctor Joseph Bell.

It was the unfortunate woman's husband, a French teacher of languages, Eugene Chantrell, who'd come up with the idea of gas poisoning. The police were convinced that this indeed is what had happened. To them it was an open and shut case, just an unfortunate accident due to bad plumbing. Not so to Dr. Bell. Several things, tiny details, attracted his attention. The victim's breath didn't smell of gas. It ought to have done. She had vomited and then fallen into a coma. That too was wrong and inconsistent.

The woman was taken to hospital where soon she gave up the breath.

Dr. Bell started to suspect poisoning. He at once discarded most poisons. The symptoms were perfect for one poison, however: opium. No opium could be found in the victim's blood. But there was opium in the sheets where she'd vomited.

Other facts unfavourable for Chantrelle, a former student of medicine, began to emerge. Recently he'd purchased a large amount of opium, the rest of which was discovered in his house. Six months prior to his wife's demise he'd taken out a remarkably large life insurance policy on her, with himself as the sole beneficiary. The sum Mr. Chantrelle was to receive if Mrs. Chantrelle were to die was either £500 or £1000 (I've seen both figures mentioned), either way an enormous amount of money. It never was a happy marriage. Mrs. Chantrelle had been one of Mr. Chantrelle's pupils and he had gotten her with child at the age of fifteen. The marriage was a forced one. He'd regularly beaten her and threatened to kill her. So off it was to the dock with Chantrelle and it didn't take long for the jury to find him guilty.

Bell didn't appear at the trial in any capacity. His role in the investigation was kept strictly out of the records. It was Littlejohn who presented the evidence. But Chantrelle knew. His last words were addressed to Bell. Bell didn't attend the execution, Littlejohn did. This is how Chantrelle's hanging is described in Peter Costello's The Real World of Sherlock Holmes: "On the gallows Chantrelle is said to have taken one last puff of his cigar. 'Bye-bye Littlejohn. Don't forget to give my compliments to Joe Bell. You both did a good job of bringing me to the scaffold.' Though apocryphal, his remark soon became part of Edinburgh medical folklore."

Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student at the time. He was Bell's pupil. He was in fact the one pupil picked out by Bell as his dresser or assistant. So, one wonders, how much did Doyle know of the case? Was he perhaps involved in some small capacity? He never writes about it anywhere. Which, according to certain theorists, is enough to implicate him. David Pirie, for one, is convinced that Doyle played Watson to Bell's Holmes in the Chantrelle case. (This premise is in fact what Pirie based his novels on, even if the Chantrelle case never gets mentioned.)

Soon Bell's name was known in police circles all over Britain and his services were very much in demand. Small wonder then that he was contacted in 1888 when the horrid Whitechapel murders began. Bell reviewed the wealth of material the Metropolitan Police had amassed and reached a conclusion as to the identity of the murderer. He wrote a name on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope and sent it to the Metropolitan Police. His friend Littlejohn, who also had reviewed the evidence, did the same thing. They found that they had named the same man as Jack the Ripper.

Whom? That isn't known. Bell's conclusions have disappeared from the case files of the Metropolitan Police. Which, of course, seems a bit rummy.

Bell's methods were exteme and often deemed unorthodox. He had to get the details right. And so to do he had to experiment and recreate. He beat corpses with heavy sticks so as to find out if bruising could be induced after death. He fired shotguns on pig skulls so as to establish what kind of marks were left in the bone when shotgun was fired on skull from different distances and angles. Many thought him quite demented. But he was one of the first to lay the ground rules to what today is known as forensic science during a dark age of criminology when even fingerprints weren't admissible as evidence.

Bell never was fond of the fact that Doyle named him as the real Sherlock Holmes. Being in the limelight wasn't his style at all. His work was about science, not showmanship. The results were the only thing that mattered, not who got them. He also resented the deplorable fact that people really believed that he too was a cold and heartless calculating or ratiocinating machine, just like he or Holmes was described in the stories. Or, perhaps, viewed by the reading public.

There is an amusing anecdote about Bell. Bell was very insistent that his students must see, and observe, matters accurately. Everything must be noticed. Nothing may be assumed or taken for granted. Or believed just because somebody says so. So during a lecture he would produce a beaker filled with horse urine. "This is horse piss," he would say to the class, "but as scientists we may not take anything for granted. So we must establish the fact for ourselves." He would proced to dip his finger in the urine and then stick his finger in his mouth, thereby to test wether or not it in fact is horse urine. After which he would let the beaker go round the class and he would tell his students to do exactly as he did. They did. They tasted the foul and rank urine. It wasn't pleasant. When he got the beaker back he would inform the students that paying attention to the minutest details was not only crucial, it was everything. Without tiny details there could be no big picture. Paying attention, noticing the tiniest things, saved lives. Only those students who paid attention to everything, every single seemingly irrelevant detail, would flourish and become successful in their profession. Like those today who had noticed that while he dipped his forefinger in the urine, it was in fact the middle finger he stuck in his mouth.

Post scriptum: caveat lector!

2010-08-26T12:41:00.018+03:00

(Tämän kirjoituksen alkuperäisen version piti tulla Shakespeare-novellien kokoelmani Kolmannenkymmenennen kolmannen simpanssin jälkisanoiksi. Minulle tuntemattomista syistä se jäi pois. Joten pistän sen nyt sitten päivitetyssä muodossaan tänne.)

Ystävällinen varoituksen sana lukijalle. Jos ostat, lainaat tai luet tämän kirjan, ryhdyt varastettuun tavaraan. Kolmannenkymmenennen kolmannen simpanssin kaikki novellit ovat rikoksen hedelmää, aivan joka ikinen niistä; jos eivät aina suoraan juoneltaan niin ainakin henkilöiltään. Tai vähintäänkin aiheiltaan ja perusasetelmiltaan.

Rikokseni on harkittu ja jatkettu. En pyydä anteeksi enkä selittele. Olen varastanut Shakespearelta ja tehnyt niin muuallakin kuin tämän kirjan kansien välissä. Eipä tässä selittelyt auttaisikaan. Näkeehän sen jokainen itse.

En tiedä voiko tätä pitää lieventävänä asianhaarana mutta kuitenkin: oppini olen saanut Shakespearelta itseltään. Häntä jos ketään voidaan pitää kirjallisten varkaiden kuninkaana ellei peräti suojeluspyhimyksenä (“neither a borrower nor a lender be”?). Se mies ei keksinyt aiheistaan ainuttakaan itse vaan varasti aivan kaiken. Kunhan totean. En syytä.

Kokoelman novellit on alunperin julkaistu scifilehdissä: Finnzinessä ja Portissa. Ennen julkaisemattomia tarinoita on kaksi: Yorick parka ja niminovelli Kolmaskymmeneskolmas simpanssi (kyllä, niminovellin nimi on eri muodossa kuin kirjan nimi; älkää kysykö miksi - en tiedä: novellin nimesin minä, kirjan nimesi kustantaja). Yorick paran kirjoitin alunperin ruotsiksi ja se menestyi ruotsalaisessa novellikilpailussa vuonna 2004, mutta jäi julkaisematta. Novellissa tulevaisuuden tiedemiehet löytävät hovinarri Yorickin kallon ja saavat mahdollisesti uuden ja yllättävän näkökulman tragedian tapahtumiin. Miten sille näytelmässä pelkkänä pääkallona vilahtavalle Yorickille kävikään? Niminovelli syntyi varta vasten tähän kirjaan, ihan vain omaksi huvikseni ja osaltaan myös saadakseni kokoelmaan jotain aivan uutta. Jutussa simpanssit yrittävät kirjoittaa erästä tunnettua näytelmää - ja toteuttaa tilastotieteen tunnettua ajatusleikkiä nimeltä "äärettömän apinajoukon lause", englanniksi "infinite monkey theorem".

Molemmissa tarinoissa sivutaan Shakespearen ehkä suurinta teosta Hamletia, kuten myös aivan ensimmäisessä Shakespeare-novellissani Kallis prinssi, joka syntyi suorana reaktiona Anthony Burgessin Shakespeare-novelleihin, joista muuten varhaisimman, Burgessin Enderby/Shakespeare-teemaa käsittelevästä Enderby's Dark Lady-romaanistakin löytyvän The Musen (vuodelta 1968) suomensin aikoinani Porttiin nimellä Muusa - peräti vuonna 1992, jos netin bibliografioihin yhtään voi luottaa. Kallis prinssi julkaistiin Finnzinessä niinkin aikaisin kuin 1997 (Fz 1/97) ja kirjoitettiin kai pari vuotta aikaisemmin, muistaakseni Portin novellikilpailuun. Jossa se ei menestynyt. Aivan aiheesta. Lukiessani sitä joulukuussa 2009 hämästyin siitä, kuinka lohduttoman huono se oli. Kirjoitin sen uudestaan ja muokkasin raskaalla raskaalla kädellä, ja toivon mukaan novelli toimii hieman paremmin tässä muodossa. Novellissa aikamatkaillaan (suora varkaus The Musesta!) ja paljastetaan kuka se oikein murhasikaan Hamletin isän, vanhan kuningas Hamletin. Ja miksi.

Yön kynttilät (Fz 1/99) on suoraa jatkoa Romeolle ja Julialle (onko kuollut sittenkin mahdollista herättää henkiin?), Kuninkaan kootut hulluudet (Fz 1/04; käännetty myös eestiksi kokoelmassa Soome ulme, Skarabeus 2008) siirtää hulluksi tulleen kuningas Learin ja hänen juonittelevan narrinsa tarkasti määrittelemättömään scifiympäristöön, Elegiassa Janukselle (Fz 1/01) Othellon pääkonna Jago saa rangaistuksensa. Ja vielä uudestaan. Talviyön unessa (Fz 2/05) Kesäyön unen räyhähenki Puck on joutunut pakenemaan herransa Oberonin vihaa syvälle ulkoavaruuteen ja siellä hän törmää avaruusaluksen outoon lastiin. Valtiossa (Fz 4/02) Myrskyn Caliban saa saarensa takaisin Prosperon seurueineen palattua kotiin, mutta saa huomata ettei hallitsijana oleminen aina niin helppoa ole. Binäärimyrskyssä (Fz 1/00, alunperin nimellä Binäärisonetti) Myrskyn tematiikka jatkuu huolestuttavissa borgesmaisissa merkeissä: onko Shakespearen teksteillä salattuja metafyysisiä ulottuvuuksia?

Jälkeen Rubiconissa (Fz 4/04) Julius Caesarin salamurha on siirretty Eduskuntatalon rappusille nykypäivän Helsinkiin, jossa kansalaissodan haamut yhä kummittelevat (luin novellin heinäkuussa Usvan kesäleirillä ja leiriltä tehty useiden kirjoittajien luettuja novelleja sisältävä CD ilmestynee syksymmällä osana ESC:n julkaisusarjaa); Auguureissa (Fz 4/07) Antoniuksen ja Kleopatran (joka on jatkoa Julius Caesarille) Marcus Antonius on asettunut Egyptiin ja pyrkii yliluonnollisia keinoja käyttäen selvittämään, miten löisi triumviraatinsa toiset jäsenet ja voittaisi uuden kansalaissodan.

Muutamissa novelleissa olen häpeämättömällä tavalla lähtenyt kirjallisten kokeilujen tielle. Metsämiehen tarinassa (Fz 2/07) Windsorin iloisten rouvien paksu ritari Sir John Falstaff muistelee unohtumatonta yötään metsän sarvipäänä ja elää sen uudelleen, kai. Koko novelli koostuu yhdestä ainoasta, säädyttömän pitkästä ja monipolvisesta lauseesta. Runomuotoinen McB3 (kirjoitettu alunperin suomeksi mutta julkaistu ensin englanniksi Portti Special English Issuessa 2003) siirtää Macbethin veriset tapahtumat avaruuden kauppamiesten pariin. Requiemissa sudelle (Portti 1/09) tutkin miten onnistuu musiikin rytmien ja logiikan siirtäminen proosaan. Siinä en ole varastanut Shakespearelta vaan novellin päähenkilön Mozartin Requiemista.

Mies Stratfordista (Fz 2/02) leikittelee ajatuksella, että Shakespeare ei kirjoittanutkaan näytelmiään. Tälle ajatukselle löytyy runsasti tukea, niin epämääräisiä ovat tietomme wanhasta Williamista ja niin monet asiat hänen ympärillään tuntuvat perin ristiriitaisilta, elleivät peräti mahdottomilta. Mutta jos ei hän niin kuka? Novellissa esiintyy myös Shakespearen kolleega ja kilpailija Christopher Marlowe, jonka pääteosta Tohtori Faustusta olen säälittä hyödyntänyt novellissa Faustuksen kiusaus (Fz 4/05). Mikä onkaan tiedemiehen vastuu ja kuka hänen keksintöjään hyödyntää? Tohtori Faustus muuten poikkeaa myös Yön kynttilöissä harjoittamassa salatiedettään, onnettomin tuloksin tietenkin, kuten tragediassa pitääkin. Kirjemuodossa kerrottu Faustuksen kiusauskin lukeutuu kirjallisiin kokeiluihini. Jalanjälki hiekassa (Fz 3/06) panee vanhenevan ja velkojiaan pakenevan Daniel Defoen kohtaamaan luomuksensa Robinson Crusoen, perin Myrskymäisissä tunnelmissa. Onko Crusoen saari kuvittelua vai totta? Tässä novellissa, kuten kokoelman monessa muussakin jutussa, pohditaan kirjoittamisen ja kirjallisuuden perimmäistä olemusta.

Kokoelman genrekirjo on tahallisesti sangen laaja, samoin kirjallinen varianssi: on scifiä, fantasiaa, kauhua, rikoskertomusta; on runoa ja kirjenovellia; on aikamatkailua ja avaruusoopperaa; on mytologiaa, huumoria, metafysiikka ja nekromantiikkaa; on muumiota, zombieta ja apinaa. Shakespearessa löytyy koko maailmakaikkeus - My library was dukedom large enough, (The Tempest).

(JK: Kolmaskymmenes kolmas simpanssi sisältää seitsemäntoista tekstiä ja kolme niistä löytyy myös tästä blogista, kaksi erikielisenä versiona: Metsämiehen tarina, McB3 englanniksi ja Yorick parka ruotsiksi nimellä Stackars Yorick. Shakespeare-aiheisiin novelleihin kuuluu myös A Willow Grows Askant (aivan uusi tarina, ei mukana kirjassa) jossa palataan Hamletin tapahtumiin ja siihen miten siinä Ofelian kuolemassa loppujen lopuksi oikein kävikään.)

Syvä Iskumme on

2010-08-02T11:19:00.006+03:00

Suomen ainoa rikosnovelleja julkaiseva lehti, Juri Nummelinin päätoimittama Isku, lopetti paperiversionsa ja siirtyi nettiin. Nostalgikkoja tämä tietenkin harmittaa - lehti kun ei pelkästään julkaissut hyviä juttuja (uusia ja vanhoja, kotimaisia ja käännettyjä miellyttävästi sekaisin) vaan myös näytti sekä hyvältä että uskottavalta.

Vaihtoehdot lienevät kuitenkin olleet nämä: joko lehti siirtyy nettiin tai sitten se lakkaa olemasta. Joten näistä netti on se ainoa hyväksyttävissä oleva vaihtoehto.

Voi myös olla että muutos on hyvinkin positiivinen. Netissä lehti leviää paremmin kuin paperilla. Ja nettilehdellä on eräs ehdoton valtti ylitse muiden: myös vanhat numerot ovat koko ajan saatavilla ja uusien kiinnostuneiden lukijoiden luettavissa. (Tämän ansiosta esimerkiksi Anne Leinosen luotsaaman Usvan sivustolla löytyy reilustikin toisella sadalla oleva erinomaisten novellien varasto ja lukija voi vaikkapa uuteen mielenkiintoiseen nimeen törmätessään käydä lukemassa mitä muuta sama kirjoittaja on saanut aikaiseksi.) Ehkäpä näin uusi lyhytmuotoinen rikoskirjallisuus leviää laajemmalle, saa uusia lukijoita, tuottaa uusia kirjoittajia, ja vain entisestään vankistuu ja jalostuu.

Ensimmäinen nettinumero, kaiken kaikkiaan jo lehden kahdestoista numero, näyttää varsin hyvältä. Novelleja on kuusi - kolme kotimaista ja kolme käännettyä.

Numeron päänovelliksi nousee Kevin Wignallin pitkä Kuolema. Se alkaa normaalina palkkatappajakuvauksena, joskin palkkatappajat eivät ole "rikollisia" vaan virkamiehiä, black jobsien tekijöitä, jotka eliminoivat hallitukselle epämiellyttäviä henkilöitä. Jos ne sattuvat olemaan omia jo eläköityneitä virkamiehiä jotka vaan sattuvat tietämään liikaa ja voisivat ehkä aiheuttaa ikäviä tietovuotoja niin too bad. Tässä mitään turhia riskejä lähdetä ottamaan.

Tappajista toinen, Hammond, jää autoon tapon ajaksi. Ei hänestä sittenkään ole työhönsä. Novelli kiertyy sen ympärille mitä Hammondille tapahtuu tapon jälkeen. Hän tyri. Meni puihin. Ei uskaltanut. Mitä hyötyä epäkelvosta tappajasta on? Toinen tappajista, Baker, tuntuu koko ajan valmistautuvan hyödyttömän kumppaninsa eliminoimiseen. Hammond ymmärtää tämän ja vaikuttaa alistuneelta kohtaloonsa.

Matkalla takaisin he pysähtyvät syömässä eräässä hotellissa jossa Baker on tavanut vierailla lapsena. Hotelli on rakennettu korkealle kallionkielekkeelle, myrskyävän meren ääreen. Samaan aikaan tappajien kanssa hotellissa vierailee kouluseurue. Tappajat syövät. Hammond tuntee aikansa käyvän vähiin. Aterian päätteksi hän käy vessassa. Samaan aikaan jotain tapahtuu. Meri raivoaa, aallot piiskaavat kallioita ja yksi koululaisista joutuu veden varaan. Baker seuraa vierestä ja ajattelee kyynisesti lapsen olevan tuhoon tuomittu. Mikään ei enää voi pelastaa tätä.

Äkkiä toinen koululainen riisuu vaatteensa ja hyppää julmasti aallokoivaan mereen pelastamaan toveriaan. Baker pudistaa päätään. Hän ihailee poikaa mutta hulluhan se on. Yhden sijasta hukkuukin nyt kaksi. Nyt molemmat ovat tuhoon tuomittuja.

Mutta. Jotakin hyvin outoa ja äärimmäisen epätodennäköistä tapahtuu. Poika saakin pelastettua toverinsa ja kumpikin jää eloon. Vaikka se oli mahdotonta.

Tapahtumaketju aikaansaa sisäisen muutoksen Bakerissa. "Se, mikä häntä oli haavoittanut sydänytimiä myöten, oli tainnuttava tajuamisen hetki. Ensiksi hän oli luullut, että oli ollut kyse tappiosta, kun hän oli nähnyt, miten poika oli toiminut niin kuin oli toiminut, ja hänen omasta itsekkyydestään ja sen tajuamisesta, että hän oli jo kauan kätkenyt kyvyn toimia juuri niin, toimia tavalla, joka oli huimapäisellä, kauniilla tavalla inhimillistä. Mutta kyse oli jostain pahemmasta. Hän oli tajunnut, ettei hän koskaan ollut ollut tuo poika. Hän ei olisi sukeltanut viidentoista ikäisenä eikä hän olisi sukeltanut nytkään, ei sen takia, että hän olisi pelännyt, vaan sen takia, että syvällä sisimmässään hänellä ei ollut mitään syytä sukeltaa. Baker ei pelännyt kuolemaa ja hän oli luullut, että se olisi riittänyt, mutta ei pelon läsnäolo ollut saanut poikaa toimimaan niin kuin oli toiminut, kyse oli jostain suuremmasta, se oli rakkautta elämään, halua suojella sitä kaikissa vastoinkäymisissä, sankarillisuutta sen puhtaimmassa muodossaan. Eikä Baker ollut koskaan kadottanut noita luonteenpiirteitä, koska hänellä ei ollut koskaan niitä ollutkaan." Baker katselee vessasta palaavaa Hammondia uusin silmin. Esimiehille ei sittenkään tarvitse ilmoittaa Hammondin kyvyttömyydestä. Hammond voi siirtyä muihin tehtäviin, ja elää.

Wignallin kauniisti kirjoitettu novelli voisi hyvin olla mainstreamproosaa. Sen moraaliset pohdiskelut ja hienoviritteiset mielenliikkeiden kuvaukset nostavat sen ihan omalle tasolleen rikoskirjallisuudessa. Tosin välillä Wignall on luiskahtaa patetian ja sentimentaalisuuden puolelle. Johtuisikohan tämä käännöksestä? Olisi mielenkiintoista lukea teksti alkukielellä ja vertailla. Voi hyvin olla että patetia on hiipinyt tekstiin uuden kielen myötä. Voi olla että kukaan toinen lukija ei edes löydä tekstistä minun marginaalisesti pateettisina pitämiäni kohtia.

Toinen ulkomaalainen teksti, Keith Rawsonin Veri, sirpaleet ja kaikki muu alkaa hyvin. Vaimo pakottaa poliisin viinalakkoon. Pinnahan siinä kiristyy. Ja miten helvetissä työtään kestää selvin päin? Pakkohan sitä on saada joskus nollata päivän aikana nähty kuona, saasta ja epätoivo. Tietenkin lakon on pakko päättyä räjähtävään purkaukseen. Hieman vaisun jälkimaun novelli silti jättää, loppuratkaisu ei siltikään kanna koko novellia eikä tyydyttävällä tavalla lunasta alun lupauksia. Hyvä teksti silti.

Vanhaa osastoa edustaa Matt Kid Hytösen Viimeinen potti joka alunperin kirjoitettiin vuonna 1988 Rikospalat-nimiseen rikoslukemistoon. Eläkkeellä oleva poliisi häviä pokerissa vekselirahansa ja joutuu keksimään millä paikata vahingon. Klassisen kaavan mukaanhan tässä käy ja jokainen yritys paikata vahinko suistaa päähenkilön aina syvemmälle suohon eikä lopulta auta muu kuin ääriteko. Nuoren lupauksen Heikki Nevalan juttu on miellyttävän makaaberi ja Nevalalle tyypillisesti science fictionia. Vai oliko se sittenkin kauhua? Vaiko fantasiaa? Ehkä kaikkia. (Jostakin syystä tuli novellista mieleen JK Miettinen - voisiko Nevala peräti olla Miettinen?)

Julkaisun paras novelli on minulle ehdottomasti Anthony Neil Smithin Clive tunnustaa. Tässä hersyvän hirtehisessä novellissa (joka kuuluu niihin novelleihin joita lukee kateellisena siitä ettei itse ole sitä kirjoittanut!) päähenkilö tekee tunnustusta poliisille. Ei hän oikeastaan mikään rikollinen ole, huono-onninen vain. Harvinaisen huono-onninen.

Clive nimittäin tahtoo tehdä itsemurhan. Mutta hyvin spesiifin sellaisen. Hän ei tahdo kuolla yksin vaan tyttöystävänsä silmien edessä. "Ongelmani on nähdäkseni siinä, että haluan kuolla, mutten kuitenkaan halua tappaa itseäni yksin tyhjässä huoneessa ja haipua hiljalleen pois kenenkään tietämättä. Haluan nähdä rakastajattareni hysteerisenä edes puolen sekunnin ajan, jotta tiedän, kuinka paljon hän tulee kaipaamaan minua. Haluan saada varmuuden siitä, kuinka suuren vaikutuksen kuolemani tekee, miten se muuttaa koko hänen elämänsä. Haluan laittaa hänet maksamaan kaikista pikku naljailuista ja vittuiluista ja peleistä pakottamalla hänet katselemaan, kun kuolen jollakin todella hirveällä tavalla."

Tämä tekee itsemurhahankkeesta vähintäänkin haastavan. Tyttöystävä ei saa tulla huoneeseen liian aikaisin (voisi yrittää estää) eikä myöskään liian myöhään (ei näe lähdön hetkeä). Ja tietenkin jokainen yritys epäonnistuu katastrofaalisesti ja Cliven sijasta kuoleekin - tyttöystävä. Kerta toisensa jälkeen. Ja joskus pitää jokunen todistajakin listiä, eihän se poliisi sitä vahingoksi uskoisi.

Vallan nerokas novelli. Musta huumori puree ja loppu lupaa on sankarillemme pienen toivonpilkahduksenkin. Ei tosin hänen seuraavalle tyttöystävälleen.

Siirto nettiin ei siis ole millään tavoin heikentänyt lehden laatua vaan yhä Nummelin tarjoaa meille mielenkiintoista ja monipuolista tavaraa. Yksi juttu. Näyttöpäätteeltä lukiessa lyhyemmät jutut tuntuvat huomattavasti paremmilta lukea. Wignallin juttu oli jo kestokyvyn äärirajoilla - ellei peräti ylittänyt sitä. Ainakin tällä taitolla.

Radio Gould

2010-07-30T11:50:00.000+03:00

Glenn Gould gave up touring and giving live concerts in 1964. An odd notion, perchance, but he saw the future of music in recording. And besides, what he really wanted to do was compose - and the constant touring was getting in the way of that.

It was getting on his nerves. Giving concerts. Seriously.

Well, despite all his grandiose plans he never got much beyond opus 1 - his rather fine and really quite promising string quartet, fashioned after the very late and almost over-ripe late romantic movement, which he composed in his early twenties. Somehow nothing ever got finished except for a few incidental and trivial pieces. His magnum opus, the opera about Richard Strauss, certainly never materialised.

But he did have the urge, that burning urge to create compositions of his own, an urge never quite was sated by his recording work or the articles he wrote or the things he did for TV. The creative urge had to find an outlet somewhere. It did, in his radio documentaries.

The first one came in 1967, as a commission from the CBC. It was called The Idea of North and explored life in the Canadian north and the people who lived or worked there. What made it exceptional is the way Gould crafted his material. He treated his the long monologues of his interviewees as if they were pieces of music. He faded them in and out at will, sometimes playing three voices at the same time - making it fairly impossible follow any of them or to distinguish what was being said at all. He spliced the voices sot that it appeared that they were addressing each other, quarelling with one another even, when in fact they never even met. He called it "contrapuntal radio". It was - and is - quite delightful.

What he did was in fact rather clever. He created a mattress or if you will a tapestry of voice and depersonalized his interviewees or narrators and made them not individual persons but rather personifications. They ceased to be just a person and became instead voices of the north, archetypes and thus much more valid and credible.

In Gould's words The Idea of North was "a documentary which thinks of itself as a drama". It grew in part out of his early fascination with radio drama. And his abhorrence of linear documentaries which he found – well, predictable.

This is indeed hugely interesting. Very soon into the documentary one begins to listen to it as a cross between a symphony for voices and an opera. There are echoes of Ivesian grandeur – or madness – almost polyrhythmic elements, but mostly it's an opera. There are story lines, there are themes, there are characters, maybe there's even a plot of some kind. He plays around with words and concepts, bends them to his will, but subtly and deviously. All this is explained in his 1971 interview Radio as Music with John Jessop.

The north itself is the protagonist - and the villain.

One voice becomes all voices. All voices become one. It is the land that speaks.

The surprising thing is that very little music is used. It isn't necessary. Only snippets of Sibelius's Fifth symphony are heard - mainly I believe because for Gould Sibelius and the north are one and the same.

The amazing thing is – he didn't set out to do The Idea of North quite as revolutionary it turned out. Initially he planned to do it in five parts, with basically one voice per part. Then he did another version, a linear one which turned out to be, well - quite linear. Which Gould thought boring. The version was also too long. So, how to shorten it? Every scene was necessary. The answer was obvious – why, to run them simultaneously.

Thusly genius was born out of necessity. As often is the case.
And obviously, Gould being very much Gould, he never really ventured north himself . . .

The second part of what became Gould's radiophonic trilogy is The Latecomers from 1969. The idea and the concept are very much the same. Again we have the themes of isolation and solitude - this time on an island, Newfoundland. The piece isn't quite as fresh and innovative as its predecessor but still solid and fascinating in its own right.

Then we have portraits of two artists: Pablo Casals and Leopold Stokowski (with whom Gould recorded Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto). They are somewhat more conventional technically and live on the personality of the musicians. After the previous documents they seem almost flat, stale and one-dimensional. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that these are really inspiring fellows and well worth a closer look. And Gould being very much Gould music and art isn' everything we get to hear about - not by a long chalk.

The third and final part of the trilogy of documentaries on isolation, The Quiet Ones, 1977, is again a bulls-eye. This time Gould reverses his premise. From geographical isolation he goes to mental and spiritual isolation when he tackles the Mennonites and their take on the modern world. Now this is truly riveting stuff, especially for the non-believer, because basically their problem is the same as that of any sane individual: how to live in this world.

Is one to be, like a certain gentleman of Nazareth, among one's fellow men but not of them? Where does one draw the line? How much ought one to isolate from society, merely for the sake of common sense?

Isolation and solitude were for Gould, a notorious hermit himself, questions of the utmost importance. They never ceased to baffle him. I suppose his love of solitude was the real reason he ceased giving live concerts (which, by the way, to him were immoral because in them the performer had to prove something that never needed to be proved in the first place!), he just couldn't take that much exposure to people.

But back to the Mennonites. In Gould's portrait of the faith we encounter the very core of society itself - how ought a society to be and function, and how ought men to act in a society? What rights does one have and what duties? And can one really turn one's back on the world, however horrid it be?

And art? Or Art! What is the role of Art in a society? This too is something Gould has pondered upon, deeply.

After his trilogy Gould never did anything particularly significant for the radio. A pit. Maybe he'd said all he needed to say.

Holmes, Dupin - ja Ken Parker?

2010-07-29T00:37:00.000+03:00

Sherlock Holmes ja italialainen lännenmies Ken Parker ei ole se ensimmäisenä mieleen tuleva yhdistelmä. Sellainen kuitenkin löytyy Ken Parker-seikkailusta Boston.

Ken Parkerin on päästävä junalla Bostoniin. Hänelle ei suostuta myymään lippua seuraavaan junaan joten hän joutuu improvisoimaan ja sujahtamaan tavaravaunuun salamatkustajana. Juna on erikoisjuna ja niin ovat erikoisia sen matkustajatkin: Sherlock Holmes, Auguste Dupin, Hercule Poirot, Philo Vance ja Ellery Queen. Nero Wolfenkin piti tulla mutta joku jossakin ymmärsi hänen pyyntönsä väärin ja valmisti hänelle orkideoista ruokaa – joten hän pyörtyi ja kannettiin pois. Syy miesten läsnäololle on hieman epäselvä, mutta he ovat rautatieyhtiöltä saaneet matkan ja niinpä he ovat junassa. Tietämättä oikein itsekään miksi.

Muissakin matkustajissa on jotain outoa. Hytin numero 13 matkustaja ei suostu tulemaan ulos, lymyää vain sisällä hytissään kanarianlintunsa kanssa. Käytävällä parveilee epäilyttävää joutosakkia, kuin jotakin odottaen. Tavaravaunuun on lastattu suunnaton gorilla (Queenie!) ja musta ruumisarkku. Veturimiehen lämmittäjä on Buster Keatonin kaksoisolento.

Juna lähtee puksuttamaan kohti pohjoista. Suuret etsivät käyvät hieman toistensa hermoille, tietenkin. Holmes vinguttaa viuluaan ja jättää ruiskunsa minne sattuu, Poirot ja Vance hössöttävät viiksiensä kanssa kuin mitkäkin vanhatpiiat.

Keskellä yötä kuuluu vertahyytävä huuto ja joku paiskaa junasta ruumiin. Hytin numero kolmetoista matkustaja on murhattu. Sitähän sopi odottaa: aina jos suuri salapoliisi matkustaa junalla, laivalla tai lentokoneella, tai muuten vain lomailee, niin kyllähän siellä joku pääsee hengestään. Käy ilmi että uhri, muuan Collins, on sotkeutunut Bostonissa tapahtuneeseen jalokiviryöstöön. Häntä seuraavat miehet ovat hekin yksityisetsiviä.

Mutta kuka voi olla murhaaja - hyttihän on lukittu sisältäpäin? Kukin suurista salapoliiseista esittää vuoron perään oman ratkaisunsa murhaan ja paljastaa syyllisen. Hauska ja pikantti detalji on että jokaisen salapoliisin teoria seuraa varsin tarkasti niitä konventioita jotka aina ja vääjäämättömästi esiintyvät hänen omissa kirjallisissa seikkailuissaan.

Ensimmäisenä areenalle astuu vanha suosikkini Philo Vance. Vance selvittää lukitun huoneen mysteerin tuossa tuokiossa ja paljastaa miten vastapainolla, muutamalla ruuvilla ja lankakerällä pystyy lukitsemaan oven ulkoa päin. Syyllinen on konduktööri sillä hänellä on yleisavain. Jutun kanarianlintu on tietenkin viittaus varthaiseen Vance-seikkailuun The Canary Murder Case. Siitä tehtiin muuten elokuvakin jo 1929, pääosassa myöhempi Thin Man eli William Powell Vancena ja Louise Brooks murhan uhrina eli Kanarianlintuna. Filmiä alettiin tehdä mykkäelokuvana ja kuvausten jo suunnilleen päätyttyä se muutettiinkin äänielokuvaksi. Brooks oli jo siinä vaiheessa matkustanut Eurooppaan filmaamaan Pabstin kanssa Pandoraa eikä suostunut palaamaan ääniotoksia varten. Brooksin ääni jouduttiin dubbaamaan. Siihen päättyi Brooksin taru Hollywoodissa.

Seuraavaksi Holmes kertoo teoriansa. Murhaaja on viereisestä hytistä työntänyt tuuletuskanavan kautta käärmeen uhrin hyttiin – aivan kuten klassisessa novellissa Kirjava nauha. Joten syyllinen on tietenkin viereisen hytin asukki joka sattuu olemaan toinen Collinsia varjostaneista etsivistä.

Ellery Queenin selitys sivuaa kiinteästi romaania Ruumiskirstun arvoitus ja syyllinen on tietenkin se toinen Collinsia varjostanut etsivä joka oikeasti onkin kreikkalainen – tämä siksi että Ruumiskirstun arvoitus on alkukielellä The Greek Coffin Mystery.

Dupin tietää syyllisen löytyvän tavaravaunusta. Syyllinen ei voi olla kukaan muu kuin – Rue Morguen murhia mukaellen – gorilla Queenie! Ja tässä vaiheessa minun täytyy antaa sapiskaa käsikirjoittajalle. Lapsikin tietää että Rue Morguen murhaaja ei ollut gorilla vaan oranki! Mutta menköön, gorillalle löytyy perustelut myöhemmin. Ja Queenie-nimellekin.

Viimeisenä lauteille päästetään Poirot. Poirot tietää kyllä mistä on kyse, pikajunat eivät ole hänelle vieraita. Syyllinen on: junan kaikki muut matkustajat! Yhdessä he ovat, Idän pikajunassa tapahtuneen murhan lailla, murhanneet Collinsin.

Ken Parkerilta ei kysytä. Parker kertoo kuitenkin oman näkemyksensä. Hän uskoo Collinsin pelästyneen varjostajiaan, lavastaneen oman kuolemansa ja piiloutuneen. Minne? Tavaravaunussa sijaitsevaan tyhjään ruumisarkkuun. Etsivät naurahtelevat ylemmyydentuntoisesti lännenmiehen teorialle. Vaan ruumisarkusta Collins löytyykin – ja kuolleena. Kuka hänet sitten murhasi? No se tekivät etsivät itse, väittää Parker. Etsiessään varastettuja jalokiviä etsivät siirtelivät tavaravaunun kolleja ja laatikoita ja kasasivat niitä ruumisarkun päälle. Siten he tukkivat Collinsin itselleen tekemät ilmareiät ja aikaansaivat sen että hän tukehtui. Näin nolosti päättyy tämä suljetun huoneen murhamysteeri. Etsivät päättävät että tästä ei sitten tarvitse puhua.

Yksi ongelma tarinassa on. Useimpia se ei varmaan häiritse millään tavalla mutta minua suurestikin. Miten ihmeessä 1841 debytoinut Dupin voi esiintyä samassa tarinassa kuin 1929 debytoinut Ellery Queen? Tätä mietin pääni puhki. Tarina on sijoitettu joskus 1870-luvun jälkipuoliskolle. Ok. Mutta edes Holmeskaan ei ollut vielä kunnolla aloittanut silloin, Vancesta ja Poirotista puhumattakaan. Queen tuskin edes oli syntynytkään. No, bagatellihan tämä on eikä pilaa itse tarinasta saatavaa nautintoa. Ainakaan ihan kokonaan.

Tarina muuten jatkuu vielä. Etsivät jatkavat junalla pohjoiseen ja Parker jää pois Bostonissa. Jalokiviä ei ole vielä löydetty. Samalla pysäkillä myös Queenie-gorilla lastataan ulos ja viedään Bostonin eläintarhaan. Paljastuu että toinen Collinsia vakoilleista etsivistä on jalokivien perässä ihan omaan laskuunsa. Ne on piilotettu Queenien häkkiin. Tarinan loppuhuipennuksessa Parkeriin rakastunut gorilla kaappaa Parkerin massiiviseen syleilyynsä ja vie hänet talon katolle tappajia pakoon – kuin King Kong Ann Darrown konsanaan! Ja nyt tiedämme miksi Queenie on gorilla ja nimikin selittyy. Queenie on King Kongin naaraspuolinen vastine.

Loppu hyvin, kaikki hyvin. Jalokivet palautetaan omistajalleen ja konnat jäävät kiinni. Holmesia ja kumppaneita ei tästä tosin voida kiittää. No, jokaisella on huono päivänsä.

Tempest in a Teacup

2010-07-24T19:50:00.003+03:00

The Tempest is a right curious play. Upon re-reading it recently I was, once again, more than slightly irked by its irritating shallowness and hollow pomposity. The elements of that insufferable monstrosity, the masque, just kill the play.

So, one rather wonders - is it by Shakespeare at all?

There are doubts. Mostly they come from rabid Oxfordians. Some of them outright claim that The Tempest does not belong among the Bard's works. They, however, have an agenda as The Tempest pretty much crushes their case of Oxford being the true author of the works. So much for him.

Or does it?

The generally accepted wisdom is that the play was written around 1610-11. That would make it impossible for Oxford to have written it as he died in 1604. Therefore there's no way he could be the real Shakespeare.

But was it written in 1610 or 1611? Or maybe 1612? Really we don't know. Nor do we know when first it was performed. The first performance we know about seems to hail from November 1611. That doesn't make it the first performance ever.

Much hangs on what sources Shakespeare used. It would seem that for the plot he didn't use anything. That would make the play pretty unique in his Canon as he always pinched and improved on already existing stuff. Maybe we just haven't found or correctly identified his sources. All that is beside the point when dating the play. The big question here is: what sources, if any, did he use for the shipwreck and the island?

Did he for instance use, as is often claimed, William Strachey's report on the Bermudan shipwreck in 1609? Bermuda is mentioned in the play. There is precious little evidence that he did use it, and the book though written far earlier wasn't published until 1625. It's always been a given that Shakespeare based both his tempest and his island on the experiences of travellers to the New World. But there is nothing tangible to verify this, apart from that one slight mention of Bermuda or the Bermoothes. Otherwise it's all conjecture and convenient dates. Convenient, that is, for a play written around 1610 and first performed in 1611.

If The Tempest doesn't draw upon the Bermudan wreck or the tales of early Virginian settlers, then all bets are off. We just don't know. But hang on - there's the masque! Surely that dates the play rather well? The masque became all the rage during King James's reign, which would mean that the play couldn't very well have been written earlier than the middle of the decade. But. Were the embarrassing masque bits originally in the play? Perhaps the 1611 performance was a revival of an older play written heavens knows when - with new topical bits added as was the wont in them days? Just think Macbeth and all the new and horrid and silly bits with the witches. They were added later, and not written by old William at all but by that young fop Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson was the big name when it came to masques. Perhaps he's the culprit here as well? The swine.

I have a definite feeling that the masque bits were not written by Shakespeare, as clearly they are quite sub-standard. That is of course only wishful thinking on my part. The masque bits are rubbish - therefore I'd rather somebody else, some lesser creature, had written them. But if they were the new feature in the 1611 version of the play, and Shakespeare was still alive at the time, as he was as he only died in 1616, why that might mean that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare at all and someone else was. Someone else was Shakespeare, I mean, instead of Shakespeare (blimey - this is getting all complicated innit?). Someone like that blasted fellow de Vere.

Or were the rubbish bits added in 1613? Same thing applies. Nothing changes.

They can't have been in from the word go? Can they?

Or then, as some Oxfordians claim, The Tempest simply doesn't belong in the Canon.

I dunno. It's all a muddle. We're all at sea here.

"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death."

Jag hatar science fiction!

2010-07-19T20:07:00.011+03:00

Inte jag, nödvändigtvis. Men kulturmänniskor.

De an sich, men särskilt, har jag märkt, finlandssvenska kulturmänniskor. Det är åtminstone vad jag har uppfattat och upplevt. "Jag hatar science fiction!" är en replik jag personligen stött på, flera gånger, i riktiga kulturkretsar när det framgår att jag, en till synes acceptabel individ och någon som håller på med kultur på riktigt, även håller på med och till och med producerar science fiction.

När man sedan reder ut saken framgår det att tex. Aldous Huxley är ok, samma sak med Orwell. Martinson - underbart! A Clockwork Orange - en superb satir! Swift - oerhört fina grejor! Science fiction, påpekar jag. Men, påpekar de, det är ju litteratur! Riktig litteratur! Medan science fiction är rymdskepp och monstrum och lasersvärd!

Bara för barn. Och efterblivna. Inget med verkliga världen att göra.

Försöket att förklara följande faktum brukar inte alltid bära frukt. "Science fiction är främst och när genren är som bäst ett verktyg och en metod att både utforska och beskriva vår egen värld och samhället vi lever i genom att ändra på vissa saker så att vissa andra saker blåses upp och ur proportion och därmed kan ses mera sanningsenligt för vad de egentligen är." Men går det hem? Inte alltid.

Kom bara att tänka på det här när jag satt med i en panel på årets stora inhemska science fiction-evenemang Finncon 2010: 150 år finlandssvensk fantastik.

Det ironiska med panelen är detta: så gott som alla författare vi diskuterade är etablerade författare, höglitterära högdjur - dvs. riktiga författare. Och de har skrivit fantastik: science fiction, fantasy eller skräck.

Vem omnämnde vi? Nå naturligtvis den finlandssvenska science fictions fader Zacharias Topelius. Därutöver bland andra: Runar Schildt, Henry Parland, Ralf Parland, Oscar Parland, Solveig von Schoultz, Tove Jansson (fast det egentligen var meningen att ha en tovejanssonfri fantastikpanel - men det sket sig ju totalt!), Bo Carpelan, Björn Kurtén, Kjell Lindblad, Irmelin Sandman-Lilius, Merete Mazzarella och Petter Lindberg. Inte direkt världens minst distingerade schack. De här kom vi att tänka på så att säga off the cuff när vi panelister bollade med böcker vi själv tyckte om och ville uppmärksamma. Flera finns det. Massor.

Den finlandssvenska fantastiken kanske inte är världens bredaste men vi har rötter, vi har anor och vi har etablerade författare. Riktiga författare.

Det behöver inte alltid handla om rymdresor. Eller monster. Det kan göra det. Science fiction är inte barnlitteratur. Den kan vara det. Science fiction behöver inte äga rum i framtiden. Den kan göra det. Science fiction kan äga rum när som helst, äga rum var som helst. Det är det som är det fina med genren, som skänker författaren en sådan enorm frihet att göra vad som helst, skriva vad som helst - och även hur som helst. Inga normala regler gäller längre. Science fiction-författaren är fri.

Science fiction är, för att vara lite pompös, alla andra litteraturgenrer kombinerade. Och lite till. Den handlar om allting. Allt man bara kan hitta på. Det är den enda gränsen.

Men främst av allt handlar science fiction om oss. Och världen vi lever i. Science fiction är vår spegel. Science fiction/fantastik är ett verktyg - ett underbart smidigt och användbart verktyg vi kan använda oss av när vi vill undersöka var vi är, hur vi hamnade dit och varthän vi riktigt är på väg. Monstrumen inom genren är för det mesta vi själva och de som kallas monstrum (till exempel det namnlösa monstret i Shelleys Frankenstein) de tragiska hjältarna. Det gäller bara att kunna se, att kunna läsa rätt.

Det verkligt dumma vore att förkasta en hel genre bara för att det finns dålig litteratur inom den. Det finns det, massvis. Men. Inom vilken litteraturgenre finns det inte dålig litteratur? Inom vilken litteraturgenre finns det inte dumma och lata historier och dåliga och klumpigt skrivna böcker? Är det verkligen en bra idé att döma eller fördöma och därmed förkasta en hel litteraturgenre på basen av det allra sämsta som produceras inom genren i stället för att fälla domen efter genrens allra bästa och sötaste frukter? Är detta rationellt? Man frågar sig.

Vi science fiction-läsare är här och vi tänker inte be om ursäkt. Man tycker ju nästan lite synd om dem som inte läser science fiction. De tror på en enda värld, en verklig värld. Lättlurade stackare. Vi vet att inget sådant existerar eller ens kan göra det. Allt är mera komplicerat och diffust än så. Det finns inga eviga sanningar. Allt är flyktigt. Allt kan ändras inom ett ögonblick, en nanosekund. Det vi ser beror på varifrån vi tittar. Och med vems ögon. En gemensam verklighet? Inget sådant existerar. En gemensam verklighet är en illusion. Alla är inte starka nog att kunna inse det.

Vi science fiction-läsare har tränat vår hjärna och är starka nog. Inget överraskar eller förskräcker oss.

Nå - jag överdriver lindrigt. Kanske ändå Kalle Päätalo.

The Stonor Case

2010-07-17T19:09:00.002+03:00

Right. Re-read The Stonor Case.

Three acts. First act: Miss Stonor is dead. There is a coronary inquest. One of the witnesses is Dr. Watson, who is an old friend of the family from their days in India. Dr. Rylott is proved to be a cad, but nothing definite about the death is established. It's fishy but unexplained.

Act two, scene one: Stoke Moran, two years later. The other Miss Stonor, Enid, is engaged to be married. Her betrothed is about to sail off to parts unknown. Enid is getting a bit jittery. Strange sounds in the house. What are all those plates of milk for? What or whom is Dr. Rylott hiding in his study? And what is that nocturnal whistling all about?

Dr. Rylott's minions, the Indian servant Ali and the housekeeper Mrs. Staunton, act very suspiciously towards Enid. Clearly they're up to no good.

Scene two: Dr. Watson visits Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street. Holmes is not at home, Watson is insulted by a cheeky workman - who of course turns out to be Sherlock in disguise. Sherlock then goes on to consult a number of clients, one of whom is Milverton the blackmailer. The last client is Enid Stonor. Sherlock agrees to help her. Enter Dr. Rylott. Poker. Sherlock bends it back.

Act three, scene one: Stoke Moran. Dr. Rylott tries to get Enid to sign over her money to him. She refuses. Right, says he, that's it then. There's a new butler. He stops Dr. Rylott from physically assaulting Enid by pulling a gun. Butler is sacked. Exit butler.

Scene two: there's a knock on Enid's window. It's Holmes and Watson. Turns out Holmes was the new butler all along, in disguise of course. Enter snake. Holmes beats it with a stick. Snake kills Dr. Rylott. Curtain.

It's been a while since last I read The Stonor Case. It's not a good play. There's a lot of bad dialogue and very little dramatic meat on the creaking bones. Sherlock doesn't come on till it's half over. Actually, the play only really starts when Sherlock enters. The previous scenes are quite simply a waste of everybody's time.

Somehow one gets the feeling that the author doesn't quite get the story - in fact: doesn't quite get Holmes! The dynamic of the piece is all wrong. There's absolutely no magic.

The Crown Diamond is a lot better. Maybe because it's a lot shorter.

Have to say it - Doyle is absolutely terrible as a playwright. He's as bad a playwright as he's good a short story writer.

The Play's the Thing

2010-07-15T00:11:00.006+03:00

Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories about Sherlock Holmes. That is the Canon. Amen.

But is that really all he wrote about Holmes? It isn't. On top of that he wrote plays about the Baker Street detective.

Doyle's Holmesian theatre activities began surprisingly early. In 1888 A Study in Scarlet was to be dramatized. The Portsmouth Crescent mentions the fact on 28 September, according to the introduction of Richard Lancelyn Green's very excellent The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes. No mention is made of who will dramatize it. However, among Doyle's unpublished papers there is found an unfinished play called Angel of Darkness. It is based on the novel, or at least uses the same characters.

There are a few quite interesting things about the Angel of Darkness. We have Drebber, we have Stangerson, the dastardly Mormon villains. "Then there are two heroes," writes Lancelyn Green, "Jefferson Hope and John Watson, M.D., a San Francisco practitioner, as well as the aristocratic English globe-trotter Sir Montague Brown." And here's the odd bit: "The John Watson of the play appears to have no connection with the companion of Sherlock Holmes . . . Holmes himself is conspicuously absent." So at this point in time Sherlock Holmes was the least important facet of the story, the one most easily sacrificed. Redundant, in fact. Ah, well.

Still, the play was never completed. So maybe Sherlock was a little more important than Doyle at first realised? Or maybe it was just that Doyle found constructing a play just a little bit trickier than he'd imagined. And let's face it - A Study in Scarlet isn't exactly a masterpiece of elegant construction to begin with. A clockwork it ain't.

A second attempt, a play with Sherlock Holmes actually in it, came a decade or so later in 1897. He'd offed Holmes a few years earlier and the pressure to resurrect him was enormous. Doyle was reluctant, to say the least. He was adamant not to do it in print in The Strand, no matter what the sums on offer, but he might do it on stage. Write a play about Sherlock Holmes? Well - why not?

Maybe Irving would play Holmes? Alas, no. That was not to be. But, Doyle lunged ahead. On 15 December Doyle was hard at work on the play and the newspapers knew this: the great actor and producer Herbert Berbohm Tree had expressed an interest. Were he to play Sherlock - well then the play was made! No question about it.

Tree drove down to Hindhead, where Doyle lived, and they had a little chat. It was not a success. Tree had ideas, oh did he ever have ideas. First of all, he wanted to play both Holmes and Moriarty. Doyle pointed out that that wasn't a particularly feasible idea as they had several scenes together. Tree also wanted to play Holmes in a disguise and sporting a big false beard. Why on earth would Holmes be disguised the entire play? exclaimed Doyle. Dunno, replied Tree, that's for the author to figure out and explain.

Doyle didn't particularly feel like figuring that one out. He began to have serious doubts and put the play aside. It didn't matter. But it did, actually. Doyle was building a new house and any money was welcome. Well, as long as it didn't involve writing any of those infernal Holmes short stories. Then along came the Saviour - William Gillette. The stories about how Gillette came to be involved in the project vary a great deal. He himself claimed to have read in the newspapers that Doyle, in an interview, uttered that Gillette was the only man to play Sherlock Holmes. Doyle denied this. According to him it was Gillette and Gillette's manager Frohman who approached him with a bid. Anyway, Doyle finished his play and sent it to Gillette who at the time, it seems, was touring in London. But Gillette turned it down. He thought it impractical as a work for the theatre. Not surprising as Doyle had no experience of writing for the stage.

But, Gillette had an idea. Why not let him "work" on the play and "tweak it" some? Doyle said yes. But there was one condition, there was to be no "love business" in it. In fact Gillette wanted to do a little more than tweak it. He wanted to write a new play. He wrote Doyle and asked for the author's permission to take liberties with Holmes. Doyle no longer held firm. His legendary reply was: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you want with him." Gillette then immersed himself in the written stories - and forthwith announced that there simply wasn't a play there. His manager would have none of it, so Gillette wrote his play in four weeks. Then disaster struck. The theatre in San Francisco in which he was performing burned down. His play was lost in the fire.

So he wrote it again, this time in four acts instead of five like Doyle's original had been. In May 1899 he took it to Hindhead and showed it to Doyle. Doyle approved. "It's good to see the old chap again," he said.

But what happened to Doyle's own play in five acts? Was it ever performed? Did the manuscript even survive? No mention of the play is ever made, and, as I've never heard of the manuscript being published, I dare surmise that it is lost. Certainly it doesn't seem to have been among Doyle's papers. Was it, too, lost in the fire as I've seen suggested?

Gillette's play, Sherlock Holmes, premiered in late 1899, was an immense success and made Doyle a lot of money. Holmes was a valuable property and a few years later Doyle resurrected him, first in The Hound of the Baskervilles, then properly.

In 1910 Doyle leased the Adelphi Theatre for his boxing play The House of Temperley. Why? Well because no producer would touch the play. It was deemed too violent for the ladies with its brutish boxing scenes. So Doyle put it on himself. It was an unmitigated disaster. Nobody came. On top of it the lead actor went and died. Not good. They tried a couple of other plays instead, one of them also by Doyle, a one-acter called A Pot of Caviare. No go. And the lease was for six months. So, what to do, what to do?

After some pondering Doyle came upon the perfect solution: Holmes! Why not write a play about Holmes? (The fact that he didn't use his old one belies a) it was no good, b) he'd mislaid or lost it, or c) both of the above.) Holmes would save the day, obviously. So he went and turned one of his best and most popular tales, The Speckled Band, into a play called the The Stonor Case (although the short story name was ultimately used for reasons of name recognition value, I imagine, and maybe also because it's a far better title). Some minor but strange changes were made. Roylott became Rylott. The Stonor girls got new names: Helen became Violet - a name of which Doyle seems to have been inordinately fond - and Julia became Enid. Percy Armitage, engaged to Helen in the short story, becomes a butcher who befriends Enid. One of Sherlock's clients is called, strangely, Milverton - as in Charles Augustus, blackmailer non plus ultra.

At first a real snake was used. Of course the critics panned it for its lifeless performance: "The performance ended with the production of a palpably artificial serpent." They switched to a rubber snake and got a much livelier performance out of that. Oh well, just goes to show you, theatre is artifice. Holmes was played by H.A. Saintsbury and Watson by Claude King. The really interesting name in the original cast is Lyn Harding, who plays Dr. Rylott. He went on to the talkies and became a fixture in Holmes films. In The Speckled Band (1931), he reprised his role as the evil doctor, in the utterly brainless The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) he played a Moriarty foaming at the mouth when again going up against this time Arthur Wontner's Holmes. Murder at the Baskervilles (1937) - also called Silver Blaze - wasn't much better. In fact it was worse, from its asinine premise to its absurd conclusion. His Rylott was universally praised in the play. His Moriarty in the talkies was apt to become embarrasingly hammy. But he does have a wonderful presence as is evitable in other films he made.

In 1921 Doyle turned out another Holmes play, The Crown Diamond. It is essentially the Mazarin Stone for the stage. Which one came first? That we do not know. The short story was published the same year. There is even the possibility that the play was written or partly written in 1910, but that Doyle at the time decided to go with a known story instead of a new one.

The play is a very short and slight one indeed (some twenty-five pages or so in manuscript, while The Stonor Case was a solid three-acter) and the main difference between the story and the play is the villain's name. The story has him as Count Negretto Sylvius, while in the play he's a far more familiar fellow - none other than Colonel Sebastian Moran. The plot turns around that new and exotic invention - the phonograph! Well, perhaps not that new anymore. I seem to recall another Doyle plot with a phonograph, a little gothic horror story. What was it called? The Japanned Box? In that one the invention was used with much more ingenuity and to far far greater effect.

But anyway, The Crown Diamond is a mere trifle, as is The Mazarin Stone. All show and no effect. It displays eminently well that Holmes belongs on the pages of a magazine or a book, not on the stage. Even movies and TV suit him better than the stage. Because Doyle constructed him so - he has to be seen through the eyes of Watson. Watson has to interpret, explain and soften him for the rest of us. Watson has to ground him for us. Holmes, like Jeremy Brett once famously said, must be seen through cracks in the marble, only little bits at a time. Otherwise the vision of him will blind us. Or, otherwise he has to be watered down and diluted so much so that he ceases to be Sherlock Holmes at all. Just a flash in the pan. No substance, no solidity. Nothing.

So, Doyle wrote four plays about Holmes. Well three anyway, Angel of Darkness never getting finished and not even having Holmes in it pretty much disqualifies it. He wasn't a natural playwright and it took him a long time to learn his craft. Mostly from Gillette, one supposes.

Ought the plays to be included in the Canon? No. Because Doyle used old material and recycled already existing stories. (In the case of the 1898 play one can't be that certain - that one could have had a new plot about the early days of Holmes and Watson, as I've seen claimed.) Had they been all new, well that would have been a different story. Perhaps it's better this way. As I said, Holmes belongs on the page, not the stage.

Sherlock Stadissa

2010-07-08T14:02:00.009+03:00

Kirjan nimi on Sherlock Holmes Suomessa (Turbator, 2010) ja sitä tarvittiin: se on nimittäin kokoelma suomalaisten kirjoittamia Sherlock Holmes-tarinoita!

Suomen Mike Ashleyn, Martin Harry Greenbergin ja John Joseph Adamsin kombinaatio, kirjallinen ihmisdynamo Juri Nummelin on kolunnut arkistoja ja onnistunut löytämään yllättävänkin lukuisan joukon jo julkaistuja tekstejä, aina vuoden 1914 Tre herrarin Kolmannentoista apteekin seikkailusta Outsiderin kautta Erkki Arnin 80-luvulla julkaistuun tarinaan. Ja onpa mukana yksi näytelmäkin: Arvo Salmivaaran Salapoliisi Sherlock Mopsi.

Tre Herrarin (joista vetovuorossa tällä kertaa oli Olaf Homén) Holmesille velmuileva tarina tuntuu toimivan suunnannäyttäjänä varhaisimmille Holmes-mukaelmille. Sherlock oli selvästikin varhaisille tekijöillemme liian suuri, liian mahtava, liian pyhä jotta hänet olisi voinut ottaa vakavasti ja jotta hänestä olisi voinut kirjoittaa tosissaan. Sille pystyi vaan irvailemaan.

Hauskin vanhoista jutuista on Anonyymin piristävän absurdi Sherlock Holmes Suomessa, jonka mukaan kokoelma on saanut nimensäkin. Siinä kokainia nuuskaava Sherlock saa visaisen tehtävän. ”Kuuluisa yksityisetsivä oli saapunut maahamme huomattuaan, että hänen vanha vihollisensa professori Moriarty oli kuin olikin hengissä ja oleskeli nykyään tasavaltamme pääkaupungissa. Matka oli aiheutunut erään eurooppalaisen kruununpään nimenomaisesta pyynnöstä, koska tuon majesteetin vasemman kalvosimen nappi oli kadonnut ja Holmes oli tavanmukaisella terävyydellään huomannut rikoksen lankojen johtavan professori Moriartyyn.” Väsymättömästi Sherlock kiertää kaikki Helsingin kuppilat ja kapakat, aina Vallilaan ja Hermanninkaupunkiin saakka, juo jokaisessa pullon pilsneriä ja pullon pöytäviinaa ja analysoi kaikkien tuhkakuppien kessunjämät, mutta Moriartyä ei vaan löydy. ”Moriarty oli kuin maan alle kadonnut.” Onneksi Sherlock eräänä päivänä törmää kadulla erääseen Jooseppi Heikkiseen. Heikkinen tietenkin tunnistaa Sherlockin ja kysyy mitä mies Suomessa tekee. Sherlock kertoo, no Moriartyä tässä etsitään. ”Oletteko kysynyt poliisilta?” kysyy Jooseppi. Kas juuri sitä Sherlock ei ole muistanut tehdä! Siitä vaan suoraan poliisin osoitetoimistoon ja jopas – kunnon kansalaisena Moriarty on kuin onkin ilmoittanut osoitteensa viranomaisille ja heiltä Sherlock saa sen. Holmes menee Moriartyn pakeille, selvittää asiansa ja palaa kotiin. Majesteetti on hänelle suuressa kiitollisuudenvelassa.

Outsiderin jutusta käy ilmi ettei Outsider oikein tunnu tietävän viskistä paljon mitään (vuosikertaviskejä ei ole – no ei ainakaan tuohon aikaan ollut, nythän niitä on alettu markkinoimaan kun single maltteja tehdään vähän joka tarpeeseen ja joka yksittäisestä tynnyristä pitää olla selvyys). No juttu itsessään ei ole vallan huono, mutta aika triviaali, kuten Heporaudan ja Kosti Koskisenkin jutut. Jännä juttu muuten miten kaikki kolme – ja itse asiassa Anonyymikin – pyörivät tiukasti viinahuumorin ympärillä. Itselleni ei ehkä tulisi Sherlockista mieleen viinahuumori, ainakaan ihan ensimmäiseksi. Erkki Arnin Piispa Henrikin paimensauva julkaistiin mielenkiintoista kyllä Helsingin sanomissa jouluaattona 1988 ja siinä Sherlock etsii, yllätys, Piispa Henrikin paimensauvaa. Se ei ole parodia vaan ihan kelpo salapoliisitarina jossa toki voisi olla enemmän joko huumoria tai sitten holmesmaisuutta. Nyt se jää vähän laimeaksi eikä lopun yllättävä ase jaksa kantaa koko juttua kapeilla harteillaan.

Arvi Salmivaaran näytelmästä Sherlock Mopsi voi tyylilajin päätellä jo nimestä. Ja ihastuttavan sekopäinen näytelmä onkin. Parooni Pumpernickel saapuu Sherlockin luokse. Tästä, paroonin suureksi ihastukseksi, Sherlock dedusoi että paroonilla on Sherlockille asiaa. Ja lisää seuraa, panokset kovenevat:

MOPSI: Teillä on salaisuus.
PAROONI: Mi-mitä?
MOPSI: Kuten sanoin, teillä on eräs salaisuus, jota koetatte peittää.
PAROONI: Herra salapoliisi, sanokaa vain! Luulen, että erehdytte.
MOPSI: Salapoliisi Sherlock Mopsi erehtyy harvoin. Te – pidätte – sipulista.
PAROONI: Ooooo . . . Älkää ilmaisko sitä kenellekään. Kuulkaa, ei kenellekään. Pyydän sitä, herra salapoliisi. Älkää, älkää . . .”
MOPSI: Olkaa huoletta. Kun asiat vaativat, niin täällä ei ole mitään. (Koputtaa otsaansa.) Ei mitään.

Vihdoin päästään asiaan. Paroonia vainotaan. Kerran hän löytää rapustaan sateen jälkeen jalanjäljet, mutta myöhemmin ne ovat poissa kuin olisivat kuivuneet. Eräänä päivänä hän huomaa solmionsa olevan vinossa, toisena päivänä hänen palvelijansa pitää tuoda hänelle aamun lehti mutta se on poissa. Ja kaikki huipentuu siihen kun eräs mustaviiksinen mies ojentaa paroonille – niin mitä? Sähkölaskun! Seuraa kaoottista toimintaa mutta lopuksi Sherlock dedusoi mustaviiksisen miehen luultavasti olleen sähkölaskun tarkastaja. Parooni on jo paennut kauhuissaan. Sherlock pistää laskun perään. Another case solved.

Homénin kirjoittama Corpwiethin juttu Kolmannentoista apteekin seikkailu on kirjallisesti, kulttuurihistoriallisesti ja dekkaristisesti vanhojen tarinoiden täysipainoisinta antia. On joulukuu 1914. Yliopiston kirjaston amanuenssi ja herrasmiessalapoliisi Corpwieth on pistäytymässä, elämänsä ensimmäistä kertaa, Pohjois-Esplanadin päässä sijaitsevassa kulttuuriravintola Catanissa (vaikka yleensä viettää mieluummin lauantai-iltansa kirjoituskammiossaan kääntämässä uusinta salapoliisikirjallisuutta). Siihen hänet houkuttelivat Ture Jansonin kirjoittamat Catani-runot joita hänen kollegansa H.N. sai hänet lukemaan. Hän istuu whiskylasillisen ääressä ja polttelee Klubi 7-savuketta, (joku toinen ravintolassa istuja polttelee yruracbat-savuketta: Sherlockin tavoin Corpwieth on tupakkaekspertti ja kykenee tuoksusta tunnistamaan peräti 183 eri sikarilaatua!), kuuntelee kuinka hovimestari Wagner esittelee illan menuuta: pilahvia tai karitsaa tataaritapaan, ja katselee muita. Hän näkee muiden muassa edellä mainitun kirjailija Jansonin ja tämän seurassa karikatyristi Birger Dahlin ja lehtimies Bergmanin. Nauttiessaan ravintolan boheemista ja kansainvälisestä ympäristöstä Corpwieth huomaa kolmen kollegansa Söderholmin, Melónin ja Nässellöfin istuvan hieman syrjäisemmässä nurkassa, seurassaan muuan neljäs mies. Corpwieth ei näe neljännen miehen kasvoja, vain tämän käden: ”Juuri silloin työntyi käsi kohti tuhkakuppia. Se oli valkoinen, laiha, jänteikäs käsi ja se piti lujassa otteessaan piippua, sikäli kuin etäisyys salli arvioida – englantilaista BBB-piippua.”

Kohta Corpwiethin palveluksia taas tarvitaan. Katajanokalla apteekkia pitävä apteekkari tahtoo Corpwiethin selvittämän kuka murtautui hänen apteekkiinsa. Corpwieth matkaa kaupungin halki ja aloittaa tutkimuksensa. Joku on varastanut kokainia ja denaturoitua vettä. Lisäksi kassakone on avattu. Rahaa ei ole viety mutta joku on vaihtanut englantilaista rahaa ja jättänyt varastetusta tavarasta laskun: se on osoitettu Corpwiethille ja määrätty ”hävinneen maks.” Kyseessähän on haaste, selvääkin selvempi haaste. Joku tahtoo päästä selville siitä kuinka hyvä salapoliisi hän oikein on. Kaikki johtalangat ovat selvillä, ei tarvita kuin johtopäätös ja se on Corpwiethille itsestään selvä. Hän suuntaa oitis takaisin Cataniin. ”Vilkaisematta oikeaan tai vasempaan herra Corpwieth käveli suoraan ystäviensä pöytään kaakeliuuninurkkaukseen.” Hän osoitti sanansa miehelle josta oli aikaisemmin illalla nähnyt vain käden: ”Terveisiä Kolmannestatoista apteekista.” Mies ei ole kukaan muu kuin itse Sherlock Holmes. Ja totta kai kotoinen Corpwiehimme peittosi hänet älyjen kaksintaistossa. Watsonille ei tästä jutusta kerrotakaan . . . Mutta miten Corpwieth päätteli että apteekkivoro oli Sherlock Holmes? No tietenkin vohkitun kokainin ja veden määristä. Niistä kun tuli seitsemän prosentin liuos eli juuri se mitä Sherlock Holmes aina käyttää!

Kulttuurihistoriallisesti novelli on kiehtova. Catani oli aikanaan suorastaan legendaarinen taiteilijaravintola joka useinkin esiintyy varsinkin 10-luvun flanöörien teksteissä. Cataani muuten taisi sijaita suunnilleen Bensowin talon tienoolla. Novellissa on myös melkein päätä huimaavia metatasoja. Kirjailija Janson, Catani-runoiden kirjoittaja on oikea henkilö. Hänen seurassaan istuvat Dahl ja Bergman eivät ole, he ovat fiktiivisiä ja Jansonin luomuksia. Corpwiethin kollegat Söderholm, Melón ja Nässellöf ovat oikeasti nimeltään Henning Söderhjelm, Olaf Homén ja Emil Hasselblatt eli ne Kolme herraa/Tre Herrar jotka Corpwiethin keksivät ja hänestä kirjoittivat. Corpwiethin esikuva oli kolmen edellä mainitun kollega Yliopiston kirjastosta nimeltä Holger Nohrström – eli tarinan alussa viitteenä esiintynyt Corpwiethin ystävä H.N. Nummelinin esipuheessa Nohrströmiä väitetään yhdeksi Kolmesta herrasta, mikä lienee epähuomiossa sattunut kömmähdys. Väite on silti melkein oikein. Corpwieth-kirjan ilmestyttyä se sai jatkoa. Jatkon kirjoitti muuan Herra C. – joka tietenkin oli Holger Nohrström alias Corpwieth. Tarinassa dekonstruoidaan aikaisempi Corpwieth-novelli ja siinä esiintyvät totta kai Söderholm, Melón ja Nässellöf ja monet muut Kirjaston kollegat kuten esimerkiksi, nimellä Segerroos, nuori Runar Schildt. Vähemmästäkin menee sekaisin.

Vanhojen tekstien lisäksi kirjassa on myös puolisen tusinaa uutta Sherlock-tarinaa. Kovin nimi uusien kirjoittajien kaartissa on tietenkin vanha velmu Boris Hurtta. 60 tynnöriä Jordanvirran vettä alkaa lupaavan hurttamaisesti ja myös Sherlock saadaan mukaan melko omaperäisellä tavalla. Tapahtuu laivalla, Tulenkantajia esiintyy, taide-esineitä varastetaan, taidetaanpa joku murhatakin. Erittäin hyvät ainekset. Jotenkin tarina jää silti yllättävänkin vaisuksi ja ponnettomaksi eikä oikein tee oikeutta kummallekaan: ei Hurtalle eikä Sherlockille.

Väitin joskus ettei Holmes-kaanonissa ole yhteyksiä Suomeen. Olin väärässä ja hoksasin sen melko nopeasti itsekin. Jossakin aivojen syvimmässä osassa alkoi takoa epämääräinen ajatus: suomalaisia merimiehiä! Eräässä tarinassa sivutaan suomalaisia merimiehiä. Mutta missä? Yhtä epämääräisesti pulpahti mieleen erään tarinan nimi: The Five Orange Pips eli Viisi appelsiininsiementä. Ja tottahan toki, sieltähän todella löytyi maininta suomalaisista merimiehistä – joten esiintyhän se pieni ja sisukas maamme Sherlockin seikkailuissa. Tavallaan. Siksi olikin erittäin hauska huomata kuinka Miina Supisen Kirotun purjelaivan tapauksessa esiintyy – suomalainen merimies. Hieno kunnianosoitus.

Jussi Katajalan novellissa Luuta ja Koiranpää Sherlock seikkailee Pariisissa, vuoden 1900 maailmannäyttelyssä ja avittaa murhasta syytettyä Gallen-Kallelaa, ja Juha-Pekka Koskisen tarinassa Lentävän paholaisen arvoitus ollaan jälleen Pariisissa, nyt vuoden 1924 olympiakisoissa ja siellä Sherlock tapaa niin Kekkosen kuin Ritolan kuin Paavo Nurmenkin. Koskisen premissi on suorastaan nerokas mutta hieman kyseenalaistan sen soveltuvuutta Holmes-tarinan pohjaksi. Ja sitä paitsi Pariisin olympiakisojen aikaan vuonna 1924 70-vuotias Sherlock on ollut eläkkeellä kaksikymmentä vuotta, mikä väkisin nakertaa jutun uskottavuutta.

Uusista jutuista nousee minulle kaksi ylitse muiden: Jari Tammen Metsästyspiiska ja Anne Leinosen Sinisen perhosen nainen. Näin siksi että kun Holmes-pastissien lukukiintiöni alkaa jo oikeastaan olla täynnä - oikeastaan ollut jo kauan. Mitä enemmän luen juttuja joissa Sherlock kohtaa jonkun aikansa julkkiksen, oikean tahi fiktiivisen, ja joko auttaa tai ottaa mittaa tästä, niin sitä vähemmän jaksan siitä innostua. Tehty jo. Nähty jo. Sama koskee myös tyylipuhtaita ja Doylen omia tekstejä matkivia yrityksiä. Doyle teki sen jo ja teki sen paremmin – kopiot vain tuntuvat kopioilta eivätkä yleensä jaksa innostaa. Hedelmällisempää on lähestyä aihettaa jotenkin vinosti ja mielellään dekonstruoida myyttiä, tai ainakin yrittää etsiä aiheesta jotakin uutta – uuden lähestymistavan, uuden näkökulman, uuden oivalluksen Sherlockista. Ei helppoa, tiedän, mutta niin ne mielenkiintoisimmat Holmes-tarinat syntyvät.

Tammen Ratsastuspiiska kuuluu sarjaan röyhkeä parodia ja on siinä mielessä sukua vanhoille suomalaisille pastisseille, mutta on niitä huomattavasti mielenkiintoisempi. Tammi liikkuu välillä jopa vaarallisilla vesillä, hyvän maun rajoilla, luultavasti ylittääkin ne, mutta lopputulos on joka tapauksessa riemukas, hauska ja kerrassaan raikas tuulahdus Holmes-pastissien tunkkaiseen maailmaan. Seksiparodioita Sherlockista ei ole liikaa, sen vaan sanon. Mutta mitä pahaa Paasikivi kellekään teki? Anne Leinosen Sinisen perhosen naisessa Watson ei olekaan tuntemamme Watson. Tarina sijoittuu jonnekin nykyaikaan ja Watson on Turun kirjamessuilla markkinoimassa kirjojaan. Sherlock on hänen kirjallinen luomuksensa. Vai onko sittenkään? Ja mikä mies se Watson pohjimmiltaan on? Naseva, hyytävä, yllättävä ja mehukas fantasiamurhamysteeri jonka Leinonen on saanut pakattua hämmästyttävän lyhyeen tekstiin.

Harmi muuten ettei kokoelmaan eksynyt, kirjoittajakunnasta huolimatta, yhtään scifitekstiä. Hieman yllättävää jopa. Sellaiselle olisi ollut tilaus.

Hoist by One's Own Petard

2010-06-22T19:10:00.004+03:00

First eerie laughter, then a disturbing voice whispers menacingly: "The Shadow knows!" And then some more chilling laughter.

This is how the ripping 30's radio serial The Shadow begins. The formula is quite simple but effective. Usually there is a trial and an innocent man is found guilty of something he didn't do. But not to worry, the Shadow is on the case. The Shadow is the secret identity of rich playboy Lamont Cranston, and the police don't quite know on which side of the law he operates. He will track down the guilty and see that justice is done. Not the law necessarily, but justice. He reminds me a bit of the really early Batman who had both the gangsters and the coppers after him.

The Shadow is in fact one of the earliest super heroes - he can both become invisible and read minds. This makes him perhaps just a little too superior, I mean he just can't loose, can he? Not against ordinary villains, anyway.

The invisibility and mind reading gives it almost a flavour of science fiction, or at least a tinge of the Gothic.

At the end of each episode The Shadow repeats: "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows," or some variant thereof, followed by a sample of the menacingly ironic trademark laughter.

I've by no means heard more than a tiny fraction of the episodes but the writing is fairly good, the acting convincing and the production values high for the times. What makes the episodes I've heard from 1938 very interesting indeed is that the Shadow/Lamont Cranston is played by none other than the velvety-voiced and quite indecently young Orson Welles, and the same year he made The War of the Worlds to boot.

Welles did in fact make an awful lot of radio appearances on top of his own Mercury and Campbell Playhouse productions. His own productions tended to be cultured and erudite and often adaptations of the classics of literature and stage (though by no means always), while his other radio work was basically just for money. Most of it is probably forgotten, but apart from The Shadow there is another series that is well worth mentioning: The Adventures of Harry Lime. In this British series made in '51 and '52 Harry Lime, who dies in the sewers of Vienna in Carol Reed and Graham Greene's film The Third Man, narrates his amoral exploits and rascally deeds prior to Vienna with appropriate charm, wit and cynicism. The scripts are usually good or at least adequate, some were even written by Orson Welles himself - but who cares, really, it's Orson Welles as Harry Lime! Don't get much better than that.

Mostly Harry's duplicitous schemes are foiled, but occasionally he does get away with the loot. Often he fails because he's not as clever as he thought, not quite. Or maybe he's just thrown when somebody acts, well, disgustingly honestly. Now how's a fellow supposed to foresee that happening?

The Shadow inspired another superb series called The Whistler. The Whistler is not the hero but the narrator who gently and sometimes gleefully mocks the futile aspirations of the protagonists. They will fail. That is the concept. They will try to pull off something devious and oh so clever, but it always backfires and everything goes horribly awry. And the villain finds himself the victim of his own crime.

The theme is otherworldly, then someone whistles in a ghostly and terrifying manner. "I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes ... I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak."

A typical episode might go something like this: one twin is engaged to a charming man, the other isn't. The other is jealous and kills her sister, makes it look like suicide. And here's the clincher - she puts her own clothes on the corpse, making everyone think it is she who's dead. Then she assumes the dead sister's role. She gets ready to marry the lovely man with whom all along she's been in love. The man starts acting strange. Turns out the man is in fact an escaped convict whom the sister's been blackmailing all the time. The man kills her because he doesn't want her to spill the beans - quite unnecessarily, of course, because she doesn't even know anything about his secret. And wouldn't have betrayed him in any case as she really was in love with him.

Or like this: a man picks up a drunken girl and escorts her home. Turns out she's a stinking rich heiress. He marries her in order to swindle her and take her money. After they're married she makes a painful confession. She isn't rich at all. She hasn't got a dime. Well he's not working nor does he intend to start, so they're right on their uppers. He decides to kill her for the insurance. It all goes perfectly and he's bought himself a good solid alibi at a bar. And the cops have a suspect. Turns out it's the killer's old friend in whom he's confided. The friend's come to the apartment to stop the murder. The killer says he doesn't know him and the friend sings to the cops. And then the killer's alibi falls apart, the barman thought it was a gag to deceive the killer's wife, not the cops, so he won't perjure himself. So the cops throw the killer in the slammer for killing his wife. And the twist? The friend came over to tell the killer something about the wife. No need to kill her after all, she really is stinking rich, the being poor shtick was just a test to see if he truly loves her. Bummer.

The scripts are rather beautifully crafted and the twist ends quite surprising, even when one expects them. The writing is noticeably better than on The Shadow (but that could be just the more restrictive formula). The actors are fine and the narrator's irony delicious.

In the episodes I've heard from 1944 there are in fact quite interesting messages from the sponsors about car battery maintenance (during the war there were restrictions so one could never drive quite enough to charge the battery), paper recycling (wood pulp was needed for gun powder - alas and alack, woe is the the pulp magazine!) and the game Salvo with which the sponsor supplied the armed forces. But otherwise the bits about the sponsor are repetitive, trite and deadly dull.

The Whistler ran for over a decade so there were a lot of episodes produced. And, fortuitously, a lot of them can be found on the net. Oh, bliss and blissfulness!

Huxley Speaks

2010-06-09T15:14:00.014+03:00

The BBC went through their archives and found tapes on which Aldous Huxley gives talks and is interviewed. There weren't that many of them, only about 75 minutes all in all - in fact just perfect for a CD.

So they put one out. It's called Aldous Huxley - The Spoken Word. It's a true delight.

The first surviving radio broadcast is from 1934 and in it a terribly terribly earnest and young (well, he is forty, not perhaps quite that young then, but fairly youngish anyway) and erudite Huxley speaks about the causes of war in a frightfully cultured and perhaps a slightly affected voice (but I do suppose just about any voice from those days sounds at least a bit affected and strange - in the later broadcasts Huxley sounds much more normal). He addresses the psychological causes of hatred and prejudice and that perverse national chauvinism that is the curse of nations everywhere - then and now and possibly for all eternity. Can war be stopped? Huxley has certain suggestions. What is quite endearing is that he isn't entirely pessimistic - he treats this as a problem of rationality and logic, something that can solved by applying common sense. Maybe. Possibly.

After the next war he's considerably less optimistic. In 1948 he's again in a BBC studio, this time to discuss his new utopian or rather dystopian novel Ape and Essence. The premise of the book gives it all away. Disaster has struck and wiped away almost the whole of mankind. In the interview Huxley focuses on the dangers of nuclear energy. It doesn't take much of an accident and a great many people sustain harmful mutations that will plight the entire human race for generations and generations. And that's just with a relatively harmless peace time mishap. It doesn't look good, it certainly doesn't. Whither humanity?

In 1958 Huxley appears in both Monitor and The Brains Trust; in the latter with his Nobel Prize winning brother Julian (he had two Nobel Prize winning brothers, actually) answering queries from listeners.

The CD concludes with an interview from 1961, two years before Huxley's death. Huxley discusses his life and writings. He never was supposed to become a novelist but a scientist. That's why he feels a bit of a fraud as a novelist. It never was supposed to be, he was to become a doctor, follow in the footsteps of his famous grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's Bulldog, and brother Julian. Then his eyes went and he was actually blind for a while. A career in science was quite out of the question. So literature it was.

But still, after all the books, a fraud he feels. A novelist, according to him, is someone who's larger than life and reflects this in his books. Someone like Balzac or Dickens or Tolstoy. And someone who is, above all, interested in his characters and their fate and destiny. Huxley is interested in ideas. He echoes a lovely thing Bertrand Russell once said: "How nice it is to know things!" What Huxley loves is to explore ideas, piece together information from different sources and build extensive collages. No wonder that Huxley very early abandoned or at least distanced himself from social satire and tackled the novel of ideas - and, I must point out, utopias and science fiction. Basically almost all of the longer fiction he wrote after the late '20s was science fiction of one kind or another: Brave New World, After Many a Summer, Ape and Essence, Island. This was clearly his approach to fiction and what he saw as important: the truly crucial issues about whether mankind will survive or not.

There is one bitter disappointment. In one of the interviews Huxley debunks a myth - he doesn't habitually travel with a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Blimey! There's me utterly crushed!

He sort of laughed it off when the interviewer asked - it's all become a myth, he claimed, with very little substance. A tale that lives its own life, as tales so often do. It took me a while to trace the claim, but this is what he says in Along the Road - Tales and Essays of a Tourist (1925 - though my copy is of those superbly delightful international Albatross issues, and a bit ominously from July 1939, actually): "India paper and photography have rendered possible the inclusion in a portable library of what in my opinion is the best traveller's book of all - a volume (any of the thirty-two will do) of the twelfth, half-size edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica."

And he goes on: "I never pass a day away from home without taking a volume with me." And: "A stray volume of the Encyclopaedia is like the mind of a learned madman - stored with correct ideas, between which, however, there is no other connection than the fact that there is a B in both . . . "

Charming idea, travelling with an encyclopaedia. Of course, nowadays, it's no longer an issue. Take your laptop and you're laughing. Huxley would have loved it. And hated it.

Podcasting Extraordinaire

2010-06-07T03:37:00.012+03:00

Podcasts are rather superb. For some reason the science fiction community produces a lot of them and many of them are of wonderful quality. My current favourite is Notes From Coode Street with Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe. Listening to these fellows makes one remember exactly why one fell in love with science fiction in the first place. I do enjoy short stories and fiction of any kind, as podcasts I mean. But. Listening to really really knowledgeable conversation on literature and authors is such a rare and sublime pleasure that it tends to hit the sweet spot with an impact rarely achieved by even the best of fiction.

These conversations titillate and make science fiction not only seem relevant but important. Both gentlemen possess a truly inspiring knowledge of the field, such as to awe almost any listener. These conversations, not to put too fine a point on it, are nothing short of cultural history.

The latest podcast kicks off with Frederik Pohl and his relevance to the genre both as a pro writer and as one of the original fans, touches on Robert Silverberg and Philip José Farmer, moves on to the Big Three (Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein), segues a bit into jazz and Miles Davis and, well, franchise. People want to read what they like. And then they want to read some more of what they like - which is what sells books. Not intellectual or literary quality per se.

What I particularly enjoy about these conversations is the balance between structured content and improvisational riffing. One never quite knows where the conversation will lead but it always is worthwhile and interesting. And it may be off on a tangent but never haphazard - there always is an underlying logic that pulls the entire conversation together and elevates it. That is of course a difficult thing to achieve - unless one really really knows what one is talking about and has rare insight. Like these fellows.

And the amazing thing is that it's all pretty much off the cuff. They just bounce ideas and authors and books off each other and see where it leads. And still it's utterly solid and eminently erudite. Anything these fellows have to say is worth saying. That's because these fellows understand the field as a whole as only few people do. They have knowledge about writing as well as editing and publishing and even marketing. They know the authors and their works, profoundly and intimately. They understand the mechanisms that sculpt and regulate science fiction.

Also, they've met the legends. It's pretty wonderful to hear first hand stories of say Philip José Farmer and Frederik Pohl from people who've had deep and meaningful conversations with them. Cultural history indeed.

Other topics: iPad, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman and Neverwhere, comic books, Shirley Jackson, slipstream. The conversation just takes off in any direction. Which is simply delightful.

Wonderful story in the podcast: Peter Straub wrote a comic book and was introduced, at a comic book convention, very apologetically, as a writer of prose novels! (That being a bit embarrasing really.) This simply to illustrate that franchise is far more important than authors.

These podcasts last an hour or so. They seem much shorter. That's because one gets so mesmerised by them that time just flies. Which is a good thing because really to get everything out of them one has to listen to them at least a couple of times. Otherwise a lot of important stuff just passes one by.

House of Pain

2010-06-03T16:30:00.010+03:00

Erle C. Kenton's Island of Lost Souls (1932) is quite completely Charles Laughton's movie. Laughton plays Dr. Moreau from the famed Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and, well, to be honest, everything else seems rather trivial.

Laughton is a funny actor. He's filled with the most fertile incongruity and downright dichotomy. He's plump and even porky, yet he seems eminently graceful. He has the looks of a butcher or a dustman, yet there's something delicate and slightly effeminate about him. He's by no means handsome in any sense of the word, yet his features are positively distinguished and sometimes almost beautiful. He's evidently working class, yet he's the consumate aristocrat. He looks fundamentally weak, yet he can muster up the most choleric and sadistic force one may imagine. In the movie he's got tiny porcine eyes and an elegant version of Hitler's moustache (it being only '32 this may be a serendipitous coincidence). What he really looks like is an overgrown child, a cunning and rather naughty schoolboy who's been up to no good behind the master's back. One never knows where one is with him. Which of course is very good, it keeps his performances fresh and surprising.

The beginning of the movie follows the novel fairly faithfully with our castaway hero getting rescued on the high seas and then abandoned on Moreau's island. The deviation from the original begins with the introduction of the romantic element, of course, it being a movie. This is, however, not done entirely without interest. The creatures Moreau has created or transmogrified are all male. All, that is, except one - a superbly beautiful and exotic creature who was once a leopard. Now Moreau wishes to see just how much of a woman she is, just precisely how human. This he intends to find out by trying to concoct a romance between her and our hero.

Oh the glib look on his face when he comes up with the idea, the glee, the absolutely naughty delight he takes from the idea, like it was a boyish prank instead of scientific exploration. Maybe his entire career in science stems from the self-same motive. He's been told he can't do something, so obviously that is precisely what he does want to do.

Another remarkable performance is Bela Lugosi's amazingly hirsute Sayer of the Law, one of Moreau's unhappy creatures and creations, possibly a monkey of some kind in his previous life. It is his function to recite or chant echoingly The Law unto his brethren as Moreau wields his lethal whip. "What is the Law?" "Not to eat meat, that is The Law. Are we not men?" "What is the Law?" "Not to spill Blood, that is The Law. Are we not Men?" And the emotional climax comes when he, with such an animal howl as would break even the coldest of hearts, utters the crushing phrase: "This is the House of Pain." If anyone thought that Lugosi is rubbish as an actor, this single line disproves any such belief with a vengeance. The amount of emotion, pain, grief, anguish and sheer terror he manages to cram into a single line is simply beyond belief. And, I may add, without sounding the slightest bit silly or phony or theatrical - which sometimes is something of a problem with him. Well, ah, fairly often actually.

The House of Pain is Moreau's laboratory or surgical theatre where he performs his scientific wonders, puts his animals under the knife and elevates beast into man, sort of. Moreau's creatures shun his whip, but what they are mortally afraid of is The House of Pain - the memory of which lingers with them constantly as the ultimate nightmare come true. The island is Moreau's own private little Heaven where he can do anything he pleases. For his creatures it is nothing but a purgatory. Maybe even a living Hell. But it's all fun and games for Laughton's Moreau. The smugness of the man is amazing, the insolence quite breathtaking. He even has the gall to call his laboratory an experimental place for Bio-Anthropological research.

Of course it all goes belly-up. Our hero's fianceé turns up on the island and the creatures go a bit funny in the head. It drives a few of them almost over the edge. Moreau suddenly realises that he could use this new girl in his experiments and tells one of his creatures to kill the captain of the ship she arrived on, thus taking care that she can't escape the island and her gruesome fate in the hands of the Doctor (I say - why are all the nastiest movie villains Doctors? - just a thought).

But when Moreau sets one of his creatures on the captain he breaks his own Law. "Law no more," the creature announces as he throws down the captain's lifeless corpse in the village of Moreau's hapless victims. And the look in Laughton's eyes when he hears the rumble from the village - unadulturated joy and the downright ecstasy. His little plan worked, isn't he the clever one? "They're quite out of hand tonight," says Moreau lightly. Little does he know.

But, the creatures surmise, if they can kill one man, the captain, why can't they kill another man - Moreau? Why indeed? The Law no longer applies.

With his whip Moreau goes out to sort it out. But the creatures won't settle down. "You made us things. Part men, part beasts," Sayer of the Law says. Upon which the creatures fall upon Moreau. He escapes but not far. In the end the creatures get him in The House of Pain. Revenge is sweet. Well, not for Moreau it isn't. Our hero and his girl escape.

Fairly simple and straightforward. Wouldn't be much to write home about if it weren't for Laughton and Lugosi. They make the movie.

Yellow Peril

2010-05-31T16:14:00.002+03:00

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), directed by Charles Brabin, is perhaps the best of the Fu Manchu movies. The part of the naughty Doctor is played by Boris Karloff. He is the second Fu Manchu, the first being Warner Oland, the Swede who for some reason Hollywood liked to see as an Oriental. I wonder if that's why Karloff sounds rather more like an educated Swede or Norwegian than a Chinese, a bit like the distinguished Bergman actor Max von Sydow now that I come to think of it. His equally nasty (but infinitely seductive and desirable) daughter is played by a very young Myrna Loy. For some inexplicable reason Hollywood also saw Myrna Loy as an Oriental in the early stages of her career, before the golden age with William Powell and The Thin Man.

Nearly all Oriental roles are manned by Westerners. Well all the important roles. In those days one simply couldn't have an Oriental playing an important part. That's why Warner Oland played Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, and another Scandinavian, Gale Sondergaard, cornered the market on Asian women. People weren't ready for authentic Asians playing Asians. Not that there was an abundance of Asian actors in Hollywood at the time, but there were a few. Very rarely did they get any important roles.

It was also a legal question. Anna May Wong was frequently up for parts - parts for which there was no way she could have been hired. Why? Because the parts involved romance, interracial romance. Love between an Asian Woman and white man. It was against Californian law for a white man and an Asian woman (and, of course, also vice versa) to kiss on screen. Therefore the Asian part had to be played by a white woman. This is why Anna May Wong always lost the parts to Gale Sondergaard.

This is also why Wong relocated to Europe, where legislation didn't make her work and carreer quite impossible. (Another reason was the law that forbade her to marry - Asians and whites could not marry one another.) It was, however, when she returned to Hollywood, possible for her to be the Chinese General's object of lust in Sternberg's Oriental Express, even though the General was played by a white man - again the Swedish Warner Oland (born Verner Öhlund in Västerbotten). But then again, there was no kissing, the General merely raped her.

But I digress.

In The Mask of Fu Manchu Nayland Smith tells a professor that he must find the mask and sword of Gengis Khan before Fu Manchu does, otherwise Fu Manchu will use them to unite all Asians and crush the white race and take over the world. The swine. The professor prepares an expedition but is kidnapped by Fu Manchu's minions in the British Museum. Fu Manchu tortures the professor but the professor refuses to divulge his knowledge to the terrible Doctor. The expedition continues without him, and using the professor's notes they find the relics.

Fu Manchu uses the professor's life as a pawn. Bring the mask and the sword or else -

The professor's daughter's fiancé takes them to him, but the sword is a fake. Where is the real one? Fu Manchu uses hus super science powers (he is after all a doctor - a triple doctor in fact!) and makes a potion that reduces the fiancé to a mindless slave that Fu Manchu can control from afar. The fiancé goes back, betrays the espedition and returns with the genuine relic. Thereby much pleasing Fu Manchu's daughter who's got her eye on him. Fu Manchu let's her have him as her toy.

But Nayland Smith is on the case. He traces Fu Manchu to his secret lair. Fu Manchu catches him and feeds him to the crocodiles. Only the way he does it is far too slow, sadistic and complicated to work so Nayland Smith escapes, rounds up and releases all the other remaining members of the expedition and foils Fu Manchu's evil plan in the nick of time by some nifty lightning work. It looks like Fu Manchu burns to a crisp and gives up his mortal coil. But does he?

In the end our brave white heroes are on an ocean liner on their way back to civilization. They chuck Gengis Khan's sword over board in the middle of the ocean, it's far too dangerous to be kept on display in the British Museum. Once again the white race is saved and emerges victorious. Rah-rah!

There is perhaps too much clumsy studio work in the movie (some of the sets look like, well, lazy sets), and the professor's daughter and her fiancé are pretty horrible to watch, but apart from that the movie works magnificently. Karloff is superb, Myrna Loy delightful, Lewis Stone's Nayland Smith eminently credible and authoritative.

Much of the movie focuses on Fu Manchu or his daughter torturing our heroes and taking base Oriental pleasure from so doing. That might put some viewers off. But as villains go they are absolutely first rate, as nasty and wicked as anyone has any right to expect. And they really use their imagination coming up with new and amusing ways to entertain our heroes - no lazy or substandard torture methods for them, not on your life!

The problem as always with these highly inventive and convoluted methods is that they're far too complicated and the hero always can escape. I remember Wodehouse writing an amusing piece on this: why can't the villain just get on with it and finish the hero off? No, the villain suffers from a bad case of hubris and is so in love with his own superior villainy that he will do literally anything to make it last as long as possible. Preferably while explaining to his captive audience every little dastardly and vicious and devilishly clever detail of his plan.

Which is always a bit of a mistake.

After this there don't seem to have been any Fu Manchu movies for a while and the next Doctor was none other than Christopher Lee. This, unless I'm very much mistaken, was in the sixties.

Udda upplagor

2010-05-27T20:33:00.010+03:00

Inte undra på. Man har försökt få tag i Mr. C:s (alias Holger Nohrströms) lilla bok Den gåtfulle dubbelgångaren (1916) som är en fri fortsättning på herr Corpwieths och hans vänners detektiva äventyr, men boken finns ingenstans att hitta. Orsaken läser jag i Heikki Kaukorantas Corpwieth-förfinskning: bokens hela upplaga var 25 exemplar.

Måtte vara en av landets allra raraste bibliofiliska rariteter.

Men som tur finns den ju i Kaukorantas Corpwieth-översättning. I berättelsen bli Melón åter kidnappad. Det sker på samma sätt som i berättelsen Thomas Melóns äventyr och även gärningsmannen är densamme. Men hur - han är ju död! Söderholm åtar sig fallet. Det ser ut som illgärningsmannen är någon som står mycket nära Melón, kanske rent av någon som jobbar på biblioteket?

Söderholm börjar snoka och finner intressanta saker. Och efter ett par dagar vet Söderholm allt. Han tar med sig Melón till en biograf, Maxim, på Norra Esplanaden. Melónen har aldrig varit på en biograf, aldrig sett en levande bild, dylika nymodigheter bara föraktar han. Söderholm insisterar och underligt nog stöter de i föreställningen på alla de misstänkta. Filmerna börjar spela, och där ser de plötsligt lösningen med egna ögon, helt som Söderholm visste att de skulle. Kidnappningen har nämligen filmats och visas nu som en reklamfilm. Reklam för vad? För julens bästsäljande deckarbok: Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv. Det fanns aldrig något egentligt brott, allt har varit ett skämt på Melónens bekostnad och en vitsig PR-stunt.

Corpwieth förekommer ej alls i berättelsen. Nej, jag har fel. Han förekommer ej i handlingen, men det är ju han som är författaren Mr C.!

Den gåtfulle dubbelgångaren är kanske inte exceptionellt bra som en deckarhistoria men desto intressantare som metafiktion och kulturhistoriskt dokument om Helsingfors anno 1914 och kulturkretsarna kring Universitetsbiblioteket. En av de, till exempel, misstänkta heter Segerroos och öppnar vi upp pseudonymen hittar vi den verkliga mannen bakom namnet och han är ingen mindre än Runar Schildt, som ett tag faktiskt arbetade på biblioteket.

Kaukorantas bok förtjänar för övrigt att bli uppmärksammad. Med sitt grundliga post scriptum och alla de intressanta små detaljer Kaukoranta har fiskat fram är boken helt obligatorisk för den som vill sätta sig in i ämnet Corpwieth. Kaukoranta berättar bland annat att amanuensens arbetstid på den tiden var tre timmar, 12-15. Så de hann nog med lite flanerande också i Espis och på Fazers café. Här har vi gamla kartor, gamla fotografier (bland annat på författarna), adressförteckningar (var protagonisterna bodde när Corpwieth kom till), bibliografier, korta biografier, bokens samtida recensioner - till och med det brev som bibliotekets chef Schauman skrev för att sätta stopp för suspekta corpwiethska aktiviteter hos yngre amanuenser. Och sedan har till och med ett irriterat brev från Watson till Schauman, publicerat i Åbo Underrättelser. Fenomenalt, måste man säga.

En rolig liten detalj som jag la märke till. Melón och Corpwieth träffas framför Akademiska bokhandeln på Alexandersgatan och fortsätter till Maxim på Norra Esplanaden 39. Maxim gav vika för Kino-Palatsi, som i sin tur 1965 gav vika för - Akademiska bokhandeln! Lustiga små sammanträffanden.

En annan rar bok som jag försökt få tag i är Axel Gabriel Ingelius Det gråa slottet från 1851. Kanske landets tidigaste spökroman. Ingelius var ursprungligen komponist men fick aldrig någon framgång. Sedan blev han musikkritiker och författare. Hans andra mera kända verk är teaterromanen Heinolablomman. Eftersom Det gråa slottet inte fanns att hitta fick jag nöja mig med Ingelius första bok Granriskojan från 1849 i, hör och häpna, originalupplaga. Och ännu från stadsbiblioteket. Av det lilla jag läst i boken verkar den, hmm, något sentimental och melodramatisk. Hoppas på spöken eller ens något intressant. Får se.

Ingelius dog för övrigt redan som 46-årig på ett lite snopet sätt. Efter en fest verkar han på hemvägen ha gått lite vilse och förfrusit sig. Henry Parland däremot dog redan som 22-åring 1930 i Kaunas. Honom har jag på sistone läst mycket. Dikter, essäer, men framför allt kortprosa. Det visar sig nämligen att en hel del av hans noveller och prosafragment mycket väl kan klassas som science fiction eller fantasy. De bästa styckena påminner en om Franz Kafka och Jorge Luis Borges, vilket då inte är alls illa. Särskilt när man beaktar hur ung Parland var när han skrev dem och även det att han inte nödvändigtvis hann stilisera eller ens slutföra alla texter.

En annan sak är fullständigt häpnadsväckande. Parland skrev på svenska. Men det var ju inte alls hans modersmål. Hemma talade han tyska, med tjänstefolket talade han ryska, när de flyttade till Finland lärde han sig finska. Det var först när familjen flyttade till Grankulla som han lärde sig svenska, som sitt fjärde språk.

Vilken produktion gick vi inte miste om när han avled så tidigt som han gjorde. Skulle han ha fortsatt med fantastik eller börjat skriva deckare? Eller något helt annat, till exempel filmmanus? Omöjligt att säga. Intressant skulle det i varje fall ha varit. Och eftersom hans lilla poetiska drömlika fantasyberättelser är det finaste han presterat inom prosan så vore det knappast omöjligt att han skulle ha, på ett eller annat sätt, fortsatt att odla denna del av sin litterära trädgård - den som gav de härligaste frukterna.

Skulle för övrigt inte vara så dumt med en ny upplaga av hans kortprosa. Nu har vi ju endast Den stora dagenefter från 1966. Vore nog dags.

Tricky Dick

2010-05-23T18:41:00.000+03:00

Oh dear.

Laurence Olivier as Richard III.

Oh dear, oh dear.

I am of course talking about the 1955 film Richard III, directed by Olivier himself. His third and last Shakespearean film as a director, in fact - the two previous ones being Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948).

Not only is Olivier's Richard hunchbacked, he's got a withered arm, an embarrasingly gammy leg and a nose next to which Pinocchio would feel positively inadequate. All of which I'd be fairly ready to accept - if it weren't for his voice. Oh dear, his voice, his unfortunate falsetto. The moment he speaks I'm ready to call it quits. Goodbye and good night. His voice is shrill, smarmy, hammy and sounds like he was neutered no more than half an hour ago. And not by a physician but an inept vet. With a dull and rusty farm implement. (Which, of course, would explain a lot.)

I've seen the movie decades ago, in my childhood (I remember the Malmsey butt vividly), but I didn't suspect it was this dreadful, this dismal, this . . . well . . . campy. Isn't Olivier supposed to be one of the foremost Shakespearean actors of the century? A super thespian? Here he seems mostly like a village idiot. There are good moments. At times Olivier quite forgets to act and then he's quite splendid, one believes him and buys his character. But then he remembers who he's supposed to be and lays it on twice as thick. Oh dear.

The problem is that the film is directed by Laurence Olivier. Any other director would have told him to stuff it. Shape up or ship out.

This, to put it kindly, is not movie acting. It may be theatre acting (though I sincerely hope it isn't, in fact I can't believe it could be, not hardly) but it certainly isn't movie acting. Now I must admit that I had my doubts about Olivier's Hamlet (the movie), which I found vastly overrated and full of cheap trickery, but compared to this it was absolutely bloody brilliant. A magnificent work of art. This drivel I have trouble watching five minutes without pausing.

The way Olivier delivers his lines is not only annoying, it's also distracting. Very rarely do I catch what he actually says because all my attention is on his funny delivery or how he snivels and crouches while delivering his lines.

So the problem, really, is this: Olivier is neither a director nor a film director. What he's interested in is his role. And now, for once he can do whatever he pleases. Nobody can say no, however much he hams it. So hams it he does. With a vengeance.

"A horse a horse my kingdom for a horse." Without ghastly pauses or artificial inflections. Which is what the dreadful hams learn to say without too much histrionics in a hospital for hams in Monty Python's Flying Circus. But only when they're cured of their terrible, debilitating affliction.

Ok. I shan't mince words. I'll come right out with it. I don't particularly care for Olivier's Richard III. So there.

Olivier's performance diminishes Richard. His Richard is shallow, a man of mere thin cardboard, without dimensions or any redeeming features at all; just slithery and slimy. He is, in fact, nothing more than cartoon villain. This of course simply won't do. It not only diminishes Richard but diminishes the entire play, reducing it to a pulpy historical sopa opera instead of a historical tragedy.

In order to work the play needs a Richard with a degree of greatness in him, with a touch of nobility even, and above all with humanity. If he's all villain we loose interest in him and the play, or in this case, film. The more human Richard is, the worse his villainy. Because then we can take him seriously - indeed have to - and his villainy becomes real and tangible and meaningful. Instead of just being mildly amusing soap opera with a nasty cardboard baddie performing his wicked antics.

I don't mean we should have a Richard who doesn't take pleasure from his wickedness. We shouldn't. That's part of him. But he shouldn't be ridiculous. His impediments shouldn't be accentuated but rather downplayed. They're the stigmata of his evil, yes, but also in part the reason for his twisted soul. He is like that because he was born different and had to struggle to be accepted. I'd have Richard act as normally as possible because that would be the greatest deception of all. Richard playing a normal man.

I stated that Olivier's Richard certainly isn't movie acting. I may be wrong there. Olivier's Richard, now that I come to think of it, would have been rather terrific in a silent movie.

But when it comes to talkies I infinitely prefer Ian McKellen's Richard. Grotesque? Yes. Human? Absolutely. Credible? Eminently so.

But Olivier's Richard? Off with his head.

Herr Corpwieth

2010-05-21T14:45:00.004+03:00

Klockan 9.56 på aftonen sker det. Herr Corpwieth ser den bleka, seniga handen när han sitter på Catani och dricker whisky.

Det brukar han sällan göra, vara ute så pass sent. Hellre sitter han hemma i sitt trevna arbetsrum och översätter detektivromaner. Detektivromanerna är hans stora passion. Dagen är 5.12, en lördag. Året 1914. Staden Helsingfors. Restaurang Catani ligger, om jag inte fullständigt missminner mig, på Södra Esplanaden helt vid Skillnaden (ungefär där Bensows hus idag är eller kanske just bredvid). Orsaken till herr Corpwieths besök i den berömda lokalen är att han på en väns uppfordran läst Ture Jansons Catanipoesi och vill nu själv se restaurangen. Besöket är alltså hans första.

På menyn står det pilaff och lamm på tartariskt vis. Vaktmästaren heter Wagner. Herr Corpwieth röker cigarretten Klubb 7, poeten Ture Janson yruracbat. Herr Corpwieth kan förresten på lukten skilja 183 olika cigarrsorter.

Handen herr Corpwieth ser tillhör en man som sitter med trenne bekanta herrar: herr Melón, herr Söderholm och herr Nässelllöf. Herr Corpwieth kan inte urskilja mannens ansikte. Mannen har en engelsk pipa i handen. Men vem är mannen?

Herr Corpwieth får inte sitta länge ensam. Hans frid störs av en apotekare som behöver hans hjälp. Någon har gjort ett inbrott i hans apotek och stulit kokain. Apoteket är på Skatudden, Lotsgatan 21, och heter det Trettonde apoteket. Gentleman-detektiven herr Corpwieth accepterar uppdraget och listar snabbt ut vem den skyldige är.

När klockan slår tolv är han tillbaka i restaurangen och där konfronterar han banditen. Det är ingen annan än mannen med den vita handen. Och han i sin tur är - Sherlock Holmes!

Holmes är slug - Corpwieth slugare.

Herrarna Melón, Söderhjelm och Nässellöf är egentligen den enigmatiska författartrion Tre herrar det vill säga Olaf Homén, Henning Söderhjelm och Emil Hasselblatt, tre bibliotekarier på Universitetsbiblioteket, och gentleman-detektiven Corpwieth deras skapelse i en av Finlands allra första detektivböcker, novellsamlingen Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv (Holger Schildts förlag, 1914). Boken är inte landets första deckare - Rudolf Rikhard Ruth, med sin tidiga nom de plume Rikhard Hornanlinna (han skrev även tidiga science fiction-berättelser som H.R. Halli), hann före med sina noveller om den ytterst soignerade privatdetektiven Max Rudolph i två smärre häften: Kellon salaisuus, Suomalaisia salapoliisikertomuksia 1 och Lähellä kuolemaa, Suomalaisia salapoliisikertomuksia 2, båda 1910.

Corpwieth är en av de trevligaste skapelserna inom den finländska deckargenren. Hans äventyr är relativt små och hemtrevliga, mysiga, men samtidigt trovärdiga och sitter väl i både miljön och tiden. Man kunde kalla Corpwieth för en hemspunnen Holmes (och Holmes förekommer nästan i varje berättelse, genom diverse syftningar) som tar sig an smärre problematiska fall som berör hans närmaste krets. Som gentleman-detektiv refuserar han naturligtvis varje honorar. Han behöver inte pengar, han jobbar ju på Universitetets bibliotek som amanuens (och har säkerligen privata medel, får man nog anta) och att detektera är enbart hans hobby.

Det särskilt underbara är den precision med vilken författarna beskriver sekelskiftets Helsingfors. För den inbitna helsingforsaren är det helt extatiskt att läsa hur man promenerar på bekanta gator (som ibland bär ett snadigt främmande namn) och bevistar svunna tiders mytomspunna lokaler. Universitetets bibliotek är sig likt men rotundan är nästan splitterny och kallas charmant för Nybygget. Spårvagnarna trafikerar, hornmusiken klingar på Esplanaden framför Kapellet, det dricks kaffe och röks cigarretter på Fazers café. Det finns bilar (även kapplöpningsbilar!) och till och med motorbåtar men dessa nymodigheter är relativt sällsynta och därför naturligtvis anmärkningsvärda. Mycket har ändrats, mycket finns kvar. Corpwieths Helsingfors är överklassens lata, lite sömniga, lindrigt tjechovska stad: det här är trots allt flanörernas galanta tidsålder. Och Helsingfors är en trygg och trevlig småstad lite vid sidan om allt. Brottslingarna är ofta utbölingar från utlandet men kan lika väl vara "en av oss" dvs. ur stadens elit eller societén.

"En kriminalhistoria, låt vara att den är fiktiv, är ett dokument, likaså gott som ettvart annat. Den kan studeras socialt, psykologiskt, artistiskt - hur du vill. Och det bästa av den moderna detektivlitteraturen rör sig i en stimulerande luft av logiska kombinationer, som har något av de matematiska kalkylernas förtunnade intellektualitet", säger herr Corpwieth i novellen Klackarna.

Ett av Corpwieths fall, 639. VII. 5., äger rum på biblioteket - en av böckerna innehåller ett komprometterande brev som kan förorsaka krig mellan Tyskland och Frankrike. Men det gick ju inte an. När bibliotekets ledning fick reda på att personalen fabricerade futtig detektivlitteratur och var fräcka nog att blanda in biblioteket i denna sorgliga men framför allt vulgära aktivitet så satt de genast stopp för det hela. Därför har vi endast en volym Corpwieth på sex noveller. Söderhjelm fortsatte med detektivlitteraturen som Lennart Wikström med Guldgruvan (1916) och Dubbelmannen (1918). Varkendera volym finns på Stadsbiblioteket, alas and alack, så att om dessa texter kan jag tyvärr inte yttra mig. Men Henning Söderhjelm kan vi även tacka för en sak till. Han var nämligen den unge Runar Schildts idol och förebild.

Novellen där Corpwieth och Holmes möts heter Äventyret i trettonde apoteket och avslutar samlingen. Holmes utmanar herr Corpwieth och förlorar. "(. . .) nej jag tror vi inte sända någon rapport till doktor Watson", säger Holmes som i övrigt inte är någon dålig förlorare.

Corpwieth är förresten baserad på en kollega vid namn Holger Nohrström. Nohrström gav ut sin egen deckare 1916: Den gåtfulle dubbelgångaren. Texten hade så klart en anknytning till Corpwieth-berättelserna. Som nom de plume använde han naturligtvis Mr C.

Det förfärliga är att det inga nya upplagor existerar av boken. Det finns originalupplagan från 1914 men därutöver ingenting. En skam! säger jag.

Post scriptum: Radioteatern verkar ha sänt ett par av Corpwieth-novellerna som hörspel år 1986: Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv, och Tomas Melóns äventyr och Herr Corpwieth, gentleman-detektiv, och problemet med den stulna korsetten, i dramatisering av Gunilla Hemming. Dem skulle man bra gärna höra i repris - perfekta sommarhörspel?

Post post scriptum: Corpwieths äventyr förfinskades år 2003 av de trenne herrarnas senfödda kollega på Universitetets bibliotek, Heikki Kaukoranta. I boken finns även, intressant nog, Mr C:s Den gåtfulle dubbelgångaren.

Go West, Young Holmes

2010-05-16T16:16:00.002+03:00

Having been involved recently in a Holmes anthology about Sherlock Holmes in Finland, I naturally picked up its sibling volume Sherlock Holmes in America (edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower) when it caught my eye in my local bookstore.

The authorial line-up was quite promising: Bill Crider, Matthew Pearl, Loren D. Estleman, Jon L. Breen and Steve Hockensmith, among others. Estleman's two Holmes novels pitting Holmes against Mr. Hyde and Dracula were highly influential to me personally when I read them at an early and impressionable age and I thoroughly enjoyed Pearl's recent The Poe Shadow (much more than his earlier The Dante Club), so those two names alone sold the book to me.

Not a bad book, I must say. Of course there were the obligatory Sherlock Meets Somebody Jolly Famous stories - Sherlock did meet Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Davy Crockett's violin (maybe) - but by and large the stories were fresh and interesting.

What I particularly enjoy is when somebody takes Holmes and does something different with him. We've all read the Doyle originals. Nobody does them better than Doyle - so why not try another approach? Surprise me, is my devout hope. Show me a new side of Holmes - or at least Holmes in a new light.

Tall order, I now. Much simpler just to serve cold left-overs.

Some writers pull it off with flying colours. In The Ghosts and the Machine Lloyd Rose has Sherlock and Mycroft in America with their father. They run across a former military gentleman, a colonel who was involved in investigating Lincoln's assassination. Now mister Olcott is a lawyer and he's come to Vermont to look into psychic phenomena and investigate if certain mediums (the Eddy brothers of Chittenden) are genuine or frauds. The young Holmes brothers at once spot the cheat - but strangely enough Olcott is convinced of the authenticity of the Eddys. Why? He's an intelligent man, why does he fall for such an embarrasingly clumsy show? In a wonderful way Rose's story reflects Doyle's own dilemma and the reasons underlying Doyle's belief in the supernatural. And fascinatingly enough Henry Steel Olcott was a real person and the Eddy incident really did occur. Around that time Olcott met a certain Russian lady and together they founded a new society. The lady was called Blavatsky and the society The Theosophical Society.

Olcott, like Doyle, wants to believe because he has to believe. To do otherwise would be too painful. In fact, quite unbearable.

Steve Hockensmith's story brings young Sherlock to America as a member of a theatrical company. Curiously enough, although he has talent and plenty of it, Sherlock really doesn't want any starring roles. Instead he prefers to play supporting roles and blend into the background. Funny, that. The story is based on a notion by Baring-Gould. In Stashower's The Seven Walnuts the sleuthing is done by Doyle's future crony Harry Houdini who believes he can solve a nasty robbery in the theatre by applying Sherlock's methods. As his Watson he has his brother - who incidentally does solve the crime.

Michéal Breathnach's The Song at Twilight tells us about how Holmes comes out of his retirement and infiltrates the Fenians of Chicago. There he meets Birdy Edwards's daughter and complications ensue, also - surprisingly - love. But it cannot last, that much is clear, Holmes may never find that kind of fulfillment. And when he returns to England he's ready to take on the dreaded von Bork as the Irish-American anarchist Altamont.

Almost the most compelling read in the book is a short monograph by Michael Walsh called Moriarty, Moran, and More: Anti-Hibernian Sentiment in the Canon. In it Walsh astounds us: "It is my contention in this brief monograph that Conan Doyle's distaste for his own Irishness, lightly and comically alluded to in the excrepts above, was in reality deep-rooted and far-reaching." Did Doyle hate the Irish? As well as the Irish in himself? Strange idea, but Walsh does indeed prove his point. Is it a mere coincidence that all the nastiest villains in the Canon bear Irish names? I think not. And interestingly enough the prefix mor has dark and disturbing connotations - the land of Mordor. And ultimately murder. Walsh further claims that Holmes's deadliest enemy is none of the aforementioned gentlemen. Oh no. It is a woman: Mary Morstan. She was the real reason Holmes went on his hiatus. Only when she was dead could he return and life in Baker Street with the trusty (in some things) Watson could be resumed. It may be worth noting that Doyle's own mother was called Mary. In His Last Bow Holmes called himself Altamont, which in reality was Doyle's father's name. These are deep waters.

Not at all a bad little collection. Better than one had any right to expect. The truly fascinating stories made it indeed a splendid buy and none of the poorer stories was absolutely dismal.

Sumatran jättiläisrotat – lyhyt johdatus Sherlock Holmes-pastissiin

2010-05-13T23:26:00.002+03:00

Ensimmäinen tarina Sherlock Holmesista, A Study in Scarlet (Punaisten kirjainten arvoitus), ilmestyi vuonna 1887, mutta vasta vuonna 1891 perustetussa Strand Magazine-lehdessä ilmestyneet novellit tekivät Holmesista todellisen kulttuuri-ilmiön. Ei aikaakaan, kun Sherlockille alkoi ilmestyä kilpailijoita, usein sangen huonosti peiteltyjä kopioita kuten Nick Carter tai muunnelmia kuten Doylen langon E.W. Hornungin herrasmiesvaras Raffles.

Varsinaisen lähtölaukauksen Holmes-muunnelma sai teatterista. Amerikkalainen näyttelijä William Gillette otti yhteyttä Doyleen 1890-luvun jälkipuoliskolla (kun Doyle oli viskannut Holmesinsa Reichenbachin putouksilta ja toivonut pääsevänsä eroon riesasta ikiajoiksi) pyytääkseen lupaa teatterisovitukseen. Kansa janosi lisää Holmesia, missä muodossa hyvänsä. Gillette tiedusteli kainosti sopiiko suuri etsivä naittaa. ”You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him”, kuului Doylen välinpitämätön vastaus. Vuonna 1899 ensiesityksensä saanut, Doylen alkuperäisiä tarinoita vapaalla kädellä muuntelevasta romanttisesta näytelmästä, nimeltään koruttomasti Sherlock Holmes, tuli jättimäinen menestys ja se filmattiin useaan otteeseen. Valkokankaan Sherlock Holmes onkin lähes yhtä paljon velkaa Gillettelle kuin Doylelle, ja sitä kautta koko Holmes-kuvamme. Näytelmän jättimenestys auttoi Holmes-ilmiötä kasvamaan entisestään ja toi sen uusien yleisöryhmien ulottuville.

Varhaisimmat kirjalliset pastissit olivat suurimmaksi osaksi parodioita ja oikeastaan ne syntyivät samasta syystä kuin Gilletten näytelmäkin: ihmiset halusivat lukea lisää Holmes-tarinoita ja jollei Doyle niitä rustannut niin joku muu sai sen tehdä. Ilmiö oli yleismaailmallinen ja mukaelmia putkahti esille niin Saksassa, Ranskassa kuin Venäjälläkin – välillä jopa härskisti Doylen nimellä julkaistuna. Aluksi liikkeellä olivat kurjat senttarit, mutta vähitellen, Holmesin saavuttaessa yhä vankemman jalansijan planeettamme kollektiivisessa alitajunnassa, laatu alkoi parantua. Mark Twainin tarinassa A Double Barreled Detective Story (1902) Holmes dedusoi rikoksen kulun loogisesti ja oikeaoppisesti – ja kaiken päin seiniä. Maurice Leblancin Arsène Lupin kohtaa Herlock Sholmésin ensi kertaa vuonna 1907 julkaistussa novellissa Sherlock Holmes saapuu liian myöhään (Suomessa Sholmésista tuli Holmes) ja uudestaan kirjassa Arsène Lupin ja Sherlock Holmes (1908). Lupin vetää totta kai pitemmän korren. Amerikkalaisen humoristin John Kendrick Bangsin veijariromaanissa R. Holmes & Co. (1906) seikkailee puolestaan Holmesin poika (ja Rafflesin tyttärenpoika!) Raffles Holmes. Kotoinen Kolmen Herramme Holmes-novelli vuodelta 1914 on ihailtavan aikainen ja oikeaoppinen esimerkki tyylikkäästä Holmes-parodiasta. Conan Doylen nimellä röyhkeästi julkaistu Aatelinen varas (1918) on pelkkää saksalaista eksploitaatiota ja osa suosittua Harry Taxon-sarjaa, joka syntyi kun saksalainen kustantaja joutui copyright-riitaan Doylen kanssa.

1928 Holmes-kirjallisuudessa alkoi uusi ja merkittävä vaihe. Monsignor Ronald Knox julkaisi artikkelin Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes ja se toimi alkusoittona Holmes-tarinoiden syvällisemmälle ja suorastaan tuiman analyyttiselle tutkimiselle. Alunperin kieli vankasti poskessa kirjoitettu artikkeli tarkasteli Watsonin tarinoita kuin pyhiä kirjoituksia konsanaan ja pyrki selittämään kaikki ”evankelistan” lipsahdukset, kömmähdykset ja ristiriidat parhain päin – osana suurta ja tarkoituksellista suunnitelmaa. Holmes oli jollain tasolla totta ja kaikki Watsonin kirjaamat kertomukset tai ”epistolat” täynnänsä salaisia piilomerkityksiä. Sherlock Holmesista tuli eräänlainen uskonto ja niinpä Knoxin peruina puhumme yhä kaanonista tarkoittaessamme Doylen omia Holmes-tarinoita. Knoxin ansiosta Holmes-tarinat saivat vakavan mutta silti sopivan leikkimielisen lisäulottuvuuden, joka teki niistä enemmän kuin kirjallisuutta.

Lähes uskonnollisessa hurmoksessa pastissimaakarit lähtivät paikkaamaan niitä aukkokohtia Holmesin elämässä, joihin mystis-dualistinen kertoja Doyle/Watson vain viittasi, tai jätti kokonaan mainitsematta, ja tekemään sen tyylinmukaisesti oikein ja äärimmäisellä pieteetillä. Esimerkkinä tyylisuunnasta toimikoon vaikka Richard Lancelyn Greenin 1985 kokoama The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, jonka kirjoittajakunnassa esiintyy niin Knox, varhainen Sherlock-guru Vincent Starrett, Julian Symons kuin Doylen poika Adrian Conan Doylekin. Tämä ääriortodoksinen, etten sanoisi ultrakonservatiivinen vaihe huipentui Adrian Conan Doylen ja John Dickson Carrin yhdessä kirjoittamaan kokoelmaan Ystäväni Sherlock Holmes (1954), jota voitaneen pitää jonkinlaisena virallisena pastissikokoelmana – ja ehkä yrityksenä saattaa pastissimaakarit oikeille raiteille, sillä kerettiläiset nostelivat jo uhkaavasti päätään.

Turhaan. Sherlockianismi alkoi elää omaa elämäänsä, petoa ei voinut enää hallita. Apokryfiset kirjoitukset vain lisääntyivät ja muuttuivat yhä oudommiksi. Jo 1944 Ellery Queen toimitti kokoelman The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, joka esitteli etsivän vähemmän mairittelevassa ja siten siis harhaoppisessa valossa. Doylen perikunnan painostuksesta kokoelma vedettiin markkinoilta.

Sherlock Holmesista oli kuitenkin vuosikymmenten saatossa tullut koko maailman yhteistä henkistä omaisuutta, ei perikunnan sana siinä paljoa painanut. Kun Doyle 1920-luvulla kielsi August Derlethiltä uusien Holmes-tarinoiden kirjoittamisen, Derleth nimesi Holmesinsa Solar Ponsiksi ja kirjoitti kymmenittäin novelleja. (Ensimmäinen kokoelma In Re: Sherlock Holmes – The Adventures of Solar Pons ilmestyi 1945 – ja on Ponsia muuten jokunen juttu suomennettukin!) Useimmat eivät mitään lupia kyselleet. Sherlock kuului kaikille. Ja ainahan voi tehdä kuten Derleth eli nimetä Holmesinsa toisin. Robert L. Fishin Schlock Homes jatkoi varhaista parodialinjaa ja Holmesista tehtiin puujalkavitsejä suoltava sähläri. Kokoelmassa The Memoirs of Schlock Homes: A Bagel Street Dozen (1976) on tietenkin vain 11 tarinaa. Ellery Queen toimi tässäkin tapauksessa tarinoiden pukinsorkkaisena kummisetänä.

Ajan kuluessa Holmes alettiin nähdä uudessa valossa, entistä kokonaisvaltaisemmin, oikeana aitona ihmisenä. Hänen toimintaansa alettin psykologisoida, jokainen luonteenpiirre analysoitiin puhki – kaikille Holmesin eksentrisille maneereille ja poikkeuksellisille ominaisuuksille piti löytää valiidi selitys. Hänet haluttiin suistaa jalustalta ja demystifioida; maallistunut aika kielsi hänen jumaluutensa. Tämä vaihe huipentui (puoliksi suomalaisen) Nicholas Meyerin myyttejä rikkovaan romaaniin Sherlock Holmes Wienissä (1972), jossa Holmes paljastui huumeiden orjaksi, joka harhaisessa mielessään kuvitteli entisen kotiopettajansa Moriartyn olevan hullu rikollisnero: vasta päästessään Wieniin Freudin potilaaksi Holmes pääsi (hyvinkin freudilaisten) neuroosiensa alkuähteille. Radikaalissa esikoisromaanissaan The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) Michael Dibdin vie Holmesin neuroosit ääripisteeseensä: Holmes selvittää Viiltäjä-Jackin tapausta – ja lukija saa kauhukseen kokea kuinka syvällä Holmesin patologinen misogynia oikein istuu!

Yhä enenevässä määrin Holmesista tuli kiinteä osa popkulttuuria ja hänestä kertovat tarinat olivat scifiä tai kauhua: hänestä tuli kulttihahmo, joka otti yhteen muiden kulttihahmojen kanssa. Loren D. Estlemanin Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (1978) ja Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes (1979) pistävät Holmesin kisaamaan Draculan ja herran Hyden kanssa, Robert Lee Hallin romaanissa Exit Sherlock Holmes (1977) Holmes ja Moriarty ovat kloonattuja aikamatkaajia tulevaisuudesta, Manly Wade ja Wade Wellmanin kirjassa Sherlock Holmes and the War of the Worlds (1975) Holmes kohtaa marsilaiset, Fred Saberhagenin The Holmes-Dracula Filessä (1978) Holmes kohtaa Draculan – kuten myös esimerkiksi Saberhagenin Seance for a Vampiressakin (1994). Philip José Farmerin The Adventure of the Peerless Peerissä (1974) Holmes kohtaa Tarzanin, David Stuart Daviesin Sherlock Holmes and the Hentzau Affairissa (1991) Holmes hoitelee Ruritanian kruununperimyskysymyksen järjestykseen ja saman miehen The Tangled Skeinissä (1995) hän kohtaa, vaihteeksi – Draculan. Löytyypä Daviesilta vielä, parin muun pastissin lisäksi, Sumatran jättiläisrotan luontoa valaiseva The Shadow of the Rat (1999) ja samaa aihetta sivutaan Alan Vannemanin romaanissa Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra (2002), jossa Holmes ja Watson kohtaavat jättikokoisia sumatralaisia humanoidirottia. En ole lukenut, mutta kuulemma aika surkea tekele. Sumatran jättiläisrotta lienee muuten pastissimaakareiden lempiaiheita ja siitä on kirjoitettu ainakin puolisen tusinaa romaania ja luoja yksin tietää montako novellia.

Niin novellit. Pastissikokoelmia lienee jo enemmän kuin laki sallii. Ja uutta syntyy jatkuvalla syötöllä, niin kokoelmia kuin romaanejakin . (Pistin Amazonissa hakusanaksi ”Sherlock Holmes” ja tuloksena oli 12 733 kirjaa.)

Eivätkä sherlockiaaniset pastissit suinkaan Sherlockiin rajoitu. Bondejakin kynäillyt John Gardner on kirjoittanut sarjan Moriartysta, kuten Michael Kurlandkin; Quinn Fawcett on kirjoittanut sarjan Mycroftista, kuten H.F. Heardkin; M.J. Trow on kirjoittanut sarjan komisario Lestradesta; Carole Nelson Douglas on kirjoittanut sarjan Irene Adlerista. Laurie R. Kingin sarjassa seikkailee Holmesin (epäkanoninen) vaimo Mary Russell.

Ja onpa itse Arthur Conan Doylekin päässyt seikkailuromaanien sankariksi. Mark Frostin hyytävät kauhupläjäykset List of Seven (1993) ja The Six Messiahs (1995) eivät ole huonoja opuksia, kuten ei myöskään William Hjortsbergin Houdinia ja Poeta yhdistelevä Nevermore (1994) tai vaikkapa Walter Satterthwaitin myösen Doylen ja Houdinin seikkailuja luotaava Escapade (1996). Omaa luokkaansa tässä kategoriassa ovat kuitenkin David Pirien epämääräistä goottilaista kauhua kutkuttavasti värisevät kirjat The Patient's Eyes (2001), The Night Calls (2002) ja The Dark Waters (2004), jotka kuvaavat nuoren lääketieteen opiskelijan Doylen ja hänen opettajansa Joseph Bellin rikoslääketieteellisiä tutkimuksia 1870-luvun Edinburghissa, jossa Doylella on makaaberia kyllä kurssitoverinaan (eikä tämä ole keksitty juttu vaan aivan totta!) varhainen sarjamurhaaja Thomas Neill Cream. Pirie teki materiaalistaan myös erään kaikkien aikojen parhaimman Holmes/Doyle-tv-sarjan Murder Rooms, joka esitettiin täällä meilläkin nimellä Tohtori Bell ja herra Doyle.

Suomalaista lukijaa ei ole sherlockiaanisilla pastisseilla, parodioilla tai muillakaan muunnelmilla pahemmin kiusattu, ainakaan viimeisen puolen vuosisadan aikana. Maurice Leblancia on suomennettu aikojen aamunkoitossa, 70-luvulla julkaistiin kaksi Meyeriä, Adrian Conan Doylen ja John Dickson Carrin kokoelma tuli 90-luvulla (osittainen uusintapainos nimellä Sherlock Holmes ja seitsemän piipun mysteerit vuonna 2010), Gaimanin kerrassaan esimerkillisen nerokas Cthulhu-Holmes-yhdistelmä Vihreiden kirjainten arvoitus saatiin kokoelmassa Aarteita ja muistoesineitä vuonna 2007, ja hännänhuippuna vielä pari Michael Citrinin ja Tracy Mackin nuortenkirjaa Baker Street Irregularseista: Sherlock Holmes ja Baker Streetin Iskuryhmä - Nuorallatanssijan tapaus (2007) ja Sherlock Holmes ja Baker Streetin Iskuryhmä - Noidutun miehen tapaus (2010). Sarjakuvassa Sherlock seikkailee Mooren Kerrassaan merkillisten herrasmiesten liigassa ja Kristian Huitulan albumissa Sherlock Holmes ja vampyyrit (1995), ja seikkaileepa myösen kuunnelmassa: Ylen Radioteatern tuotti 2003 David Zane Mairowitzin radiodraaman Ett kapitalt misstag, jossa Holmes palkataan etsimään Marxin Pääoman kadonnutta käsikirjoitusta.

Hetkonen. Kun puhuin pastisseista niin unohdin suurimman, tärkeimmän ja parhaimman pastissimaakarin. Sehän on tietenkin Arthur Conan Doyle itse! Sherlock Holmes palasi kuolleista mutta ei se enää entisensä ollut, kuten tavataan sanoa. Kaikki postreichenbachiaaniset Holmes-kirjat ovat pastisseja, joissa Doyle, vaihtelevalla menestyksellä, kopioi, matkii ja plagioi itseään. Välillä suorastaan loisteliain tuloksin.

Oli miten oli, tätä kirjaa tarvitaan ja kipeästi – jos ei täyttämään maamme Sherlock-pastissien tyhjiötä (mahdoton tehtävä!), niin ainakin toimimaan laastarina pahimmassa hädässä. Ja novelleissa se Sherlock on aina parhaimmillaan. Niin pastississa kuin originaalinakin.

- Petri Salin -

Jälkisanat Juri Nummelinin toimittamaan Sherlock Holmes Suomessa-kokoelmaan (turbator 2010)

Listening Play

2010-05-05T23:09:00.009+03:00

Sitting by the radio, minding my own business, I quite unexpectedly caught a Finnish version from the 70's of Richard Hughes's radio play Danger. I'd never heard of the play nor of the playwright.

Turned out it wasn't just any play. It was in fact a historical piece - the first radio play ever expressly written for the radio (or at least the one credited for being the first). It premiered in January 1924.

The events of the play take place in a Welsh coal mine, in the dark. What is splendidly brave is that there is no narrator. The situation explains itself, just like the events explain themselves - through dialogue and sound effects.

This is what Hughes wrote in 1956: "Those were the days of the silent film and our "listening play" (as I dubbed it) would have to be the silent film's missing half, so to speak, telling a complete story by sound alone. Yet even the silent film didn't, strictly speaking, rely on pictures only. It used subtitles. Usually there was a sad man thumping appropriate themes on a piano. Some of the grander cinemahouses even employed an " effects man "; he wound a windmachine and pattered peas on a drum for the storm scenes; he accompanied the galloping cowboy with clashing coconut shells. We thought of using a narrator but agreed it would be a confession of failure. No, we must rely on dramatic speech and sounds entirely ... and it had never been done before."

I'm inordinately fond of the idea of the radio play as the silent film's missing half or perhaps complementary piece. There's something truly innovative and bold, conceptually, in this. And there's a delightful symmetry in the idea - the radio play as the silent movie's mirror image. All is, Alice-like, reverse and opposite, topsy-turvy.

In the one it's the eye, in the other the ear. But the silent film cheats, unlike the radio play.

This is how Danger (originally called A Comedy of Danger) begins:
Lights out. An Announcer tells the audience that the scene is a coal-mine.
MARY: (sharply) Hello! What's happened?
JACK: The lights have gone out!
MARY: Where are you?
JACK: Here.
(Pause. Steps stumbling.)
MARY: Where? I can't find you.
JACK: Here. I'm holding my hand out.
MARY: I can't find it.
JACK: Why, here!
(Pause.)
MARY: (startled) Oh! What's that?
JACK: It's all right: it's only me.
MARY: You did frighten me, touching me suddenly like that in the dark. I'd no idea you were so close.
JACK: Catch hold of my hand. Whatever happens, we mustn't lose each other.
MARY: That's better. - But the lights! Why have they gone out?
JACK: I don't know. I suppose something has gone wrong with the dynamo. They'll turn them up again in a minute.
MARY: Oh, Jack I hate the dark!
JACK: Cheer up, darling! It'll be all right in a minute or two.
MARY: It's so frightfully dark down here.
JACK: No wonder! There must be nearly a thousand feet between us and the daylight. It's not surprising it's a bit dusky!
MARY: I didn't know there could be such utter blackness as this, ever. It's so dark, it's as if there never was such a thing as light anywhere. Oh, Jack, it's like being blind!

While Danger is neither a particularly exciting nor deep piece, it is pivotal in its avoidance of that old and tired and hackneyed device: the dreaded narrator, and therefore a pure and unblemished radio drama. The first of its kind.

And most importantly it's a silent movie - made for the radio.

The slightly awkward name Hughes coined for the radio play "listening play" never caught on. Small wonder. But it is exactly what we call a radio play in Swedish: hörspel. Probably a coincidence but still quite intriguing.

Magia nera

2010-05-02T18:30:00.002+03:00

Lukiessani Tex Willerin uusintajulkaisua Mefiston poika tulee väkisinkin mieleen kuinka usein Texissä seikkailut ovat poikenneet yliluonnollisille poluille. Tai no, usein ja usein. Murto-osahan niitä on. Useimmiten Tex kumppaneineen seikkailee täysin tavanomaisten lännenseikkailujen parissa. Silti, ne tarinat jotka minä muistan vuosikymmenten takaa ovat juuri niitä seikkailuja joissa poiketaan tavanomaisen lännenmaiseman ulkopuolelle ja kohdataan perin kummallisia vastustajia.

Mefisto, El Muerto, Proteus. Nämä konnat minä muistan ikuisesti, en niitä tavanomaisia karjavarkaita tai pankkiryöstäjiä, tai sekopäisiä sinitakkeja, tai uppiniskaisia inkkareita jotka ilkeyttään eivät suostuneet valkoisen miehen ikeen alle.

El Muerto oli inha meksikolainen sombreeropää jolla oli kuolleen miehen kasvot ja pisteliään tuijottava kalmankatse ja josta oli vaikea sanoa oliko se kuollut vai elossa. Groteskia kauhukamaa vailla vertaa. Yhä vieläkin sen kuolemaa viestivä naamavärkki herättää kauhunväristyksiä. Mitä konnuuksia se teki, siitä minulla ei ole harmaintakaan aavistusta. Ei sellaisen miekkosen mitään konkreettista tarvinnut tehdäkään, riitti kun se vain oli. Proteus taas vaihtoi jatkuvasti olomuotoaan joten kukaan ei tiennyt miltä se veijari oikeasti näytti. Ja viittaukset antiikin Kreikan kulttuurin tekivät Texin lukemisesta melkein legitiimiä. Tai no, tekihän se ainakin antiikin Kreikan kulttuurista mielenkiintoisempaa kun siihen sitten aikanaan törmäsi. Ja melkein valmiiksi tuttua.

Mefisto oli totta kai kaiken fons et origo. Miekkonen esiintyi jo varhaisimmissa liuskamuotoisissa Tex-julkaisuissa ja herätti silloin suurta kauhistusta. Mutta pelkkä silmänkääntäjähän Mefisto vielä 50-luvulla oli. Ajan myötä Mefiston kauhiat taikavoimat vain lisääntyivät ja kaverista kuoritui aitoa mustaa magiaa esittelevä pahalainen jolla ei tuntunut olevan kuin yksi päämäärä elämässä: nitistää Tex.

Loppu Mefistolle tuli vuonna 1982 julkaistussa lehdessä. Se tapahtui siinä mielessä nolosti että Mefiston kuolema oli puhdas vahinko eikä Texilläkään ollut siihen mitään osuutta - selvä tyylivirhe ja suorastaan alokasmainen moka. Siinä vaiheessa en enää tainnut Texiä lukea, intellektuelli kun olin ja vierastin kaikkea epä-älyllistä (mutta sittemmin olen parantanut tapani). Siksi en tiennytkään mitään Mefiston pojasta ennen kuin luin käsillä olevan tuorehkon uusintajulkaisun.

Melko vaisu otushan poika on - varsinkin hurjaan isäänsä verrattuna - ja äkkiä Tex hänestä tekee selvän (tai no, jälleen käsikirjoittajan ote lipsuu ja hän antaa Mefisto juniorin päätyä sivuhahmojen lopettamaksi), mutta seikkailu ei ole tyystin vailla mielenkiintoa. Voodoota harjoitetaan ja zombieitakin luodaan, mutta eihän nämä elävät kuolleet mitään Texin pyssylle pärjää. Mefisto itsekin palaa rajan takaa kiusaamaan Texiä mitä moninaisin harhautuksin. No, ainakin yrittää. Tietäähän sen kuinka siinä lopulta käy. Mefiston poika on kyllä taitava maagikko ja kykenee taikavoimillaan yhteen jos toiseenkin konnuuteen: muuntamaan kuolleen zombieksi, matkaamaan muihin ulottuvuuksiin ja toisiin maailmoihin, ja jopa keskustelemaan avaruusolentojenkin kanssa. Hän kykenee saamaan aikaan hallusinaatioita matkojenkin päähän ja hallusinaatiot muuttuvat oikeiksi hirviöiksi: käärmeiksi, gorilloiksi, merihirviöiksi. Texiin ja kumppaneihin eivät hirviöt pääse kajoamaan sillä heillä on ranteissaan hopeasta ja turkoosista valmistetut maagiset ranneekkeet joiden intiaanitaika hylkii mustaa magiaa.

"Niin, poikani. Olen sinuun oikein tyytyväinen, mutta vielä tyytyväisempi olen sitten, kun olet tehnyt työsi loppuun", lausuu Mefisto pojalleen Tuonelasta. "Täällä on monia silmiä, jotka malttamattomasti odottavat näkevänsä Willerin ja hänen ystäviensä suistuvan ikuiseen pimeyteen . . . ja kun se tapahtuu, kaikkien heidän kätensä kautta kaatuneiden riemunhuuto kaikuu kuin valtava jyrinä, joka kohoaa syvyyksien kuilusta niin, että mustan enkelin valtaistuinkin vapisee!" Hurjaa menoa!

Yksi kaikkien aikojen suosikkiseikkailuni Vihreä kuolema julkaistiin aikoinaan Texin numerossa 4/1971 ja siinä Tex kohtaa Maahan pakkolaskun tehneen ja kultakaivoksen uumeniin piiloutuneen avaruusolennon joka aiheuttaa sädeaseellaan tuhoa ja kauhua intiaanien ja kaivosmiesten parissa. Olio ahnehtii aluksensa polttoaineeksi outoa ja ihmiselle vaarallista kiveä (uraania?) jota on pistänyt intiaanit louhimaan. Omistin harmi kyllä vain seuraavan numeron jossa tämä täysin vertaansa vailla oleva seikkailu päättyi ja alkoi toinen - aivan yhtä kutkuttava: Kaulankatkoja! Siinä puhuva gorilla ratsasti hevosella ja katkoi päitä suunnattomalla machetella tahi sapelilla ja katosi aina hirmutöidensä jälkeen kuin maan päältä. Voiko Tex-seikkailu tästä enää parantua? Ei voi! Näin makaaberi idea ansaitsisi jo sarjakuvataiteen Nobel-palkinnon! "Aina kun se paholainen kumisuttaa rumpuaan, se on merkkinä uudesta uhrista." Ja tietenkin asiat menivät juuri niin kuin tapaavat mennä - minulla ei ollut lehden seuraavaa numeroa joten en koskaan saannut tietää miten tässä jännärissä kävi ja millä keinoin Tex sapeligorillan taltuttaa. Eikä lehteä löytynyt vaikka vuosia etsin.

Vaan onneksi näistäkin tuli uusintajulkaisut ja yli 30 vuotta vaivannut asia saatiin päätökseen ja sain vihdoin lukea sekä Vihreän kuoleman alun että Kaulankatkojan lopun. Aaah autuutta. No, ei se Kaulankatkojan seikkailu päättynyt ihan niin ihastuttavasti kuin lupaava alku oli antanut odottaa: "Hmm . . . Asia ei olekaan aivan niin kuin olin ajatellut. Kyseessä ei olekaan rikollinen, joka käyttää välikappaleenaan opetettua gorillaa . . . vaan tunnoton murhaaja, joka käyttää gorillannahkaa naamionaan!" Syyllinen oli seonnut Borneossa ja nyt "äänet" käskivät hänen etsiä heille veriuhreja. "Minun on pakko! Siitä pitkästä kuoleman yöstä lähtien viidakon 'ääni' on antanut minulle käskyjään. Mitä pimeämpi yö sen voimakkaampi 'ääni'. Lopulta se on hirvittävää karjuntaa . . . ja silloin minun on pakko lähettää musta pyöveli yöhön etsimään uutta uhria kuoleman jumalattarelle." Kiistaton klassikko silti.

Vai olisiko suosikkini sittenkin se paria vuotta myöhemmin julkaistu seikkailu jonka nimeä en kuollaksenikaan muista mutta jossa meteoriitti putoaa erämaahan ja sen jälkeensä jättämästä kraaterista paljastuu outoa tuhoa ja säteilevää kuolemaa? Taisi olla periaatteessa Vihreän kuoleman jalostettu uusioversio, mutta ilman avaruusolentoa. Tämän hyvin scifistisen jutun yksityiskohdat ovat minulta unohtuneet mutta jännä oli! Ja kauhia kerrassaan!

Täytyykin etsiä se käsiin, siitä ei nimittäin kirjallisuus enää parane.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Deutero-Watson

2010-05-01T15:03:00.013+03:00

Deutero-Watson is, according to Ronald Knox's famous essay, a false Watson.

"Any studies in Sherlock Holmes must be, first and foremost, studies in Dr. Watson. Let us treat at once of the literary and bibliographical aspects of the question. First, as to authenticity. There are several grave inconsistencies in the Holmes cycle. For example the Study in Scarlet and the Reminiscences are from the hand of John H. Watson, M.D., but in the story of ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip,’ Mrs. Watson addresses her husband as James. The present writer, together with three brothers, wrote to ask Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for an explanation, appending their names in the proper style with crosses after them, and an indication that this was the sign of the Four. The answer was that it was an error, an error, in fact of editing. ‘Nihil aliud hic latet’, says the great Sauwosch, ‘nisi redactor ignoratissimus.’ Yet this error gave the original impetus to Backnecke's theory of the Deutero-Watson, to whom he assigns the Study in Scarlet, the ‘Gloria Scott’, and the ‘Return of Sherlock Holmes’. He leaves to the Proto-Watson the rest of the Memoirs, the Adventures, the Sign of Four and the Hound of the Baskervilles. He disputed the Study in Scarlet on other grounds, the statement in it, for example, that Holmes’s knowledge of literature and philosophy was nil, whereas it is clear that the true Holmes was a man of wide reading and deep thought. We shall deal with this in its proper place." So he writes in his groundbreaking 1911 essay Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes.

Many Deutero-Watsons around today. But a fair amount of Holmesian literature today makes do without any Watson whatever. This is simply because the books aren't about Holmes at all, thus neither Proto-Watson nor Deutero-Watson can act as their narrator.

Are these books Sherlockian at all? Probably not. Holmesian, then? Maybe, possibly. They do after all stem from the source and are the branches of the same tree. Or often not even branches, mere twigs.

The best known example is Laurie R. King and her novels about Mary Russell, the young woman who meets and eventually weds the retired Holmes, a man old enough to be her grandfather, and then starts solving crimes. Fairly odd twist that, The Great Detective with a female Watson (I bet monsignor Knox never saw that one coming) and a crimesolving missus. For some strange reason I've never read any of the Mary Russell books. I don't mind the uncanonical matrimony, actually I find it delightfully heretical, and even Doyle himself didn't mind in the slightest when he gave Gillette permission to marry off Holmes, it's just that I've never come across any of King's Holmesian books. Which is, also, quite remarkable as they cannot be too hard to find. There are ten books: The Beekeeper's Apprentice (1994), A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995), A Letter of Mary (1997), The Moor (1998), O Jerusalem (1999), Justice Hall (2002), The Game (2004), Locked Rooms (2005), The Language of Bees (2009), and lastly The God of the Hive (2010).

Mary Russell may be Mrs. Holmes but Irene Adler is and always shall be The Woman in the canon. So or course she must have books written about her. This task has fallen on the shoulders of Carole Nelson Douglas who's written a whole series: Good night, Mr Holmes (1990), Good Morning, Irene (1990), Irene at Large (1992), Irene's Last Waltz (1994), Chapel Noir (2000), Castle Rouge (2002), and Femme Fatale (2003). So what do you think when you think the delectable Ms. Adler? Jack the Ripper? No? Well Carole Nelson Douglas does. Irene vs. Jack. Right. Sounds . . . well . . . rather less than promising.

Moriarty I've dealt with previously. Suffice it to say that Gardner isn't the only one with his own Moriarty series. The science fiction author Michael Kurland wrote his first Moriarty tale in 1978: The Infernal Device. Others have followed. Death by Gaslight (1982), The Great Game (2001) and The Empress of India. His latest titles seem to be more orthodox Sherlockianism with anthologies he's edited: My Sherlock Holmes: Untold Stories of the Great Detective (2003), Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years (2004) and Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (2010).

The Baker Street Irregulars have got their series by Michael Citrin and Tracy Mack: The Case of the Amazing Zalindas, The Case of the Conjured Man and In Search of Watson. Even the occasionally very plodding Lestrade has gendered a series, by M.J. Trow (who also has written non-fiction about, for example, Jack the Ripper and the death of Kit Marlowe). I have The Brigade (1998) in my shelf. "There is a new broom at Scotland Yard: Nimrod Frost. His first "little job" for Inspector Sholto Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a supposed savager of sheep and frightener of men. Hardly a task for an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department." Saith the flap. What ho - Nimrod? Sholto? "Trow offers a genuinely humorous pastiche bouyed by a refreshing irreverence too often absent from Conan Doyle knockoffs." Claimeth ye dust jacket. Well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we. The jury ain't in yet on Inspector Sholto Lestrade.

And of course there's Mycroft. Quite remarkably much has been written about brother Mycroft, in fact, far more than one casually would assume. He stars in several series of his own and a large number of stray volumes. There's a series by H.F. Heard, the classic one starting as early as in the 40's with A Taste for Honey (1941). Then there's one by Glen Petrie. There's a French series. Possibly two. And then there's a series by Quinn Fawcett which seems rather promising: Against The Brotherhood (1997), Embassy Row (1998), The Flying Scotsman (1999), The Scottish Ploy (2000). Quinn Fawcett is a pen name and behind it we may find Bill Fawcett and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. The series takes us to the international and heady world of espionage. This is what it says on the back cover of Against the Brotherhood : "Against the Brotherhood is full of attempted assassinations, secret spymasters, anarchist cabals, concealed identities, double- and triple agents, burglary, and sabotage, all done in true Conan Doyle style." Pretty action packed stuff for a gent who never leaves his home, lest it be for the office or the Diogenes Club. Mycroft's Watson is his secretary Patterson Guthrie. Bill Fawcett has (have) also penned a couple of novels about a Victorine Vernet, the wife of a Napolenonic general. One would assume she's one of the Vernets and therefore one of Holmes's French relatives, possibly a great-grandmother or great-aunt of some sort.

So, who's missing? Mrs. Hudson? Where's her series? Surely she could subdue a few villains afore preparing Sherlock his lunch? Mrs. Watson? Why has nobody bothered to tell us about the crimes she must solve? Colonel Moran? Bet he was up to a spot of no good in India, eh? Henry Baskerville? Doctor Mortimer? Abe Slaney? Violet Smith? Tonga? Toby?

Well, we'll just have to wait. Probably not for too long.

A Willow Grows Askant

2010-04-29T00:09:00.011+03:00

A Willow Grows Askant
by Petri Salin

The Queen was annoyed. She paced up and down her chambers, up and down, up and down, and had been doing so for the past half hour. Her footfalls echoed and reverbarated in the gothic valves of the cold mediaeval castle. Where was the wretched girl? She'd been summoned over an hour ago, so where was she?

It was intolerable, quite intolerable.

It's not that things weren't bad enough as they were, the girl made them infinitely worse with her irresponsible, downright childish behaviour. It simply couldn't go on. She had to be made see reason.

A lady-in-waiting rushed in without knocking and curtseyed. ”Not in her chambers, your majesty,” she said.

Another one, older and heavier, followed. ”Not in the courtyard, your majesty,” she said, all red in the face and panting for breath.

”Go, seek once more,” the Queen cried. ”Dare not return without her.”

The ladies-in-waiting dashed off, knowing full well any protest quite futile.

The Queen's foul mood had lasted almost a day now, ever since she found the red ribbon with flowers on it in their bed; proof positive of infidelity. She'd been at the King all night, hammering away, trying to get the truth out of him, not getting a single wink of sleep nor letting him get one neither. The King had denied everything, of course he had, and she'd been tempted to believe him, sorely tempted, because she wanted to believe him. Where she stood now she did not know. She was quite confused. The lack of sleep made her slightly dizzy. She had not eaten anything all day. Just drunk wine. Goblet upon goblet of red sinewy wine. It calmed her down. Or did it?

”Not up on the castle walls, my lady,” announced a third lady-in-waiting.

If only the silly girl kept quiet, the Queen thought to herself. Then everything would be all right. It's not that she did it deliberately, but her very visage was an unspoken accusation. And the songs, the disturbing songs she kept singing at every turn. They certainly didn't help. They were all about death, the death of her father.

The Queen was sorry about that, she sincerely was. If there had been anything, anything at all that she could have done to have the unfortunate deed undone, she would not have hesitated for a second. But there was nothing. Nothing she nor anyone else could do.

Now the important thing was to get over it and get on with life. Cruel? Maybe. Harsh? Possibly. But the alternative? Unthinkable.

The girl's father was dead and that was the end of the matter.

Surely the girl must see that if someone explained it to her properly? Surely she must grasp what consequences her foolish words might have.

And there was no one else to do the explaining but the Queen.

If the girl didn't stop her seditious prattling, if she didn't hold her tongue, there was no knowing what misconceptions her hot-headed brother might fall under nor what ill-conceived ideas he might stumble upon. Then there would be more blood. That was for certain.

”No,” the Queen said aloud. ”No more blood.”

”Your majesty?” the third lady-in-waiting said and looked at her askance.

”Still here? Off with you, hence!” the Queen said and raised her voice.

The lady-in-waiting scuttled off, not quite knowing wither, not much caring. When the Queen was in one of her moods it was best to be elsewhere.

Where was the girl?

Somewhere spreading her fantastic tales of her father? Perhaps accusing the Queen's son for the foul deed? That never would do.

Suddenly it struck the Queen – flowers. The girl had been talking of flowers the previous day, funereal flowers, flowers of mourning, flowers of death. Larded with sweet flowers which bewept to the grave did go, she'd sung, and the song had chilled the Queen to her marrow. Could it be that the girl was outside the castle walls picking wild flowers?

She'd immediately send someone to look. The Queen turned around. There was nobody there. They were all out looking for the girl already. Oh well, it would have to wait. No it couldn't. She would go out looking for the girl herself.

The Queen downed the dregs of her wine. They tasted bitter in her mouth.

Out in the open she soon felt better. The sun was shining and there was a mild and pleasant breeze blowing over the barren landscape. The outdoors smelt of spring and a new beginning. She liked that. A new beginning for all. It was time to put aside the dreary cloak of death and start life anew.

She came across a brook. The glassy stream flowed with a brisk, furious pace. She started following it upstream. There were flowers everywhere. Rosemary for remembrance, pansies for thoughts, fennel and columbine, rue, daisy, roses of May. No violets, though. No violets. Then she saw her. She was standing by the crooked willow that bent halfway over the brook.

”Ophelia,” the Queen said softly.

The girl heard her not.

The willow sprouted hoar leaves, its pendent boughs coronet weeds. Ophelia had assembled herself a garland of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that cold maids do dead men's fingers call.

”Ophelia,” the Queen said once more.

”Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?” the girl said, looking up.

”Come hither, girl,” the Queen said commandingly.

”Say you, nay, pray you, mark,” the girl said and started singing. ”He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone, at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone, white his shroud as the mountain snow.”

”Quiet,” the Queen said sternly. ”Be quiet!”

”They bore him barefaced on the bier, hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny, and in his grave rain'd many a tear.”

Was she doing it on purpose? Was she being deliberately difficult?

”And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead, go to thy death-bed, he never will come again, his beard was as white as snow, all flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away moan, God ha' mercy on his soul.”

Ophelia stretched her hand, trying to get at the willow's boughs and leaves to add to her garland. She took a step forward, toward the brook. The stones were wet and slippery.

”Careful, girl!” the Queen cried out. ”The current is cold and swift.”

”To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, all in the morning betime, and I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine. Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, and dupp'd the chamber-door, let in the maid, that out a maid never departed more.”

”I'm so sorry,” the Queen said. ”So sorry for everything. Hamlet treated you poorly. But it never could have been. Surely you must understand that. Hamlet is to be king and when he weds he must wed someone of noble blood.”

Ophelia reached out, grabbed a branch to steady herself so that she could reach even farther out. Suddenly the sliver of a branch cracked and gave away. Ophelia lost her balance on the soaked rocks and took a tumble falling right into the roaring waters of the hungry brook.

The Queen did not hesitate for an instant. With one swift leap she was down by the current. She grabbed hold of Ophelia's heavy garment that had not yet been sucked under the surface and pulled out the girl as if she were a ragdoll. Ophelia did not seem to understand what just happened.

”Young men will do't, if they come to't,” she chanted. ”By cock, they are to blame, quoth she, before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed, so would I ha' done, by yonder sun, an thou hadst not come to my bed.”

”Oh poor girl,” the Queen said and folded her arms around Ophelia. ”You poor, poor girl.”

They wept together, the Queen whispering in Ophelia's ear that everything would be all right, she would see to it. It took a good long while for Ophelia to come around. The Queen petted her and stroked her hair.

That's when she noticed the red ribbon in Ophelia's hair. There were flowers on it. Flowers she'd seen before.

Suddenly everything made sense. Ophelia's madness. The King's strange behaviour. Everything. She'd been so blind, so trusting. Why had she never noticed the King's tone of voice when he called the girl my pretty Ophelia. He called her pretty so often. He always called her pretty. She should have noticed.

And now the King had taken his pretty Ophelia to his bed. The Queen's bed.

”I hope all will be well,” Ophelia said. ”We must be patient. But I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' the cold ground. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.”

The Queen helped the girl up.

”You poor girl,” she said and pushed Ophelia in the brook, to muddy death.

”Good night, sweet lady, good night.”

She watched till there was nothing more to watch.

”Drown'd, drown'd,” she murmured. ”Poor mermaid, pretty Ophelia.”

Then she returned to the castle, the bearer of bad tidings.

A Man of My Kidney

2010-04-27T01:07:00.005+03:00

Falstaff was a particular favourite of Queen Elizabeth's. She so much enjoyed the chubby rake's wit and scathing humour in Henry IV that she ordered Shakespeare to write a new play with him in it, a play about Sir John in love. Which is precisely what the Bard did. He wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Of course there's absolutely no proof that the Queen ever commissioned the play. No tangible facts whatsoever. It's just a story that everybody keeps repeating. But it's a good story - and a jolly marvellous play. One of my absolute favourites.

Not everybody likes it, though. The very thought of The Merry Wives of Windsor makes Harold Bloom quite livid. According to him (and he's Falstaff's greatest admirer of all time, not barring the Queen), as he write in his exhaustive book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, the Falstaff in Merry Wives is not the same Falstaff as in Henry IV. He may bear the same name, he may sport a physical likeness - but most definitely he isn't the same man. He's only a cheap caricature. "I begin, though, with the firm declaration that the hero-villain of The Merry Wives of Windsor is a nameless impostor masquerading as the great Sir John Falstaff. Rather than yield to such usurpation, I shall call him pseudo-Falstaff throughout this brief discussion." Bloom quotes A.C. Bradley who concurs in his absolute dislike of the play: "[Falstaff] is baffled, duped, treated like dirty linen, beaten, burnt, pricked, mocked, insulted, and, worst of all, repentant and didactic. It is horrible."

"Commerce is commerce", writes Bloom, "but why did Shakespeare inflict this upon a character who represents his own wit at its most triumphant?" Did, Bloom wonders, Walsingham's Secret Service and Marlowe's horrible and shady death somehow influence Shakespeare? Make him turn to trite things and try to blend into the background, as it were? "I have to conclude that Shakespeare himself is warding off personal horror by scapegoating the false Falstaff in this weak play."

The Falstaff in Henry IV, according to Bloom is witty and philosophical, great and immortal, Shakespeare at his very best, while his namesake or pseudo-Falstaff in The Merry Wives is but crude and silly.

Which, of course, is fine with those of us who like crude and silly humour.

Falstaff - the crude and silly fellow of The Merry Wives, to be precise - has always been quite remarkably popular with composers of opera. Small wonder. There's the obvious one - Giuseppe Verdi's last opera Falstaff (1893). Another classic is Otto Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1846), also by curious chance its composer's last opera. Sir John in Love (1929) by Ralph Vaughan Williams is interesting as the libretto also makes use of other Elizabethan authors and utilises text snippets by Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas Middleton and Beaumont and Fletcher. Gustav Holst's At the Boar's Head (1916) is the odd man out in this company as the opera isn't about the Merry Wives Falstaff but rather the Henry IV Falstaff. Seldom heard, this one, which is a definite pity. Another fairly forgotten one (and possibly the earliest Falstaff opera, at least the earliest one I'm aware of) is Falstaff (1719) by none other than Antonio Salieri. We do tend to neglect Salieri's operatic output dreadfully, but the situation is definitely improving and there's now almost a plethora of recorded performances of his operas on the market.

Then there's the movie.

The 1965 Orson Welles film Chimes at Midnight is an amalgam of several of Shakespeare's plays: Richard II, Henry IV part 1 and part 2, and Henry V. It's by and large based on his old play in two parts from 1938, The Five Kings, but with the added element of a narrator whose lines are taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed, upon whose chronicles Shakespeare based pretty much all of his Histories. The play was revived in 1960 and some of the stage cast appear in the film. The Chimes is Welles's third Shakespeare film (the two previous being Macbeth and Othello) and in fact his personal favourite among all his films, a film Welles himself rated far above Citizen Kane, for instance.

Still it's very rarely seen, partly I believe because of copyright problems.

Chimes at Midnight is ostensibly about the raging throne wars and the kings and the coming of age of prince Hal, soon to become King Henry V, but really it's all about the fat knight, plump Sir Jack, good old Falstaff. Who, no mere chance this I'm willing to bet, is played by Welles himself. (The alternative title of the movie is, by the way, Falstaff!) King Henry IV is none other than Sir John Gielgud, the man who in his time a couple of decades earlier revolutionised Shakespeare acting on the British stage. (He did surprisingly few Shakespeare roles on film.)

As is the case with Welles's previous Shakespeare films, The Chimes at Midnight is quite uneven. Funding has obviously been a problem, which is nothing new, though the budget in this case seems to have been nowhere near as strained as in Othello. There is a hurried air of nervousness in almost every scene, possibly beacause time is short and must be made use of. (I doubt there were a great number of retakes.) Sometimes this lends dynamic energy to the scene and makes it tick. Sometimes the scene just comes off as shoddy and muddled.

The cast, a singularly motley crew, is another problem. Most members thereof simply aren't Shakespearean actors. We have the old hands Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Margaret Rutheford and Welles himself, others seem not to get much out of their lines, at times hardly understanding anything they say. Marina Vlady and Jeanne Moreau are pleasing to the eye but severely lacking as Shakespearean thespians, at least in such a textually heavy and fundamentally theatrical production such as this. A fair amount of the actors have been dubbed - never a particularly happy solution - and, if my ears play no tricks on me, a lot of them dubbed by Welles. As was his wont.

Gielgud is quite splendid and with his royal presence he calms down every scene he's in, lifting it up and ennobling it. Norman Rodway (Percy) is remarkably good and balances the film nicely. Keith Baxter (Hal) has his moments, though not frightfully many of them.

It's in the battle scenes that the film really comes to life. They're raw, vicious and brutal - and totally convincing. No heroism here, merely savagery and ruthless slaughter. And most of the fighting is simply total chaos. It's all muddy and filthy and horrid. Only the archers seem to have any control of what they're doing, sending cloud upon cloud of their lethal arrows into the thick of the fighting. Falstaff, being the sensible chap that he is, avoids any scrapping whatsoever and only claims the glory after the victory.

Ultimately the movie suffers from being drawn together from too many plays. Too much is cut, too much isn't. It lacks in coherence, the elements never quite come together, a satisfactory balance is never reached.

The end is quite tragic. Prince Hal is crowned and transforms into King Henry V, upon which he immediately disowns Falstaff: "I know thee not, old man." And thus Falstaff dies of a broken heart.

If ever there was a role an actor was born to play then that actor was Orson Welles and that role Falstaff.

In his biography Simon Callow claims that what first drew Welles to the part of Falstaff was that the unreliable yet irresistible alcoholic reminded him of his father Richard Welles. In the beginning Falstaff for Welles was his father. In the end he himself became Falstaff, quite literally, girth and all.

It was always his destiny.

Resa i innerrymden

2010-04-24T21:30:00.005+03:00

Att läsa Eugen Semitjov är att resa 30 år bakåt i tiden. Känslan är ganska underbar men samtidigt pinsam som bara fan. Man blir konfunderad men ändå känner man en definitiv sense of wonder.

Semitjov, så känns det nu, var ett av de avgörande stegen mellan Erich von Däniken och Carl Sagan (och så hade man ju naturligtvis de inhemska varianterna Nils Mustelin och Björn Kurtén!), det som styrde kosan mot det rationella och naturvetenskapliga istället för det enbart sensationella men underbart och underhållande oförklarliga.

Semitjov - ja namnet var ju nästan som Asimov. Han skrev fakta men även fiktion han med - helt som Asimov. Ja, Semitjov var vår egen nordiska Asimov, vilket gjorde en massa sf-frälsta finlandssvenska skolgossar lyckliga, han var ju så gott som en av oss. (Vilket då gjorde att Asimov och alla andra gudomliga sf-giganter de blefvo ett steg mänskligare för oss äfven de.)

Därför, när jag stötte på en bok av honom, så kunde jag bara inte låta bli att införskaffa den. När läste jag honom senast? 1982? Säkerligen inte senare än så, om ens så sent. Och boken ifråga, Mellan dröm och verklighet - Rapport från "den inre rymden" från 1979 hade jag aldrig läst. Kommer åtminstone inte ihåg den.

Det fascinerande med Semitjov är just att detta är hans plats, mellan von Däniken och Sagan. Hans skriver underhållande men ytligt vilket möjligtvis beror på det att han är en journalist. Han låter folk tala, vilket är bra, men utmanar sällan deras utsagor. Åtminstonen inte så starkt som han kunde.Vilket då leder till ett något schizofrent men underhållande resultat: de får säga precis vad de vill (ju galnare desto bättre, de facto) och Semitjov bara ler snett. Det är ju det som journalistik av ett visst slag brukar gå ut på: att låta folk göra bort sig. Effektivt blir det ju ändå, om man förstår ta det mesta cum grano salis.

Så att hela boken är ett fall av caveat lector: allt är på läsarens eget ansvar.

Men saftiga grejor har han ju att komma med. Som till exempel när han intervjuar en viss tysk elektronikexpert vid namn Gottfried Wieland. Detta påstår Herr Wieland: "Inom tio år kommer de tyska TV-forskarnas 'stora dröm' att bli verklighet. Instrument registrerar hjärnans elektriska impulser under sömnen - en dator omvandlar impulserna till bilder som spelas in på videoband. När man vaknat ska man kunna köra upp bandet i en videobandspelare och se nattens drömmar i repris i sin egen TV." Jag tror att Robert Silverberg har skrivit en novell just om det här, kanske lite tidigare. "Det blir kanske ett obehagligt uppvaknande för mången äkta hälft, tillägger ingenjör Wieland småleende. Kanske blir det lugnast att spela upp drömbandet för sig själv, i enrum till att börja med."

I drömmar flyger vi ofta. Detta kunde bero på, spekulerar Semitjov, att våra förfäder var forntida astronauter. "En gissning är att en främmande rymdexpedition skulle ha lidit skeppsbrott på jorden för någon miljon år sedan. Att besättningen inte haft någon möjlighet att komma härifrån, utan tvingats försöka fortleva under primitiva former. Deras efterföljande generationer blev halvvildar, de smälte samman med sin omgivning, glömde sitt ursprung. Kanske skulle några dunkla nedärvda minnen ha bevarats i deras undermedvetna . . ." Eller, som han sedan tillägger, kan det måhända bero på att vi när vi ligger och sover inte har tyngden på fötterna.

Från drömmar till telepati. Visste ni att ryssarna utförde telepatiska experiment på ubåtar? Detta gjorde de med hjälp av katter. De separerade kattan från ungarna och tog ungarna ombord en ubåt. Sedan började besättningen på ubåten, vid förutbestämda klockslag, avliva ungarna en efter en, medan vetenskapsmännen i sitt laboratorium observerade om kattan reagerade telepatiskt på att ungarna decimerades. Låter en aning suspekt, måste jag säga. Men resultat verkar de ha fått, påstår åtminstone Semitjov.

Ryssarna verkar ha varit särskilt aktiva inom den parapsykologiska forskningen. Något som kanske förklarar ett och annat.

Ett liknande, men lite humanare, experiment utförde amerikanarna. Men istället för ubåt använde de rymdraket och istället för att avliva små kattungar använde de kort. Edgar Mitchell var en av astronauterna på Apollo 14 och han hyste ett livligt intresse för allt som har att göra med det paranormala. Han arrangerade ett antal experiment. Han var på Månen och beskådade kort, ett antal individer på Tellus försökte skåda vilka kort han tittade på. Enligt Mitchell var experimentet tämligen lyckat. Men det måste påpekas att ibland såg telepaterna kort även när Mitchell inte "sände hjärnvågor" till Jorden. Ganska ofta, faktiskt. Får man tro på Mitchell så utfördes experimenten på grund av det att NASA var intresserad av att ha ett backup-kommunikationssystem ifall alla mekaniska system gick i olag. Personligen skulle jag helst inte åka i en farkost som litar på telepatisk kommunikation, men det kan ju vara en smaksak.

Efter Apollo 14 (1971) grundade Mitchell, som var den sjätte människan som besteg Månens yta, ett eget institut, Institute of Noetic Sciences, där han forskade i allt som föll utanför det som den konventionellare vetenskapen nonchalerade. Institutet verkar faktiskt ännu vara vid liv. Såhär står det på deras hemsida: "IONS is a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute maintains a commitment to scientific rigor while exploring phenomena that have been largely overlooked by mainstream science." Och för den som undrar vad i all världen noietic betyder svara hemsidan på följande sätt: "The word "noetic" comes from the ancient Greek nous, for which there is no exact equivalent in English. It refers to "inner knowing," a kind of intuitive consciousness—direct and immediate access to knowledge beyond what is available to our normal senses and the power of reason." Och ännu: "What are 'Noetic Sciences'? Noetic sciences are explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing—including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses. Noetic sciences explore the "inner cosmos" of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) and how it relates to the "outer cosmos" of the physical world."

Om Uri Geller skriver Semitjov en hel del. Ja Geller. Jag minns själv när han i mitten av 70-talet besökte Finland och alla tidningar skrev långa trudeluttar om fenomenet Geller och lovsjöng denna stora talang som böjde skedar och startade om klockor. Vilket han även gjorde levande i ett TV-program: han böjde allehanda diverse skedar och fick TV-tittarnas gamla klockor att gå. Och hör och häpna - när Geller sa att nu ska alla därhemma plocka upp en gammal klocka gjorde min mamma just det, plockade upp en urgammal söndrig klocka hemma hos oss och snart började den ticka när hon höll den i sin hand, helt som Geller sa att den skulle göra. Ett mirakel! James Randi är av annan åsikt. Såklart.

Detta skriver Roland Adlerbeth om en bok om Geller av en viss Andrija Puharich: "Uri Gellers uppvisning i TV var förvisso både fascinerande och intressant, men den störtflod av obevisade påståenden som väller fram i denna bok är avsevärt svårare att ta på allvar. Enligt Puharich står han själv och Geller i direktkontakt med ett slags överlägsna rymddatorer som kallas De Nio och ibland är Gud, ibland hans representanter. Tefat och teleportationer hopas i drivor överallt där de drar fram, och diverse antydningar görs om att Geller är en ny Kristus och att han och Puharich bär världens öde i sina händer. Förvisso krävs det mycket tro för att tro på detta. Jag gör det inte."

Det som gör boken intressant ännu idag (även om den ganska långt är föråldrad) är att Semitjov verkligen träffar och intervjuar en stor del av dessa herrar. Han träffar Mitchell, han är åskådare medan Geller utför sina "mirakel", han träffar till och med "PSI-pionjären" Joseph Rhine, mannen som på 30-talet uppfann PSI-korten: dessa kort med "stjärna", "kors", "våg", "ochvadalltharde".

Rhine var ursprungligen botanist men 1922 i Chicago hörde han ett föredrag om parapsykologi och detta var vändpunkten. Han började studera fenomenet och var antagligen en av de allra första som gjorde det på universitetsnivå, med strikta vetenskapliga kriterier. Och föredragshållaren vars tal ledde till denna nya karriär? Ingen mindre än Sir Arthur Conan Doyle som berättade om sina spiritualistiska upplevelser, öden och äventyr.

Ett av de mera fascinerande fallen i boken är siaren och fjärrskådaren Kjell Folkesson. Honom träffade Semitjov redan som barn hemma hos sig, vilket då måste ha bidragit till detta livslånga intresse för övernaturliga fenomen.

När jag nu gräftade kring Semitjov märkte jag att herreje både hans far och bror var också författare och skrev såväl filmmanus som böcker. Båda hette förresten Vladimir Semitjov. Fadern medverkade bland annat i John W. Brunius film Johan Ulfenstjerna (1923) som handlade om fallet Eugen Schauman vs. "Bobban" Bobrikoff och utspelade sig naturligtvis i Helsingfors. (Brunius bäst kända film, åtminstone här i Finland, är ju Fänrik Ståls sägner I & II, 1926.) I huvudbibliotekets källare råkade de ha ett exemplar av Vladimir Semitjovs science fiction-roman 43.000.000 mil i världsrymden (1930) på finska (Avaruuslaiva, 1938), så den var man ju tvungen att läsa. Och det var ju ganska intressant, särskilt när man ihågkommer att författaren är en rysk emigrant. Och jag antar att det är fadern som skrev romanen, sonen är lite ung för det (men inte hopplöst så, han föddes 1912). En pojkbok, en underhållande och rolig pojkbok för den som gillar rymdfart och rymdvarelser och främmande planeter och allt detdär, men ändå undrar man lite om allt är riktigt på sund botten. Att roffa åt sig guld från andra himlakroppar år i mitt tycke inte den allra bästa premissen för en rymdresa. Inte ens i en oskyldig pojkbok.

Det är ett bra tag sedan jag läste Eugen Semitjovs egna romaner. Eller kanske bara en. Minns åtminstone inte flera. Man undrar hur de har hållit mot tiden? Kanske man borde gräva fram en och ta en titt.

Chaos Is Come Again

2010-04-23T19:37:00.011+03:00

Lon Chaney was the Man of a Thousand Faces. In his movies he invariably played the heavily made up monster and rarely could one even recognise him beneath his incredibly thick theatrical mask. He always did his own makeup, and even came up with a number of new and astonishing techniques and appliances. He was the master of disguise, quite unchallenged. Yet, however much he applied makeup he was always . . . well . . . in lack of a better word . . . human. In The Phantom of the Opera (1925) his face was made up in so grotesque and hideous a fashion that it quite broke one's heart to look at him. This wasn't the face of evil, this was what we all look like inside. Only he couldn't hide it.

The Wallace Worsley film The Penalty (1920) is quite an extraordinary movie for Chaney. In it Chaney plays a crime lord called Blizzard who controls the entire underworld of San Francisco. He wears no makeup whatsoever, which is quite interesting. The other interesting thing is that Blizzard has no legs.

As a child Blizzard was violently ill and the doctor treating him had to cut off his legs in order to save his life. This diagnosis, however, was false. Abysmally false. There was nothing wrong with Blizzard's legs at all and the child Blizzard heard this right after the operation. He was never the same again.

The utterly amazing thing is that in the movie Chaney is totally convincing as a cripple. He just has his legs bent backwards and fastened to his back, and his knees inserted in two wooden buckets. The result is stunning: both repulsive and frightening at the same time. Truly eerie.

The smaller in stature he is, the more concentrated the hatred and malice and wickedness in him. It's almost as if the doctor, when he amputated Blizzard's legs, also amputated his soul. Not a shred of goodness remains. Not the shadow of a shred.

Oh what a nasty character Blizzard is. How ill he treats women. With what ease he ends human life. It's nothing to him. Less than nothing. He's been treated wrongly so everyone else has to pay for it. Everyone with two good legs is at fault and to blame for his misery. They must pay, it's their penalty. He will be avenged, by hook or by crook.

In the movie the embittered Blizzard has a plan. He has imported thousands of unemployed ruffians to the city. They're just waiting on his word to step out. His plan is to start a number of riots in the outskirts of the city, drawing the police and the National Guard away from downtown - thus leaving the soft underbelly of the city entirely vulnerable and prey to his wicked schemes.

It's quite clear from the scenes where gloatingly he describes what havoc and chaos he will cause that he isn't interested in the material goods he'll gain. Oh no, not at all. His interest is in the chaos and misery he will create. He's bent on revenge. He's been treated shabbily, his legs have been taken from him and somebody will have to pay.

In fact everybody.

The dream scenes in which Blizzard's troops ransack the city are quite the finest and scariest I've ever seen in silent films - easily matching whatever deep disturbing horrors German expressionism manages to dish out. The joy the very thought of these images bring Blizzard! It's tangible. And in his reveries Blizzard is leading his men from the front - intact!

That's one of the reasons he wants money. He will buy himself new legs.

And, by one of these wonderful melodramatic coincidences, the very doctor who deprived Blizzard of his legs is now a renowned surgeon - who's of course been experimenting with that very thing! The replacement of limbs! So obviously Blizzard kidnaps his daughter and forces him to perform the operation and give him back his legs.

During the operation the doctor notices something extremely uncanny. Blizzard has a tumour in his brain, something that ought to have been noticed years ago. He removes it and Blizzard reverts to being a normal law-abiding citizen. All the bitterness is gone and he finds love and happiness.

This new bliss, however, will prove short-lived. Blizzard's old criminal associates are not at all happy with his new convictions as it interferes with their schemes of which the restored Blizzard wants no part. So they assassinate Blizzard.

It couldn't end any other way.

A truly powerful and shocking movie. A truly amazing performance. And it proves that Chaney really doesn't need any masks to be frightening. This man is a true wonder. He can do it with both hands behind his back. Or legs, like here.

The title of this piece is a quote from Othello. It is, in a way, singularly appropriate since there's a really dark and disturbing undercurrent of sexual jealousy and sexual aggression and even sexual hatred in the film - incredibly strong stuff.

By Jove, The Penalty really gives me the willies.

McB3

2010-04-16T21:20:00.043+03:00

McB3
by Petri Salin

1.
The first bombs wipe Norcea's HQ off the face of Titan
Destroy them, the CEO's yells echo - destroy every last one of them/ and we do not question his orders, we question nothing
When our killer robots land the survivors arise from their underground/ bunkers like the undead and begin their resistance but we beat them on that/ terrible day, with terrible casualties, and when everything is well nigh over/ I take a hit and my plane is lost in a void and that is when I see them/ the three hag mongrels, holograms, appearing out of the vacuum
I hear them salute me and utter my name

All hail McB3, hail to the Lunar Marketing Director
All hail McB3, hail to Operational Head of Martian Ventures
All hail McB3, that shalt be the Company's CEO hereafter

What are you and how know you who I am? say I and
they laugh and say that they know what I am and
they laugh and say that they know what I shall be and
they laugh and laugh and laugh
so I fire my last missiles at them
but one cannot kill holograms

When they are gone I find my squadron and we return to HQ
where the CEO gives a short speech lauding the Company spirit and/ thanking us for our selfless sacrifices to obtain a crucial competetive edge/ in this strained business atmosphere wherein the unethical acts of competitors/ force a company with higher ethical standards to combat evil and/ set the entire trade a positive example with its noble corporate principles
Our market share within the Solar system, says the CEO, is now a record breaking/ forty-seven percent and beyond its parameters even greater
We shall not rest, says the CEO, until we have absolute market leadership/ for that is our prerogative and our duty and our mission in life
Those fallen in the line of labour are taken leave of with proper circumstance/ and the vacancies left after them filled equally properly

McB3, says the CEO, excellent marketing, quite excellent indeed
The Operational Head of Martian Ventures, says the CEO, was
caught red-handed doing a spot of industrial espionage for Norcea
wherefore he now fertilizes Titan's crisply burnt ground
Thou, McB3, art now Operational Head of Martian Ventures

Which slightly surprises me and gets my thought circuits going
If the holograms are right about my becoming Head of Martian Ventures/ why, then, not about the other matter as well?
the matter of which I dare not speak aloud?
If the holos, the weird sisters, can look into the seeds of time
and say which grain will grow and which will not
know they which path the future does choose, which it does discard/ there is nothing anyone can do about it/ nor can any man flee his destiny
If they are but dream or nightmare
if everything is but coincidence
better were it for me to wipe from my mind the hollow echoes of their words

Of course you will be the new CEO, says my wife
think not otherwise
dare not believe otherwise
you shall become the Company's CEO
I guarantee it
says she
and I loose myself in her embrace and she
looses herself in mine which is the same
as her embrace
and no one can stop the continuum of space and time
nor revoke the future
for at this very moment the future has chosen itself for eternity

If it were done when it is done
then it were well it were done quickly
When it is done
it will be done quickly

When the CEO arrives to inspect the Martian HQ
he stays at our home, as our guest
and in the name of hospitality my wife hands me a dagger
and in the name of hospitality I wield it
for so I must
for it is so written
I have no option

The CEO is dead, I proclaim, and the Company without a lawful ruler
The Assistant CEO, I proclaim, has betrayed the Company and fled the planet/ his minions' hands soiled with our CEO's blood
And we deal them swift Company justice before anyone
has time to question my authority
The CEO is dead! Long live the CEO!

I do what I have to, with heavy heart, with cold hands
no longer closing my eyes for I do not wish to see my deeds anew
nor do I have to close them to see my ghosts stand afore me

2.
During my inauguration I give a speech to clarify the Company's future code
As the new CEO of SolarMcDonald's I would, my dear staff, say
a few words: We are entering a new age, a good age
An age of heretofore unforeseen expansion and fruitfulness
No more shall the Company policy be governed by sporadic bestiality/ but, dear friends, by logic and reason and fairmindedness
The Company tree shall be cleansed and sanitized and pruned
All branches with insufficient profit margin shall be taken care of
terminated with extreme prejudice
Every obstacle standing in the way of an ever increasing profit margin/ shall be removed and obliterated and ground to dust
Our new market will be the fabrication of a hamburger based on oil for robots/ and a hamburger for inhabitants of other stars - were such creatures ever found
Our new corporate strategy is to exploit the resources of our competitors/ in the form of utilizing their staff as raw material for our nourishing/ and superlatively delicious and very reasonably priced product
It is my duty to see to it that the Company's expansion never ceases but goes on
The Universe knows no boundaries
Neither time nor eternity know limits
Therefore the Company must know none
We shall not rest until the Company and the Universe are one

The wars go on and we form new alliances
destroy former allies, present allies
devour them before they devour us
grow so big that none can threaten us
not even BurgerKingHut, now shrivelled miserably into a white dwarf/ grow so mighty we have no external enemy
We are a black hole that gobbles up everything
until nothing is left

In honour of our victory I give my lackeys a great banquet
invite them to the new HQ I have erected on Mars where
I can rely on the loyalty of my underlings
unlike on other planets and moons and satellites
My wife oversees the arrangements for the banquet but
suddenly the sight of bloody hamburger meat makes her sick
it will pass, it always does pass
I let set a plate for those of my guests whom I trust and just the blade for the/ renegades, those who have masticated their last hamburger
Only a minority of the guests leave on their own two feet while the rest, the/ happy ones, now get to serve the Company's revenues with their bodies/ get to serve the Company to the last
Their sacrifice is not in vain
Their unselfishness guarantees the Company eternal life

Life, say I unto my wife, is now as good as it gets
Better than this, say I, it cannot get
This I know, says my wife, nothing will ever get better
Then we toast and accept the adulation of our grateful subjects

And each night I am awakened by my wife's cries
and each night she walks in her sleep
in her white nightgown
attempting to wash her hands
never getting them clean, the blood never coming off
her creamy white hands
the constant rubbing has torn them to a bloody pulp
her medication can no longer bless her with artificial rest

She mourns the offspring we never had
She mourns our last attempt at cloning, the last of many
but not every seed takes, not every embryo flourishes
not all blood is meant to flow forward through the rivers of time
McB4 may we never hold in our arms
nor his clone, nor his clone's clone
The brightest stars burn but a brief while
leaving behind them a chaos of heavenly coldness
the brightest star burns but a brief while

How brief?
Once the question is voiced the words keep haunting me
How brief?

I take the Company jet and return to Titan
Where are you, shout I
Come forward! shout I
Show yourselves! shout I
I circle Titan and try to find the enchanted cursed place
where last I encountered them, but cannot
I cannot find them for they do not exist
I turn my vessel to return and there they are
in my monitors, smiling their toothless smile
Tell me what I wish to know, say I
And they step out of the monitors
And they tell me

Beware McD9, whispers the first holo
Be bloody, bold, and resolute, whispers the second holo
laugh to scorn the power of man for none of woman born shall harm you
Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care, whispers the third holo
McB3 shall never vanquished be until Pluto collides with Mars
and they grab each other by the hand and form a circle and start
dancing faster and faster until one can no longer tell them apart
then they are gone, my darkened monitors exhaling a foul black smoke

I laugh, I am invincible
no human can touch me
I shall never vanquished be until Pluto collides with Mars
(how could Pluto collide with Mars? impossible!)
McD9 cannot defy me and I may as well let him live
or not

3.
Company vessels find me in space and escort me home
My lord, says my head of intelligence, McD9 has fled and
along with the others, gone forth and joined the forces of BurgerKingHut
Destroy his offices, say I, and all his employees
and his family
and his children
destroy them all
and they do it
I cannot revoke my orders nor bring back anyone I have slain
not even imagine it

Nor do we still become absolute market leaders
not even when we slaughter all our opposition
Do we have to, shout I at my underlings, slaughter all our customers as well?
Why do they not love me? I shout and see a steward stand before me/ he bends over and whispers in my ear and I smite him with my sword/ but one cannot kill a robot

I hasten to my wife's chambers and behold it with my own eyes
a sight not for this world
nor for the next nor for the next
She is dead, bereft of life, has abandoned me in this wasteland
Why did you leave me my love? I whisper in her ear
she answers not even though I carry her in my arms and rock her so very gently
She should have died hereafter
with this I must live
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
now I am alone and know not where to turn
and know the blame is mine and mine alone
I press her against my heart
maybe she will awaken
press I hard enough

It takes a long time before they dare tell me
Norcea's survivors have teamed up with BurgerKingHut's survivors/ and the Company traitors have, along with McD9 and the assistant CEO, joined them/ now their fleet of war is on its way here
Let them come, say I, they cannot touch me
I hardly recall what fear tastes like and what horror tastes like and/ what humanity tastes like
No one can touch me, shout I and bare my sword
To the final battle, say I and look around me and see how
most of my men have deserted the Company and deserted me and
joined Norcea/BurgerKingHut's gigantic fleet
Go all, I do not need you, I do not need any of you
McB3 shall remain unvanquished until Pluto collides with Mars
The traitor fleet approaches the planet and their foremost fighter gets hit/ starts to wobble, the pilot loosing his control of the craft completely/ the craft getting hurled on Martian ground, setting the world on fire
I behold the name of the fighter and it is Pluto XIII

I leap into my fighter and charge the enemy
the front lines oscillate and the enemy keeps coming on all sectors/ the fight is terrible, in a frenzy I blow away fighter after fighter but/their numbers never diminish
Where are you McD9! Show yourself, coward! Come out and fight me!/ and McD9's vessel floats in front of me and we go at it like crazed bulls/ hammer one another like two/ blood-thirsty boars
I strike and he receives my blow, he strikes and I receive his blow
there is no one else in this war, only I and he, and none else is needed
Suddenly McD9 veers away, I lock my cannons on his tail and fire
but it's a trick - he swirls and then he's behind me and I can't
shake him nor can I escape before his rockets tear off my wings
I spiral downward and can't straighten my fighter, can't
escape, no way out, I fire my last missiles and somehow they hit his/ side and an immense explosion tears the vessel apart/ he falls from the sky like a rock, as do I

McD9! I shout and dig my way out of my fighter's smoking carcass, where are you?
Fight like a man if you are one!
Let me rip the flesh from your bones and irrigate the ground with your blood!
McD9 stands before me, sword hoisted, face devoid of expression
I strike him and his armour holds, I switch up to full power
he strikes back and I ward him off, smiting heaven and earth for
I fight them as well, I fight the Universe
McD9 strikes, I strike, he strikes, I strike
we dance the terminal dance

I never wanted you against me, say I, lay down your sword
walk away, I have waded in blood deep enough already and want not you on my soul/as I have on my soul your wife and your children and hundreds more/ lay down your sword and save yourself and live
McD9 lets his sword answer my words and on we dance

I am battered and bloody and don't even notice it
McD9's concentration sways for a second, only a second
My sword cuts through his body armour, cuts to his heart
pierces it and the force of my blow fells him on his knees, then
on his back - none of woman born shall harm McB3
The blood pumping from his chest is no blood
it is black and thick and almost like - oil

My sword's power is nearly down to zero
yet there is still enough for one last strike
McD9 gets up, I bury my sword in his back
he turns, he smiles, he raises his sword
None of woman born shall harm McB3, says he
his armour is split and his chest is open and -
His entire torso is full of tubes and wires and computer circuits
One cannot kill a robot
I can't escape nor do I wish to

He lifts his sword and smiles

I do not feel a thing

(Published in Portti Special English Issue 2003)

Stackars Yorick

2010-04-13T19:48:00.008+03:00

Petri Salin:
Stackars Yorick

Shanghai 11-04-2119 - Minnesbilderna är klara och hopplöst fragmentariska. Fastän de syns tydligt på skärmen är det fullständigt omöjligt att säga vilka fragment hör ihop och vilken helhet de bildar.

Ifall de, de facto, bildar en helhet.

* * * * *

. . . bäbägbäbägbäbäggägärree . . . giften . . . i bägäa . . . gifififgi . . . ibägagagäbagäb . . . i bäägararaeeen . . .

* * * * *

Folk, ansikten, rörelse. Färger, röster. Smärta, glädje, sorg. Kärlek. Allt i en dränkande svallvåg, allt i ett skrämmande ofokuserat kaos.

Minnena.

Minnena flyr.

Minnena vill inte återuppstå, men ändå vill de det.

Experimentets resultat är, för att säga det milt, högst oväntat. Klart är dock att det rör sig om ett enormt framsteg, ett verkligt genombrott. Ett så här ypperligt resultat hade vi aldrig kunnat hoppas på, aldrig vågat hoppas på. Av de tiotusentals skallar vi grävt upp överallt i världen, i Asien, i Afrika, i Australien, i Europa, på Månen – urgamla skallar, färska skallar, skallfragment – var vi tvungna att så gott som genast kassera den största delen. Av de skallar vi lät genomgå den fullständiga behandlingen visade sig endast några hundra vara ens potentiellt optimala. Av de hjärnor vi genom utförlig DNA-analys och psykogenetisk interpolering och regeneration lyckades återskapa var största delen så gott som totalt livlösa – hjärnor bara till synes, inte funktionellt.

Av alla hjärnor har blott en enda visat sig vara kapabel att kunna producera genuin tankeverksamhet. Och inte endast det, den exceptionella hjärnan kan inte endast tänka utan även minnas.

Vilket är omöjligt.

* * * * *

. . . nej! . . . intr dri . . . inte dric . . . inte inte driiiiii . . . nejinteintenejintedrdrdrdrdrdrdr . . .

* * * * *

Skallen är en av dem som grävdes upp i Helsingör. Enligt uträkningarna är den sjuhundra år gammal, kanske betydligt äldre. Först trodde vi att det rör sig om en skalle som tillhört ett barn men efter noggrannare undersökningar är det uppenbart att skallen hört till en dvärg av det manliga könet. Det är ett under att dvärgen överhuvudtaget överlevt födseln, så förvrängt är hans kranium. Tänderna visar att dvärgen nått över tjugo års ålder. Om hans liv varit ett normalt liv, ja det är en helt annan fråga.

* * * * *

. . . min . . . son . . . min . . . sssssssssss . . . ssss . . . sonnnnnnsssso . . . sossso . . . sossssoonnsssosssnn . . .

* * * * *

Efter utförlig preparation kopplar vi in dvärgens hjärna i datormatrisen och börjar köra hans till en början ytterst haltande hjärnverksamhet genom reningsprogram, gång på gång. De kontaminerade bitarna elimineras, de bristfälliga sekvenserna kompletteras, det som knappt går att upptäcka förstärks. Programmet spårar upp relevanta mönster, förvandlar dem till algoritmer och sedan tillbaka till neural information. För varje körning renas och förädlas minnesbilderna. Processen är ytterst långsam. Hjärncellerna stretar emot neuron för neuron. Förgäves.

* * * * *

. . . älskskr dgggiiggg GGGGGGGGGG . . . G . . .

* * * * *

Kan det verkligen röra sig om autentiska minnen? Den nya hjärnan är en jungfruligt tom tavla, tabula rasa, kanske rör det sig endast om abstrakt hjärnbrus? Kanske den nyfödda hjärnan producerar, av någon ännu okänd orsak, en viss rudimentär tankeverksamhet i form av irrationell synaptisk neuronblixtring som därefter av datorns algoritmsonder tolkas fel och tvingas sedan in i artificiella och färdigt definierade mönster. Detta förvränger hjärnbruset ytterligare och bortom all rimlighet. Men ändå är hjärnans verksamhet ständigt samma vilket betyder att den inte kan vara aleatorisk. Det vore omöjligt. Gång på gång upprepar sig hjärnan. Ingen tvekan om saken – verksamheten är tankeverksamhet. För att den jungfruliga hjärnan är jungfrulig kan den därför omöjligtvis spontant generera nya tankar. Detta i sin tur betyder att det så kallade brus som hjärnan producerar måste vara gamla tankar.

Och det kan inte röra sig om egentliga tankar i begreppets reella mening för att bilderna dvärgens hjärna åstadkommer om och om igen, i lite varierande form, är alltid samma bilder. Alltid samma situationer. Alltid samma personer. Alltid samma känslor.

Därför måste det vara minnen. Hur osannolikt detta än är.

Till och med om det är – som det måste vara – omöjligt.

* * * * *

. . . kunkunnknukgnekunugunenkukugunugunenkungkungmungkunenekugugunknennnn . . .

* * * * *

Efter kontinuerliga körningar och mångfacetterade rensningar i flera olika faser börjar minnesbilderna till slut forma sig på ett någorlunda identifierbart sätt. Till slut kombineras de med ett program som klär en del av de diffusare och mera abstrakta elementen i ord. Dvärgen får en röst och samtidigt en personlighet, han får en skärande gäll röst som får alla att le. Och samtidigt rysa.

Fragmentens ordning är, på grund av en avsaknad av all lineär kontinuitet, måste det än en gång påpekas, fullständigt godtycklig.

* * * * *

. . . tolv år . . . hon . . . flicka liten flicka ung flicka . . . ser henne för första gången ute i slottsparken under den stora eken . . . eken som jag brukar klättra i . . . hämtats till hovet . . . sommarklänning . . . vit ren . . . flätor i håret . . . rud heter hon . . . trud . . . hon skrattar inte åt mig som alla andra brukar göra när de ser mig . . . skrattar inte . . . hånar inte . . . ler bara . . . mitt hjärta . . . när hon ler . . . med hela sin varelse . . solen bleknar . . . hon ler . . . och jag . . . hjärtat . . . jag . . . gråter . . . av glädje . . . vi . . .

(Brott –)

. . . vänner? . . . enda vännen . . . lekkamrater . . . springer runt slottet . . . när jag berättar en vits skrattar hon och varje gång hon skrattar känner jag hur mitt grepp om hennes själ blir hårdare och fastare . . . far . . . hårdare . . . far . . . fastare . . . tycker inte om det . . . hennes far . . . som vore jag en hund . . . hennes husdjur . . . sparkas . . . piskas . . . men priset . . . få vara nära henne . . . förstår inte . . . kan inte förstå . . . hur kunde . . .

(Brott –)

. . . framför kungen . . . som min far före mig och hans far före honom . . . konungens broder . . . värre även än konungen . . . förnedrar mig framför hovet och hela hovet ylar och hånar som . . . utom . . . Ger . . . utom Ge . . . utom . . .slår det mig att en dag kommer hon att . . . en dag måste hon . . . hon med konungen kungen med henne hon med konungen kungen med henne med henne med henne . . . hon med honom . . . med . . . jag går fram till kungen . . . Eders Majestät vet Vi vad skillnaden är mellan en hovman och en apa och efter en stunds tystnad säger han vad då? och därpå säger jag jasså Eders Majestät vet inte heller det och kungen börjar skratta häftigt och hela hovet tvingas göra likaså . . . fruktar mig . . . min giftiga tunga som blixtsnabbt kan slå ihjäl . . . vem som helst . . . giften . . .

(Brott –)

. . . jag tror det . . . jag vågar inte tro det men jag tror det . . . jag som aldrig haft . . . jag som aldrig . . . någon . . . haft . . . inte någon . . . ser på henne . . . ser på mig . . . inte längre barn . . . inte längre flicka . . .barn . . . när vi . . . tillsammans . . . att hon . . . att hon med en sådan som jag . . . förvrängd . . . missbildad . . . med en dvärg . . . hon med mig . . . men det gör hon . . . med mig . . . den föraktade . . . och hon en . . . och jag en . . . och aldrig hade jag kunnat drömma om en . . . om något så . . . hela sommaren . . . femton år . . . är . . . varje kväll när det blir mörkt . . . smyger . . . klättrar upp . . . muren . . . vakterna . . . osynlig . . . och sedan . . . i natten . . . vi . . . varje natt . . . Gertr . . . min Ge . . .

(Brott –)

. . . bror . . . kungens bror . . . hatar . . . jag hatar också . . . hans blick när han beskådar Ger . . . akta dig var försiktig säger han men . . . jag tror . . . blott svartsjuk . . . häller . . . vinet . . . rhenvinet . . . på honom på honom på . . . honom . . . clownen . . . narren . . . avundsjuk . . . hans hår . . . som badat han i vin . . . som rött blod . . . skrattar . . .

(Brott –)

. . . jag sjunger . . . av glädje . . . att vara vid liv . . . att få leva . . .

(Brott –)

. . . konungens bror . . . lyfter sin bägare sin kalk dricker ur den tittar på mig tittar på henne . . . på henne . . . hans blick behagar mig ej . . . något skurkaktigt i blicken . . . alltid snokar nosar . . .

(Brott –)

. . . slut . . . mitt liv . . . slut . . . vill inte längre . . . livet . . . slut . . . hon gråter och hennes tårar fräter gapande hål i mitt hjärta . . . giftermålet . . . med odjuret . . . besten . . . vi visste . . . att dagen kommer . . . en dag . . . i framtiden . . . hennes öde . . . att det händer . . . olyckan . . . när som sexton . . . sexton år . . . som hennes far kommit överens med besten när hon var liten . . . men nu . . . för tidigt . . . alltför tidigt . . . stor fest . . . högtid . . . hovet . . . gäster . . . mat . . . uppträda för gästerna . . . dansa . . . roa dem . . . roa besten . . . kvickheter och löjligheter . . . roa dem medan jag internt förblöder . . . roa medan jag dör . . . jag gör det . . . dricker vin dricker mycket mycket mycket vin . . . förlöjligar kungen och förnedrar och skändar henne den nygifta jungfruliga bruden som nu är drottning hans drottning min drottning i verkligheten som hon alltid varit min drottning privat i under nattens täcke. . . inte jungfrulig inte längre jungfru inte inte jungfru . . . och alla skrattar . . . åt dvärgen . . . den löjliga dvärgen . . . narren . . . dvärgen den föraktade . . . som denna afton förlorar sin kärlek . . . sitt liv . . . allting . . . jag kastar upp vinet framför tronen . . .värre än att aldrig ha haft något ha känt något ha varit något . . . än att aldrig ha . . . levat . . .

(Brott –)

. . . SVARTA TANKAR! . . .

(Brott –)

. . . SVARTA SVARTA . . . TANKAR! . . .

(Brott –)

. . . barnet . . . Gertruds son . . . nyfödd . . . vacker . . . ljus som hon . . . perfekt . . . besten tar honom i sin famn . . . måste titta på när besten . . . henne . . . drottning nu . . . hjälplös . . . pojken . . . så liten . . . så liten . . . rider på min rygg på min puckel . . . jag är . . .

(Brott –)

. . . hon kommer. . . min drottning . . . jag dansar för henne . . . druckit vin . . . glad . . . sorgsen . . . hon kommer till mig . . . drottningen . . . natt . . . slottets kalla murar glöder is . . . medan . . . ute och krigar . . . bortaborta . . . vi . . . igen . . . härligt . . . som tidigare . . . som om inget . . . skrattar . . . livsfarligt . . . avbryta sluta avbryta . . . nej . . . aldrig!. . . lever igen . . . igen . . . vi . . . på nytt . . . ända tills . . . kommer . . . kommer tillbaka . . . Stupar! . . . hon säger hon säger min älskade säger . . . hon säger det . . . varför kan han inte . . . varför kan inte kungen . . . hon säger det . . . som vi båda tänker . . . stupa . . . stupa stupa stupa stupa stupa stupa . . . varför . . .varför inte . . . varför kunde inte kungen! . . . varför? . . .

(Brott –)

. . . kan inte . . . vara . . . utan . . . hopplöst . . . vet inte vad jag ska . . . vet ej . . . jag måste . . . göra . . . inte fortsätta på det här sättet . . . inte . . . kan inte . . . vill inte . . . måste . . . ha henne . . . min egen . . . min . . . egen . . .

(Brott –)

. . . lösningen . . . så lätt . . .

(Brott –)

. . . i hans juvelprydda bägare . . . i kungens blodröda vin . . . ingen ser . . . lätt . . . ett par små osynliga befriande droppar . . . pärlor . . . och sedan . . . väntar . . . på det ofrånkomliga . . . oundvikliga . . . ödet . . . befrielsen . . . sedan är vi fria . . . jag roar kungen . . . en sista gång . . . gör mig lustigare elakare värre elakare värre än någonsin . . . än någonsin . . . får honom att skratta så hårt att han faller från tronen . . . så hårt att han knappt kan andas . . . han lyfter bägaren . . . jag . . . han lyfter bägaren till sina läppar . . . jag . . . nu . . . NU! . . . nej! . . . drottningen kommer . . . plötsligt . . . oväntat . . . drottningen . . . hon kommer . . . kungen . . . han lägger ifrån sig bägaren . . . nej! . . . lägger undan bägaren . . . nej! . . . ställer den på bordet . . . drottningen . . . nej! . . . sätter sig bredvid honom . . . hon har pojken i sin famn . . . tjänaren häller upp vin hon tar bägaren . . . drottningen drottningen . . . pojken . . . drottningen . . . pojken . . . drottningen . . . pojken börjar plötsligt gråta spjärnar emot slår omkring med sina armar . . . träffar hennes bägare . . . slår omkull den . . . drottningens bägare drottningens bägare . . . bägaren . . . kungen . . . hon min drottning . . . kungen . . . hon min drottning nej . . . kungen . . . hon . . . hon . . . kungen . . . nej . . . jag ser på . . . när . . . . kungen . . . kungen . . . nej . . . ger henne sin egen bägare . . . ger henne . . . sin bägare . . . och hon . . . hon tar den . . . hans bägare . . . nej . . . kungens bägare . . . nej . . . hans juvelprydda bägare . . . hans . . . kungen ger henne sin bägare hon tar emot den . . . och . . . nej . . . sedan inget val . . . inget val . . . istället för att dricka . . . själv . . . istället . . . lyfter hon bägaren till pojkens läppar . . . nej nej nej . . . pojkens läppar som jag kysst tusen gånger . . . pojkens . . . läppar . . . för att lugna ned honom . . . stilla honom med en droppe . . . vin . . . och jag . . . nej! . . . inget val . . . jag . . . Eders Majestät säger jag Eders Majestät tillåter säkerligen att jag som hovets primus inter pares hovets främste representant så gott som en kunglig person själv först med en så gott som nästan kunglig skål hedrar och hyllar Eder Fru Drottningen jämte Eder Herr Son Prinsen den blivande konungen . . . Blivande Konungen . . . blivande . . . konungen . . . och jag tar bägaren ifrån pojken innan han hinner smaka en droppe . . . vin . . . och för att rädda pojken . . . för att rädda Gertruds son . . . för att rädda pojken . . . rädda Hamlet . . . mina läppar kysser den kalla bägaren . . . och fylld av kärlek . . . tårar av glädje . . . tömmer jag bägaren . . . tömmer jag giftbägaren . . . i den fasta vetskapen . . . att . . . Hamlet . . . min älskade Hamlet min son Hamlet min egen son Hamlet min älskade Hamlet min son min son ska få leva . . . ska få bli kung ska olikt sin far få ett långt . . . få ett långt . . . få . . . ett . . . långt och lyckligt . . . liv . . . liv . . . liv . . .

* * * * *

Efter det, ingenting.

Tystnad.

Metsämiehen tarina

2010-04-13T16:45:00.007+03:00

Petri Salin:
Metsämiehen tarina

Taverna on pimeä ja oudon tyhjä, mutta isännän sherris sitäkin väkevämpää ja riittoisampaa; toisin kuin hänen kärsivällisyytensä, puhumattakaan hänen luotostaan: hyvä tuntematon, arvoisa matkamies, veljeni hengessä ja lihassa, sanon ääntäni korottaen ja osoitan sulavat sanani nurkkapöydän hämärässä istuvalle tummalle synkälle hahmolle, jonka vyöltä roikkuu kilisevä rahamassi; katsotte minua ja näette silmää miellyttävän muhkean olemukseni, kirkkaan rehellisen katseeni ja älystä ja hengen jaloudesta kiistatta kielivän korkean otsani, mutta ette kenties ole täysin tietoinen siitä, että teillä on tässä ja nyt ainutkertainen etuoikeus istua samassa tavernassa sangen maankuulun miehen kanssa; totisesti, hyvä herra, totisesti näin on, siinä suhteessa teitä on tänä päivänä todellakin onnistanut: jos tarjoatte minulle mukillisen – ei kanarianviiniä vaan hyväntahtoisen isäntämme oivallista sherristä, juuri sherristä, sitä parempaa laatua – niin tahdon teille kertoa kerrassaan uskomattoman tarinan, joll’ ei ole vertoa ei tässä maassa eikä muuallakaan tämän pilvisen taivaan alla; tarinan, joka tapahtui täällä Windsorin lähimetsissä ja jonka fantastiset käänteet saavat teidät haukkomaan henkeänne hämmästyksestä ja silkasta epäuskosta, mutta tarinan – minä vakuutan teille pyhästi kunniani ja omantuntoni kautta – jonka jokainen sana on mitä totisinta totta, sillä kaikki tämä tapahtui prinssien suosikille ja ruhtinaiden henkiystävälle, maallisen oppineisuuden heleälle henkilöitymälle, sotilaiden sotilaalle, naisten lempeälle mutta armottomalle kaatajalle, luotettavuuden ja nuhteettomuuden ja kaikenlaisen hyvämaineisuuden täydelliselle perikuvalle, kunnon ritari sir John Falstaffille; tapahtui siis, lyhyesti sanoen, koruttomasti kerrottuna, suoraan asian ytimeen mennäkseni, ollakseni täydellisen rehellinen, minulle itselleni: kiitos, suurkiitos, ystävä hyvä, luoja teitä siunatkoon ja katseensa teidän puoleenne kääntäköön, sanon ja upotan kasvoni eteeni tuotuun kolpakkoon; takaan teille, että tulette tarinani muodossa saamaan rahoillenne täyden vastineen ja paljon enemmän kuin rohkenitte edes toivoakaan: kuten aikaisemmin mainitsin, tahtomatta sillä kuitenkaan millään muotoa kehuskella tahi muutenkaan rahvaanomaisella tavalla rehvastella, kauniimpi sukupuoli ei ole koskaan eikä mitenkään eikä millään tavalla voinut vastustaa minua; se on aina janonnut lemmenpalveluksiani sellaisella kiihkolla ja raa’alla rakkauden raivolla, että se minua itseänikin joskus yön hiljaisina tunteina melkein peloittaa; mutta lähiseudun makean rusoposkiset ja mehevän pyöreäpoviset rouvasihmiset uskovat ja luottavat sokeasti omaan lemmen ritariinsa, kunnon sir Johniinsa, enkä minä heitä voi pettää vaikka välillä joutuisinkin tanakoine aseineni uurastamaan päivin öin heidän onnensa ja täydellisen tyytyväisyytensä eteen – ei, sitä en tahdo, sitä en voi; ei, en voi heidän hurskaita toiveitaan siten julmasti kylmästi karkeasti pettää: siis maailma mun olkoon osterini, jonk’ avaan miekallani: terveydeksenne, hyvä herra, olkoot kaikki taivaan jumalat teille suopeita, tienne suora ja tasainen ja matkanne menestystä täynnä – tarinani, siis, alkaa varsinaisesti siitä kerrassaan merkillisestä ja epätodennäköisen tuntuisesta tilanteesta, kun keskiyön lyödessä seison Windsorin synkeässä aarnimetsässä, metsän hurjimman puun alla, valtavat hirvensarvet aatelisen ylhäissyntyiseen kerrassaan jalosukuiseen päähäni köysin ja nahkahihnoin sidottuina; sarvet kuin metsän kuninkaan kruunu tahi myyttisten alkuaikojen jättiläismäinen kelohonka; aivan niin, kelpo ystäväiseni, seison odottamassa samanaikaisesti kahta lähiseudun innokasta naarasta eli emää eli rouvaa saapuvaksi kiihkeisiin lemmenleikkeihin; kahta hekuman raskaasti riivaavaa rouvaa, joiden siveyden lainahunnun olen säälittä repinyt: muista Jupiter, että tulit häräksi Europan tähden – lempi pani sarvet päähäsi; oi kaikkivaltias lempi, joka jossakin määrin tekee luontokappaleesta ihmisen, jossakin määrin ihmisestä luontokappaleen; oi kaikkivoipa lempi: ken se tuossa tulee, naaraaniko? – ottakaa osanne minusta, niin kuin lahjapeurasta, reisi kumpikin, itse pidän kyljet, lavat saa puistonvartija ja sarveni testamenttaan miehillenne! – hyvä hiljainen seuralaiseni, matkamiehenä ja muukalaisena ette varmaankaan tunne paikallisen metsämme paikallisia taruja, myyttejä, legendoja eli muita satuja ja levottoman mielen keksintöjä; sallikaa minun siis selittää hieman tarinani taustaa ja tehdä sitä sekä yleisesti että yksityisesti ymmärrettäväksi: mahtava puu, jonka alla odotan pääsyä rajuihin lemmenleikkeihin – suunnattomat sarveni tiukasti tukevasti tanassa – tunnetaan paikallisten keskuudessa Hernen puuna; Herne taasen oli vuosisatoja sitten elänyt kuninkaan metsämies ja metsänvartija, joka yksinkertaisen ja taikauskoon taipuvaisen kansan uskomuksen mukaan joutui jonkin ammoisina aikoina eläneen metsästyksen jumalan riivaamaksi – muuan kelttien jo ammoin unohtuneen Cernunnoksen, saanen lisätä, sillä jumaluusoppikaan ei teidän nöyrimmälle palvelijallenne sir John Falstaffille ole millään muotoa vierasta, ei suinkaan – ja jolle, näin kylällä yhäti kerrotaan, kasvoi päähän hirven sarvet ja joka sittemmin ja siitä samaisesta syystä epätoivoissaan hirtti itsensä samaiseen puuhun; ”kesk’öisin kiertää, suuret sarvet päässä, erästä tammipuuta talvet pitkät; puun kuivaa, karjan noituu, lehmäin maidon vereksi muuttaa hän ja kamalasti kalistaa kahleita”, kuten täälläpäin tavataan yhä sanoa; juuri hänen puunsa alla siis minä, kunnon ritari sir John Falstaff, seison – hieman hävyttömästi, mutta hyvillä mielin – metsämies Herneksi pukeutuneena ja odotan kiihkosta väriseviä pullukoitani saapuviksi: oma mustasaparoinen naaraaniko? – soittakoon ukkonen, nouskoon myrskynä kiihokkeita; tässä on minun turvapaikkani! – ajatus, voin kertoa teille näin herrasmiesten kesken ja perin luottamuksellisesti; ajatus sarvien kiinnittämisestä päähäni ei ole suinkaan omani, vaan se on peräisin riemukkaan riettailta rouviltani, ja mitäpä ei kaltaiseni leikkisä härkä tekisi taatakseen kaatamilleen naaraille mahdollisimman paljon iloa ja lemmekkään lihan kiihkoa; ja huvittaapa se minua kovastikin sarvipäisenä uroona tehdä aisankannattajia runsaiden rouvieni aviomiehistä – ha! – ha ja ha ja ha! – kippis, skåål, terveydeksenne, hyvä herraseni, ja pitkää ikää; niinpä seison tämän kirjaimellisestikin kirotun puun alla ja odotan ja odotan ja ilta tummenee ja vaihtuu pimeäksi lempeän samettiseksi yöksi ja vihdoin kuulen kaivattuja ääniä ja lähestyviä askelia ja ai, ai, ai, ai! – tulkaa tyköni pikku metsähiireni, pikku emakkoni; suo minulle, Jupiter, vilpoinen kiima-aika; metsän kuningas mylvii kiihkosta niin, että puista lähtevät lehdet, lihasta luut; antakaa sarvipäisen pukkinne, petomaisen pässinne teidät astua nyt ja nyt ja taas heti uudelleen! – äänet lähestyvät lähestymistään – mutta missä saaliini; missä pienet herkkupalani; missä missä? – metsän morsioideni, suloisten pikku helmikanojeni sijasta näen karkeita kylän miehiä vertani janoavat miekat koholla, sisäelimiäni saalistavat seipäät pystyssä, komeat kepit tanassa kuin suurilla suunnattomilla jättiläisrakastajilla konsanaan; nyt kuumaveriset jumalat mua auttakoot: minut nähdessään he käyvät hyökkäykseen – mutta niin käy arvon sarvihullu ritarinnekin! – tunnistan oitis etuimmaiset epatot ja kurjat konnat; aviomiehiä, kelvottomia katalia aviomiehiä, jotka kateellisina siitä, että heidän impyensä ja naidut naisensa heti jalkoihini lankeavat, ovat houkutellet minut metsään ja asettaneet minulle, lemmen lempeälle ritarille ansan; ja he yrittävät ajaa minut kiinni ja johdattaa karitsana teuraalle; mutta viekkaasti pusken sarveni ensimmäisen aviomiehen löysän hyllyvän vatsan perukoille ja kaadan hänet maahan; samoin toisen, samoin kolmannen; kuin kuivat ruohonkorret he lakoavat edessäni; kuin kaiken edestään polttava tuuli käyn heidän ylitsensä vailla armon häivää: tunnen kuinka vereni pauhaa kiehuu; raivostuneita aviomiehiä on leegio; missä pusken yhden maahan, siitä kaksi nousee ylös, missä pusken kaksi, siitä nousee neljä; en voi heitä kaikkia kukistaa – mestarillisena strategina ja sotilaana näen ja osaan oitis hahmottaa, ettei minulle ei ole muuta vaihtoehtoa kuin pako; pako, joka tässä tilanteessa ei ole pelkurimainen, ei raukkamainen vaihtoehto, vaan taktisesti älykäs ja yllättävä välttämättömyys; niinpä pakenen; ja savuavin soihduin ja vertahyytävästi haukkuvin ajokoirin he lähtevät perääni, solvauksiaan solkenaan syytäen – houkat! – yrittäkää saada minut kiinni, te narrit, te ruojat, te punaisten perseiden partasuiset paviaanit! – ha – yrittäkää! – kuin jalopeura laukkaan puiden ja puskien välistä, väistän kiven siellä kannon täällä sortuman tuolla; ei ole koiraa kasvatettu, joka minut ajaisi kiinni, ei metsästäjää synnytetty, joka minut kaataisi, ei elollista luotu, joka minut saalikseen saisi; takaa-ajajieni äänet heikkenevät kadotakseen taivaan sfäärien olemattomuuksiin ja minä laukkaan eteenpäin halki metsän sankkenevan viheriän hameen, laukkaan eteenpäin alati eteenpäin aina puuston syvimpään siimekseen ja vielä syvemmälle; aina sieluni syvimpään yöhön saakka; raastan vaatteet yltäni ja ulvon taivaankannen pimeyttä pirstovaa kuuta ja sinne tänne korkealle yläpuolelleni siroteltuja tähtiä, joita eivät voi kavioni tallata, joihin eivät sarveni yllä puskea; ulvon sisuksistani kaiken, mikä siellä piileksii ja lymyää; ja ulvottuani itseni tyhjäksi kuoreksi havahdun raastavaan riipivään repivään nälän tunteeseen, jota lääkitsen syömällä turpani ulottuvilla kasvavia huumaavan tuoksuvia lehtiä ja versoja; kieriskelen ruohossa ja loikkaan lapojani myöten puron viileyteen; uudet joka puolelta sieraimiin tunkevat hajut villitsevät minut; vesi, kylmää, kahlaan ylävirtaan, nousen ylös kuivattamaan turkkiani tuulessa auringossa; hankaan kylkiäni puita vasten kuori kutittaa pusken kaadan puita; en tiedä montako tuntia päivää viikkoa juoksen juoksen; nukkumatta lepäämättä syömättä juoksen; minä sarvipäinen uroshirvi minä juoksee juoksee juoksee; ja äkkiä, pysähtyy; kääntää päätä, äkkiä – haistaa: naaras – sukukypsä, valmiina, peurakaurishirvi, jossain lähistöllä, jossain todella lähellä; tuolla? – kääntää turpaa nuuhkii – tuolla? – kääntää turpaa nuuhkii – tuolla? – kääntää turpaa nuuhkii nuuhkii – tuolla? – tuolla; sinne; kääntyy; sinne; juoksee; sinne; laukkaa; sinne; kutsu leviää suoraan sieraimiin vetää sisään hengittää keuhkot täyteen naaraan kiimaa hengittää joka kerralla enemmän naaraan kiimaa laukkaa näkee naaraan valmiin valmiin; näkee naaraan toisen isosarvisen uroon alla syöksyy uroon kimppuun puskee urosta kaataa uroksen uros nousee puolustautuu hyökkää käy päälle puskee sarvet sarvia vasten – pam! – maa järisee – pam! – painaa yrittää kaataa alistaa – pam! – tarttuu sarvi sarveen luiskahtaa raapaisee lihaa avaa kyljen työntyy veren haju – pam! pam! – uudestaan suoraan päin – pam! – jänne kiristyy lihas jännittyy kavio ottaa vauhtia sarvi halkeaa jyrähtäen – pam! – pam! – Pam! sanon ja isken tyhjän mukini koko voimallani pöytään, niin että jysähdys on kaataa sen; isäntä hätkähtää, vaan muukalainen hän ei reagoi mitenkään – ei hätkähdä, ei edes tarjoudu täyttämään sisällön puutteesta surullisen orvoksi jäänyttä mukiani, oih! janoisen raukan tyhjyyttään kärsivää mukia, voih! – jatkan: kaksintaistelu kestää koko päivän ja koko yön ja koko seuraavan päivän, eikä kumpikaan mahtavista sarvipäisistä metsän ritareista tahdo toiselle luovuttaa metsän kuninkaan kruunua, valtikkaa eikä valtakunnan omenaa; voittajalle kuuluu naaras ja koko metsän kaikki naaraat; häviäjälle ei muuta kuin nöyrä alisteinen vasallin asema tai parhaimmassa tapauksessa armollisempi kuolema – taistelu jatkuu ritareiden uupumuksesta ja nääntyneisyydestä huolimatta; voimat heikkenevät, mutta tahto ei milloinkaan, ei hetkeksikään; taistelu jatkuu vaikka tietoisuus sumenee – ja, jalo herraseni, jos minulta tohditte kysyä kumpi kuolontaiston voitti, tahdon teille suoraan ja rehellisesti ja kiertelemättä vastata, että en tiedä; tiedän vain, että tietoisuuteni hitaasti hiipiessä takaisin kiusattuun runneltuun olemukseeni kylän punanenäinen puunhakkaaja ja puunhakkaajan kitukasvuinen apuri nostavat minut täriseville rattaille haisevien halkojen ja mätänevien puunraatojen sekaan; havahdun ja yritän pyristellä vastaan, mutta heikon tilani takia voimani ovat poissa ja metsän ritari ponneton ja avuton kuin pieni vastasyntynyt lapsi, ja niin puunhakkaaja vetää minut – kruunuprinssin rakkaan opettajan ja hänen rakkaimman ystävänsä – kotiinsa matalaan vaatimattomaan majaansa jossakin metsän laitamilla; tiedottomuus sulkee minut jälleen pehmeään viettelevään syliinsä; kun herään löydän mahtavan sarvipäisen olomuotoni puunhakkaajan vajasta röyhkeästi ja tiukasti sidottuna; riuhtomisesta ja riehumisesta huolimatta irtipääsy tahi pako ei ole mahdollista; nöyryytettynä täytyy minun vain todeta kiistattomat tosiasiat: olen satimessa; suuri sir John Falstaff, kuninkaan ylväs suosikkiritari, on vangittu ja tyrmään teljetty – ja traagisesti, melkein ironisesti kyllä teljetty metsän alhaisimmasta alhaisimman olennon eli surkean puunhakkaajan toimesta; voi onnetonta kohtaloani! – voi tukalaa tilannettani! – mylvin tuskaani maailman kuultavaksi, jotta maailma voi surra ja itkeä kanssani – ja yllättäen vajan ovi avataan ja puunhakkaajan nuori verevä vaimo astuu sisälle, sylissään kopallinen herkullisia nauriita minun syödä ja viileää vettä minun juoda; syötyäni ja saatuani hieman voimiani takaisin ihanainen puunhakkaajanrouva pesee veriset haavani ja sitoo ne; sen jälkeen hän pehmeillä käsillään silittää sarviani, kuiskaa suloisia lohdun sanoja korvaani ja löysää köysiäni; ei paljon, mutta tarpeeksi, niin että minun on helppo riistäytyä vapaaksi; yksi päättäväinen riuhtaisu ja jalosyntyistä ritarianne eivät enää minkään valtakunnan köydet pidättele; puunhakkaajan omenilta ja hunajalta tuoksuva rouva hätääntyy ja huudahtaa apua; hän ei koskaan ehdi ovelle saakka; etusorkillani työnnän hänet kumoon halkopinon päälle, sarvilla nostan hänen karkeaa hamettaan; pusken hänen päälleen ja työnnyn perille ja hän kirkuu; ensin kauhusta, sitten ilosta; nyt se Cupido on tunnokas lapsi; hän antaa vahingonkorvausta; satakoon nyt taivaasta perunoita, soittakoon ukkonen vihreän hameen nuottia; nouskoon myrskynä kiihokkeita; tässä on minun turvapaikkani! – ja samalla hetkellä, kun tuo edellinen ajatus kulkee lävitseni, tunnen kuinka lapaani vihloo ilkeimmän mukaan; katsahdan ylös kiihkeistä lemmenleikeistäni ja näen kuinka puunhakkaajan apupoika hakkaa minua mahtavalla puunhalolla; väkevä pään heilautus ja sarveni lennättävät apurin vajan kattoon; kuulen ulkoa huutoa; ymmärrän, että minun on pakko päästä ulos vajasta, etten jää ansaan; työnnän pääni sarvineen ulos oviaukosta; ennen kuin täyteläinen ruhoni ehti seurata perässä, oviaukon vieressä lymyilevän puunhakkaajan suunnaton kirves heilahtaa – kuulen kuivan terävän napsahduksen; puunhakkaajaa nostaa kirveen uuteen iskuun, mutta ennen kuin hän ehtii upottaa vasta teroitetun metallinsa selkääni, olen jo laukannut turvaan metsän suojiin; vasta laukattuani itseni uuvuksiin huomaan, että puunhakkaajan tappavaksi tarkoitettu sivallus on erottanut kalliit sarveni päästäni: olen täysin nutipää! – ja näyttääkseni hiljaiselle muukalaiselle, mistä kohtaa puunhakkaajan työkalu on haukannut päänahkaani, riisun lakkini ja kallistan alastonta sarvetonta päätäni hänen tykönsä; mutta samassa huomaan, etten enää olekaan tavernassa vaan takaisin metsässä, Hernen puun edessä; salama iskee ja sen valossa näen, että puun latvasta roikkuu hirtetty sarvipäinen mies: Herne; salama iskee uudestaan ja näen, että puu on jälleen tyhjä; puun alla joku istuu jalat ristissä; hurtat haukkuvat, verikoirat ulvovat; lähden juoksemaan; ne seuraavat perässäni, ajavat minua takaa – yökoira ajaa kaikenlaista riistaa; kuulen huutoja, kavioiden kopsetta; vaikka kuinka juoksen, en pääse minnekään; koko ajan olen puun lähettyvillä minne tahansa yritänkin suunnata; myrsky yltyy; salamat iskevät ympärilleni; koirat ajavat minut lähemmäksi puuta, lähemmäksi miestä, joka istuu puun alla; mutta ei hän mikään mies ole, tämä pelottava sarvipäinen hahmo, jolla on kädessään sarvipäinen käärme: hän on muinoinen metsänjumala, metsästyksen ja saalistuksen julma jumala, Cernunnos, nyt ja ikuisesti; koirat ajavat minua kuin saaliseläintä kunnes en enää jaksa juosta; kohtaloni hyväksyen heittäydyn maahan hyllyvänä muumiavuorena; ja kun avaan silmäni olen taas jälleen hämärän tavernan suojissa; läähätän, pyyhin lakilla hikeä otsaltani ja tunnustelen toisella kädellä paljasta päälakeani – hyvä herraseni, olette kuullut uskomattoman tarinani, jonka joka sana on taivaan totta; niin vannoo hetken Windsorin hirvenä juossut täydellisen ritarin perikuva sir John Falstaff, sanon kunhan henkeni jälleen alkaa hieman kulkea, samalla kun nyt tunnistan edessäni istuvan muukalaisen aikaisemmin näkemäkseni metsän sarvipääksi muinaisjumalaksi; vanhaksi ikuiseksi jumalaksi, jonka nimen mystisesti äsken muistin, mutta joka nyt lienee jo aikaa sitten unohtunut: peljästyn näkemääni niin, että luulen viimeisen hetkeni koittaneen; metsänjumala suvaitsi aikansa leikitellä kanssani metsässä ja nyt hän aikoo päättää huvituksensa ja päästää minut päiviltä; mutta metsänjumala ei tee elettäkään siihen suuntaan ja ymmärrän, että ei hän täällä tavernassa ajaisi minua koirillaan hengiltä ja sen päätteeksi minut vielä puuhunsa hirttäisi sekä lopuksi sisälmyksiäni puunsa oksien koristeeksi sirottelisi, vaan tekisi sen tietenkin ja luonnollisesti omassa rakkaassa metsässään, oman puunsa äärellä; joten päätän röyhkeästi tarttua härkää sarvista ja sanon hänelle miellyttävintä hymyäni hymyillen, sillä mitäpä minulla tässä enää olisi menetettävää: hyvä ystäväinen, parahin poisunohdettu metsänjumala, tuskinpa tohditte tai edes voitte olla kanssani eri mieltä siitä kiistattomasta tosiseikasta, että sellainen ainutlaatuinen, liioittelematon ja vieläpä kaupan päälle harvinaisen eläväisesti kerrottu tarina, jolla juuri äsken teitä viihdytin ja ilahdutin, on totta kai toisenkin mukillisen arvoinen – ehkäpä, ellen aivan tavattomasti erehdy, jopa kolmannenkin? – seuralaiseni ei sano mitään, hymyilee vain arvoituksellista hymyään; suljen silmäni ja tartun molemmin käsin mukiini, joka huomaamattani on täyttynyt; en tiedä, mitä minulle aiotte tehdä, sanon kun sherris jälleen saa vereni kiertämään ja tasaa lepattavan henkeni, mutta mitä minulle teettekään, niin yksi pieni toive minulla on: ennen kuin teette sen, voitteko palauttaa kruununi ja muuttaa minut taas takaisin metsän sarvipäiseksi kuninkaaksi, edes hetken ajaksi.

(Julkaistu Finnzinen numerossa 2/2007)

Anonymous

2010-04-12T21:28:00.004+03:00

The Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, I don't mind telling you, seems like rather a good candidate. He was a courtier, a soldier and a favourite of the Queen - in fact one of the highest ranking noblemen in the Realm. He spoke several languages and was educated beyond belief. He loved books and spent fortunes on them. He had tight literary connections: Edmund Spenser, Anthony Munday, John Lyly and Arthur Golding dedicated works to him. Lyly, one of the first English playwrights, worked as his secretary and Golding, who translated Ovid's Metamorphoses, was his uncle. He travelled in the right places in Italy and Europe, had three daughters just like Lear, was captured by pirates just like Hamlet. His father-in-law was exactly like Polonius and his wife like Ofelia.

He was an accomplished poet and much involved with theatre. Maybe he even wrote plays.

But was he Shakespeare?

The theory was first proposed by the English school teacher J.T. Looney in his 1920 book Shakespeare Identified. Even before that there had been candidates galore: Marlowe, Bacon, Queen Elizabeth - or maybe all of then in cahoots?

There seems to be, among some parties, a great urge to explain away Shakespeare's authorship. I do wonder why? Because he wasn't of noble birth? But he was as his mother was an Arden. The Ardens were one of only three noble families that could trace their lineage, with documents, to before the Norman conquest. (It's also worth noting that Shakespere's father John was the mayor of Stratford, so William wasn't exactly your typical country yokel.) Because he was ill educated or even uneducated? But the grammar school in Stratford was excellent and taught both Greek and Latin. Because he probaby never travelled abroad, nor fought in a war, nor studied law, nor practised falconry, nor sailed the seven seas? Writing isn't really a question of what the author has done but what he can imagine and then put on paper.

Now de Vere is in many ways an excellent candidate if one wants someone other than Shakespeare to have authored Shakespeare's works. There really is a plethora of facts or factoids that makes one wonder. Could it be? Could it?

But, whatever the circumstantial evidence, two solid arguments against his being Shakespeare remain: 1) de Vere died in 1604, far too early considering such plays as Henry VIII and The Tempest, and 2) no written document links de Vere to the plays. Nothing.

The first argument is iffier, simply because very rarely do we know when the plays were written. Hardly ever, in fact. In some cases we know when they were performed, though not necessarily first performed. All dates for when Shakespeare's plays were written are pretty much estimates, educated guesses or pure conjecture. Henry VIII was performed in 1613. This is well known. In one performance a spark from a canon used in the play ignited the thatch roof of of the theatre and The Globe burned down. At the time, according to one source, the play was new and had been performed only a few times.

Not the strongest evidence. It wasn't uncommon for Elizabethan and Jacobean play-goers to think of a play as new if it was being performed after a longish hiatus. And nobody knows when Henry VIII was written, even if it premiered in 1613. Could have been written years before. There seems to be evidence of two authors, Shakespeare and another - maybe Fletcher, maybe Massinger. Maybe the other fellow simply patched it up years after it had been written or even abandoned by Shakespeare? Macbeth was tampered with after Shakespeare's death. It needn't have been the only case of suchlike villainy.

What about The Tempest? A great deal seems to hang on what sources were used when writing the play. Scholars seem to disagree violently. Some scholars even claim it was never written by Shakespeare at all. These scholars, however, seem a bit biased of course. If it was written after 1604, they claim, then someone else wrote it. Couldn't have been Shakespeare. Why not? Because at that time de Vere was quite dead and not writing anything. Hardly a persuading argument.

No, it's all extremely hazy and blurry, this dating of the plays.

The more serious argument is the lack of any textual evidence linking de Vere and the works of Shakespeare. Without any documents it's all conjecture. However persuasive it may be.

This, in fact, is where a great deal of the charm of the Oxfordian theory lies. It's all a cover-up, it's all a massive conspiracy. And we do love our conspiracy, don't we. What makes the conspiracy theory even more delectable, not to say downright irresistible, is the fact that de Vere's father-in-law was none other than Lord Burghley.

Burghley, William Cecil, was Elizabeth's prime minister and just about the only man in England who could pull off such a cover-up operation successfully. There was no archive to which Burghley didn't have access, no document he couldn't tamper with or make disappear. No doors were closed to him. Disobey him and your life was worth not a farthing. Burghley was the man Walsingham obeyed. Burghley was England's most influential man. If it was his wish that every trace that de Vere was Shakespeare would vanish, then they would vanish. Plain and simple.

The Oxfordians have another theory, an even more outrageous one. de Vere was in fact Elizabeth's son. Or she had an affair with the Queen who bore him a son. No evidence, of course, but it's a good story.

This is apparently what the Emmerich de Vere movie is going to be about. A conspiracy to conceal information lethally dangerous to the crown. This is what the Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Shapiro (author of 1599 and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare) writes about the Emmerich project called Anonymous in the Los Angeles Times: "When Emmerich says his movie will be about incest and bastards, he means that the story line follows a popular spinoff of Looney's undocumented theory, in which the Earl of Oxford was not only the secret son of the not-so-virginal Queen Elizabeth, but also, when he came of age, her lover. There's more fantasy: the Earl of Southampton was their illegitimate child and likely heir to the throne of England, until he was imprisoned for his role in the Essex Rebellion. And the explanation as to why Shakespeare would have gotten credit for plays and poems the Earl of Oxford wrote? The "real facts" had to be hushed up because a Tudor prince could never be seen to stoop to the lowly business of playwriting. "

Now that's what I call a reason to hush it all up.

But back to the facts. We know hardly anything about Shakespeare's past. We know next to nothing about Shakespeare's life. We don't know much at all when the plays were written or first performed.

That's not a good story.

A conspiracy is a good story. That's why most people will always prefer the cover-ups and the conspiracies to the next to perfect vacuum that is Will's story. As long as we know next to nothing about him or his story, as long as Shakespeare is an anonymous nonentity without a life, people will look for and find a substitute - someone who does have a good story, with the added bonus of a ripping conspiracy.

Because we all do love a good story. Especially one that could be true, well almost anyway.

Goring Dash

2010-04-05T16:46:00.011+03:00

Joe Gores's newish prequel to The Maltese Falcon, Spade & Archer, makes me wonder. It's not that I automatically resent the idea of a prequel.

Or, well, maybe I do a bit.

Part, a great part in fact, of what makes a work of art work is the underlying tension beneath the surface and between the characters, and the things that never are explained or clarified. Just what is the relationship between Spade and Archer? What's Effie's story? How did Spade become Spade? What sort of an affair did Iva Archer and Spade have? We don't know. There are hints. This is implied, that may be deduced, the other almost revealed. But nothing definite.

The more clarifications and explanations we have the less interesting it becomes.

Do I really need to know what Spade's father did for a living or where Spade served during the Great War and exactly how he started his own agency? Is it important for me to know everything about Spade and Effie's first encounter? Does it somehow enhance The Maltese Falcon that I be made aware of how Spade and Iva Archer conduct their extra-marital affair behind Archer's back? Do I need it spelled out that Archer's a bit of a card, do I in fact need Archer exposed as an unequivocal rogue?

No.

I'm not denying that I quite enjoyed Spade & Archer and found it a good read, but there was far too much unnecessary exposition and back story that was right on the nose for it to be a really good book. It seemed like Gores's brief was to cover everything up till that magic moment when Miss Wonderly makes her unforgettable appearance and cover it he jolly well did with a vengeance!

That's what made it an embarrasingly semi-autonomous unit and therefore a bit redundant. We were told things that we neither need nor want to know. (Or, actually, we do want to know them, desperately even, that's the whole point, but once we do know them they become unimportant.)

It's a bit like someone writing a prequel to Hamlet (been done, I know I know) and painstakingly connecting every dot and filling every single blank space: showing what the relationship between old Hamlet and Gertrude is like, what the relationship between Hamlet and his father is like, what the relationship between Gertrude and Claudius is like, what the relationship between Hamlet and Claudius is like, how Hamlet's courtship of Ofelia commences and blooms. Everything. Leaving no stone unturned and no worms lurking in the dark damp crevices. Everything is out in the open. And suddenly it's all plain and unambiguous, trite and banal.

The ambiguities are what make it interesting and worthwhile. The ambiguities are what bring it alive.

Without the ambiguities, the unexplained tensions, the unclarified relationships, The Maltese Falcon would be a forgotten book. And justly so. Just like nobody would give a toss about why the fat Dane just doesn't revenge his father and get it over with.

Maybe I'm being rather too hard on Spade & Archer. It's just that I can't help but measure it against Gores's excellent 1975 novel Hammett, which by a curious chance I stumbled upon and read just a couple of weeks before reading Spade & Archer.

It's 1928. Hammett lives in San Francisco and is writing The Dain Curse. Public opinon is turning against the corruption and immorality that permeates the whole town. Brothel keeper Molly Farr is in the eye of the storm and disappears. Were she to talk it would be embarrasing for a lot of influential gentlemen. Hammett's old Pinkerton Buddy Vic Atkinson gets a delicate assignment: to investigate wrong-doings in the San Francisco police department. Vic gets killed early on in the game - no surprises there - and it's up to Hammett to crack the case and hunt down the culprit.

Who turns out to be not quite what Hammett expected. Quite chilly, really. But stays true to the gruesome world of Hammett where no punches are pulled. Ever.

Right after I finished Hammett I had another look at the Wenders/Coppola movie based on the book. What I still can't stand about it is its artificiality, its sterility, its almost hermetic quality. It doesn't breathe. And this is because most of it seems to be filmed in some ghastly studio instead of on location. Shooting scenes on the windy streets of San Francisco would have made it come alive. Now several scenes are almost unwatchable. I don't know if Coppola was going for a claustrophobic noirish feel, maybe he was. But if so he got it terribly wrong. In fact I'm not at all convinced it's particularly wise to try to see Hammett's work (and by proxy Hammett, both the book and movie) in terms of noir. There is a definite kinship, this cannot be denied, but Hammett's stuff transcends noir. The shoe just don't fit.

What Spade & Archer did do for me, and for this reason alone I cannot condemn nor censure the book, was to create the urge to re-read The Maltese Falcon and maybe the entire works of Hammett. And obviously to have another go at the Huston film. I still haven't seen the first two versions, Roy Del Ruth's Satan Met a Lady (1931) and William Dieterle's The Maltese Falcon (1936) in which Sam Spade for some strange reason becomes the rather less well named Ted Shane. Miss Wonderly has the not so enchanting moniker Valerie Purvis but is played by the glorious Bette Davis. Whose birthday, by the way, it seems to be today if Imdb may be trusted.

These two films seem annoyingly, damnably, elusive.

I Want to Believe?

2010-03-28T21:31:00.022+03:00

Having purchased seasons 6 and 7 of The X Files on DVD, and thus been watching several episodes a day, I find these seasons a curiously bothersome experience. It's not that the episodes all seem derivative and tautological (well they do because they are), it's not that the episodes are rubbish (some of them are quite surprisingly good actually), it's that now the core and essence of the series is made so abundantly clear. There were hints, oh yes there were plenty of hints all along the way, but now there can be no doubt about it: it's all about faith and belief.

This is what the entire series is founded upon.

Mulder knows the way things are. Mulder knows what is what, he just cannot prove anything. So his sayings and claims have to be taken on faith.

We, the viewers, are given some glimpses of the truth. Sometimes these are explained away, sometimes they aren't. But clearly we are given to understand that Mulder is right. He holds the truth.

Fair enough.

But this doesn't seem to satisfy the powers that be. This is the point where The X Files ceases to be science fiction, falls flat on its face and becomes soap opera. Or religious soap opera, which is much worse. Not to say embarrassingly banal.

Mulder isn't simply the fellow who tries to get to the bottom of things and expose the corruption. Oh no. Mulder is given saint like properties. Mulder is a Holy Prophet. And to underline this, to make it clear as a bell, he, time and again, dies and comes back through resurrection. He suffers for our sins. He is crucified. He preaches the truth but no one will listen to him. He is mocked. He is ridiculed. He is silenced. But he will not, cannot be silenced. He will suffer any consequence, withstand any torture, to get his truth out. His truth. The truth.

Believe and ye shall be saved. Question and ye shall perish.

Mulder is, to put it quite bluntly, Messiah. Even Scully, who's supposed to be the rational partner, isn't really convinced that science can provide any real answers. She relies on religion. "Are you asking me to pray?"Belief is the key. Believe and ye shall be saved.

This makes me right miffed.

It's cheating. I don't want my science fiction to be sugar-coated religion masquerading as bold, independent and intellectually valid art.

I'm perfectly willing to accept the core truth of almost all religions, that essential truth that is akin to mythology and must be understood as a metaphor of the soul and mankind's spiritual journey, and I'm quite willing to accept the theological framework that lies at the heart of The X Files as a perfectly legitimate and indeed compelling dramaturgical and emotional construction. But when it comes down to a question or rather a demand of personal and unquestioned and blind belief I tend to get extremely irritated. Sometimes even hostile. And when it comes to scientific thought having to yield to faith I am at a loss for words.

It offends my sense of rationality, it offends everything I hold true. It offends common sense.

And, this is the cruncher, it makes for poor art. The religious undertones in The X Files completely ruin any chance of it being taken seriously, its hubristic Messianic tendencies only serve to make it a piece of juvenile and unsound propaganda. Propaganda is never good art. Propaganda is never art at all.

"You're not Christ," says the Smoking Man to Mulder in an early season 7 episode. But of course the opposite is true and this is the way we are to understand it. He is Christ and meant to be seen as such. The Smoking man is of course Satan - "May I offer you a cigarette?" - and the ominous red glow of his ever present cigarette tip a little piece of Hell. He tries to lead Mulder astray with his lies and mendacious rationalizations, and by showing him a false picture of how life could be if only he gave up his foolish quest. He could have a normal life, just like anybody else. Mulder remains strong in his faith, with a little help fron Scully.

Mulder is the one man who stands between us and extinction. He cannot waver. He must believe or else comes the Apocalypse. The Smoking Man crucifies Mulder, literally, and on his head Mulder wears the Crown of Thorns - suitably updated for a cyber age. Behold the man.

Good stuff, powerful imagery. But. This is what it comes down to and this is what makes me rather less than happy - the preaching. What The X Files preaches is: belief is good, science and rationality are bad. I'll repeat: belief good, science and rationality bad.

And now I see Mulder's motto and the motto of the entire series - "I want to believe" - in a totally new light and it gives me the shivers. Was it this blatant from the start?

Any work of art that preaches such truths is rubbish, complete and utter, not to say intellectually dishonest. No further explanations necessary.

I'm not entirely certain this is Chris Carter's intention. But - if it isn't he's a pretty confused fellow and doesn't quite know what he's up to. Any which way it doesn't make him look particularly good.

What really amazes me is that it took so long for me to spot the obvious. I suppose I just didn't want to believe.

"Extremely Distasteful"

2010-03-19T14:20:00.010+02:00

I've never particularly cared for Hitchcock. The films are quite entertaining as such but afterwards one inevitably gets an empty, almost nauseating feeling; just like after having eaten something dodgy or read a Christie novel. There's something off, there's something fundamental lacking; they both have this frighteningly chilly core at the centre of their art, this inhuman vacuum where a human soul of some description ought to reside.

However, I do love a few Hitchcock movies. Psycho. Vertigo. North by Northwest. It took me long while to see just what it was that made me adore these films in particular, even view them as masterpieces. Then the obvious suddenly struck me: Bernard Herrmann.

It's Herrmann's music that transforms these movies into gripping cinematic experiences and singular works of art.

Herrmann (born in 1911) was a native New Yorker and attended New York University and the Juilliard School. He was a member of Aaron Copland's circle and tried his hand at composing, writing his first dramatic score at 22, La Belle Dame sans Merci. In the early '30s he joined the CBS orchestra as a conductor and avidly performed new and unknown works. Like those of Charles Ives, who was still alive at the time and whom he soon befriended. Ives was at this point in time almost entirely unplayed and quite unknown. Certainly nobody had any idea he was the greatest composer the United States had produced - still is - and the New World's equivalent of Arnold Schönberg. Herrmann understood it.

CBS also broadcast a lot of radio plays, like those put on by the Mercury Theatre and the Campbell Playhouse, both of which operated under the auspices of that controversial theatrical wunderkind Orson Welles. The radio plays of course needed music. Herrmann suplied it. He conducted the music for Welles's best known and most poignant radio play The War of the Worlds in 1938 and scored many other productions. It naturally befell Hermann to score Welles's first venture into the world of cinema, an almost forgotten little effort called Citizen Kane.He also did the score for The Magnificent Ambersons but pulled it when the studio in a dastardly fashion slaughtered the film in Welles's absence. A few bits of it remain in the carnage that the studio released, much against Herrmann's wishes.

After that there was no turning back. In the '40s he scored Robert Stevens's Jane Eyre (with Joan Fontaine in the title role and Welles as the dark and brooding Rochester), John Brahm's Hangover Square (with Laird Cregar and George Sanders), John Cromwell's Anna and the King of Siam (with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison) and Joseph Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs Muir (with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison). Among his highlights in the '50s were the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (by Robert Wise), Mankiewicz's spy thriller 5 Fingers (with James Mason and Danielle Darrieux), Henry King's Hemingway picture The Snows of Kimanjaro (with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner), and Michael Curtiz's Mika Waltari epic The Egyptian (with Peter Ustinov and Gene Tierney).

In 1955 the collaboration with Hitchcock started with The Trouble With Harry and the following year he did both the re-make of The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Wrong Man. Then it came: the truly unsurpassed masterpieces - Vertigo in 1958 and North by Northwest in 1959. Then Psycho in 1960 and J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear in 1962.

The collaboration with Hitchcock ended in 1964 and Torn Curtain. Hitchcock wanted a jazz and pop influenced score, Herrmann wanted to do it his own way. Like always. He would not be dictated to. If he couldn't do it exactly like he wanted, if he wasn't in total control of the music and in on the making of the movie from the word go, then he didn't want to do it. Quite sensibly, I might add. Hitchcock and Herrmann parted on not too amicable terms. After Hitchcock Herrmann did write a couple of important scores but the entire industry was changing and not all for the better. He wrote the scores for Fahrenheit 451 (1966, based on the Bardbury novel) and The Bride Wore Black (1968, based on the Cornell Woolrich novel) for Truffaut and Taxi Driver (1976) for Martin Scorcese. He died just a few hours after having finished recording the soundtrack for Taxi Driver.

I have a particular fondness for North by Northwest. Maybe there we have the finest film music he wrote. Or even: the finest film music ever written. The fandango that begins the film is right on the money and let's us know the name of the game at once. It's repetitive, simple, obsessive and frustrating. The effect is at the same time both dizzying and hypnotic. It's like we're in this spinning carousel and can't get off. In Psycho there are the unforgettable stabbing pizzicati and screeching birdlike violins. And again the repetition: the anxiety and the frustration grow and grow till we can no longer bear it. The it starts anew. There can be no solace. Something bad is about to happen, every note is a harbinger of doom. Nothing can avert the evil. It is like the rain in the driving scene: all-permeating and absolute. We can do nothing but await its coming and accept it when it does come.

What Herrmann realised is that film music doesn't have to be complex or stand on its own two feet. What is needed is impact. This is more often than not acheived by doing quite simple things. But doing them just at the right time. And repetition is the key - breaking down the viewer's every last resistance.

Herrmann goes for the gut reaction and by Jove he gets it.

In Vertigo we have the haunting Tristan like theme that keeps repeating itself and the frustration keeps building. It's never in the pictures or the lines - it's all in the music. This is probably something of which Hitchcock was acutely aware and disliked immensely. It has been suggested that a great part in the rift between Hitchcock and Herrmann was played by the possible fact that Hitchcock on some level, subliminal or not, resented the immense impact Herrmann had on his movies.

Herrmann's second unsurpassed masterpiece is the score of Cape Fear. The theme is simplicity itself. And it spells doom. It never relents, it never gives up, it never goes away. It immediately goes for the jugular. Four chords that keep on repeating. And repeating. And repeating. Till the bitter end. Right from the first note we know it's going to be a tragedy of epic Greek proportions with proper carnage. It can end only in cathartic death. But in a Herrmann score not even death brings us an escape from the frustration and anxiety he's built up. There is no escape. There is no relief. Not in the movie, not in life.

The last work, Taxi Driver, is a departure from the usual Herrmann. The jazzy score is softer, moodier, less anxious and neurotic. But again he unerringly captures not only the mood but the essence of the film - the hopeless cosmic loneliness of Travis Bickle. The music insulates him from the rest of humanity. They cannot hear it nor understand it just like they cannot understand or connect with him. The saxophone plays only for him. He's alone.

The title of this entry comes from a letter Herrmann wrote to his first wife, the author Lucille Fletcher (who wrote the briliant radio play Sorry, Wrong Number, which later was made into not quite as brilliant a movie with Burt Lancaster and Barbara Stanwyck): "I entered into work that was extremely distasteful to me . . . I never had time for my own reflection and work . . ." According to Lucille he wanted to be a conductor and conduct those pieces of music by Ives and Bartok and the other big boys he truly loved. He wrote one symphony, one opera and a cantata dedicated to Ives.

So this is his tragedy. He didn't really want to be a composer of film music at all. It's just that he was so incredibly good at it, so exceptional. He might have become a conductor of note - but we have those. We have many many brilliant conductors. We have no other film composer like Herrmann. Not even close.

Herrmann's only screen appearance is in The Man Who Knew Too Much. The scene takes place in Albert Hall and in it Herrmann plays - a conductor.

The Rabbit and the Hound

2010-03-14T15:26:00.002+02:00

In The Norwood Builder Jonas Oldacre fakes his own death and frames the "unhappy John Hector Macfarlane" for murder.

Oldacre seems like a thoroughly unpleasant fellow. "He was a strange, little, ferret-like man, with white eyelashes," is how Macfarlane describes him. Macfarlane's mother, who once was engaged to Oldacre, gives the following description: "He was more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being". This is the first impression Watson receives: "It was an odious face - crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes."

In his preface to my edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Pan, 1979) Angus Wilson draws attention to the fact how much animal imagery there in the tales that make up this particular collection: "the world of beasts is never far away as a shadow world behind the strange or dreadful events which Holmes reduces to questions of orderly reason."

A ferret, an ape. "A little, wizened man" who darted out of his cubby-hole "like a rabbit out of its burrow."

So perhaps it's quite in order that Oldacre uses animal remains when he fakes his own death. Chicken bones? That's the way I always remember it. No. I check the story and it seems my memory is incorrect. "By the way," Holmes asks Oldacre in the end, "what was it you put into the wood-pile besides your old trousers? A dead dog, rabbits, or what?" Oldacre gives no reply. "Well, well, I dare say that a couple of rabbits would account for the blood and the charred ashes", Holmes concludes.

Still, this point has always made me wonder. Is it really viable to mistake charred rabbit bones for human remains? What medical examiner would make such a dismal error? Would Dr Watson, as a trained professional, fall for such a clumsy device? Hardly. But Watson never gets to see the remains, unless I'm much mistaken. Does Holmes see them? The story isn't entirely clear on that point.

Holmes says: "They had spent the morning raking among the ashes of the burned wood-pile and besides the charred organic remains they had secured several discoloured metal discs. I examined them with care, and there was no doubt that they were trouser buttons." So he has access to what the police found. Surely that would include a glance at the organic remains?

Now the bones are charred. Ashes really, is what Doyle writes. But is that possible? Can bones be thus annihilated in a mere wood-fire? I doubt it. It seems extremely unlikely. No, I'll venture a bold statement: It's entirely impossible.

There is absolutely no way a whole human corpse can be reduced entirely to ashes and cinder in a smallish wood-fire. The temperatures required for that are far higher. Surely Doyle as a professional medical gentleman was aware of this. Dear old Bertie Wooster is fond of quoting Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, but unfortunately he never can remember more than "ta-dum ta-dum ta-dum - someone had blunder'd." And that someone, in this case, is Arthur Conan Doyle. He, putting it bluntly, blundered. He slipped up. He stepped into it. No two ways about it. Well, that sort of thing tends to happen when the pace one writes at is fast and furious.

The Granada television series acknowledges the problem and the script tweaks the story a bit. In the episode Oldacre lures a tramp to his house, murders him and burns his body. As the remains of the tramp are clad in Oldacre's clothes, it is naturally assumed that the dead man is Oldacre.

This is all good and well and settles the matter of the unconvincing animal remains. However. Doyle's Oldacre is clearly a timid, shifty, cunning man. A man who in cold blood frames someone and takes a sadistic pleasure from doing it. But he's a ferret, a rabbit. Not someone who would or indeed could murder a man, not with his own hands. Only cowardly by proxy. Therefore in the episode they have a big, strong and bullish Oldacre - the antithesis of Doyle's intention. It throws the whole episode off for me, as the plan is still quite clearly a timid coward's sadistic plan and therefore not at all in synch with this new he-man Oldacre.

By the way, there's a rather remarkable thing about The Norwood Builder. Doyle didn't write the story alone. This, I believe is a pretty unique occurrence in the Canon. His partner was called Fletcher Robinson, but I'm not entirely certain if Robinson ever did more than help with the plotting.

Fletcher Robinson's name is important because of another thing he did. He's the man who came up with the original idea that produced The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was originally supposed to be a collaboration between Doyle and Robinson but then somehow Holmes crept in. This is curious. Holmes was, at this point, quite dead. Doyle certainly had no intention of resurrecting him, none at all. Yet Holmes managed to worm his way into The Hound of the Baskervilles and transform the entire novel into a vehicle for himself. Now there was no turning back and it didn't take too long before the short stories started to appear once more in the Strand and Holmes was officially returned to the fold, resurrected and back in business.

When Holmes came in, Robinson was out. But how much of the story did he write? Any of it? We don't quite know. Doyle kept it pretty schtumm and Robinson himself died shortly afterwards. It surely isn't too much of a stretch to wonder if he wrote some bits of the legend of the Hound. That was after all his main contribution to Doyle - the Legend of the Hound. At least some of the plotting must have come from him. I think we may take for granted that Doyle wrote all the bits with Holmes and/or Watson in them. Or may we? What was the book to be like before Holmes stepped in? Who was to be the hero? How far did Robinson and Doyle get in their planning? They commenced the writing, that much seems certain, but how far did they in fact get? Have any parts of the book been modified and was Holmes perchance inserted into already existing scenes? I don't find it at all impossible, at least in the latter parts of the book.

Anyway, interesting fact: Fletcher Robinson was involved in the writing of two Canonical Sherlock Holmes stories. The only outsider who ever was, I believe.