Ponder: The Brutal Telling

As I work my way through the Chief Inspector Gamache murder mystery series of Louise Penny I am repeatedly aware that it is not plot alone that keeps me coming back. I love the characters in the quaint village of Three Pines in Canada and, since this is her fifth book I have read, I am well acquainted with them as old friends. Therefore, it comes as a shock when one of them is a suspect in the murder investigation in her novel The Brutal Telling ©2009. An author rarely writes a character out of a book unless there is to be an end or drastic change to the series. Will this personable, well-known character be doomed and gone forever? No! Can't be...! But maybe...? 

I am reminded of a tongue-in-cheek exchange in the 1999 Galaxy Quest movie with Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver, illustrating a supportive counterpart to this character assumption. In the first 30 seconds of a YouTube excerpt, a small party of the crew is sent off on an exploratory trip to an uncharted planet and one of the team members laments that he is doomed.

You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.

I'm not? Then what's my last name?

Uh... um, um, ... I dunno.

Nobody knows. You know why? Because

my character is not important enough for a last name.

Because I'm gonna die.

Five minutes in.

Guy, you have a last name.

Do I? Do I? For all you know I'm just Crewman No. 6!

My radar has been triggered. Why detail a character and build up a rapport with him only to write him out as guilty. No way! But... but... the evidence... surely points to... This is a suspense building option that would not have been available to the author had she not written four previous books in the series.

There is another suspense option built into the book with the cover. Shown on the left is the cover in Greece and shown on the right is the cover in Canada.

 

An article discussing the publication of The Brutal telling in Greece states:

Off to Greece this week, with the cover of The Brutal Telling as envisioned by our Greek colleagues. There’s clearly a stark difference between the two cover treatments: while we chose to emphasize the fall season in our jacket approach, they focus on traditional mystery elements. With the silhouette of a raven, their cover puts the reader in the mind of Edgar Allen Poe, and immediately suggests something sinister is afoot. In contrast, the US jacket focuses on the vibrant fall foliage of Canada, with only the darkness at the edges to symbolize danger. Both jackets, however, speak to the untamed landscape that Chief Inspector Gamache must navigate to solve the crime

A comment in that article goes on to say that

"[Covers] are like a sound track. You need them but you may not really notice them!"

To me this is further evidence that it is unfortunate that some electronic books do not have covers since they are not needed for sales. What a missed opportunity to lead the reader where the author wants him led. 

Along with characters and suspense, I am bemused with the embedded knowledge in Louise Penny's books. There is a subtle example as early as the second page of the first chapter:

The dark was punctuated by flickering candles throwing fantastic, grotesque shadows. Night seemed to have seeped through the cracks in the logs and settled in the cabin, curled in corners and under the bed. Many native tribes believed evil lived in corners, which was why their traditional homes were rounded. Unlike the square homes the government had given them.

Some of the descriptive language is whimsical. In the second chapter:

In the kitchen Gamache's German shepherd, Henri, sat up in his bed and cocked his head. He had huge oversize ears which made Gamache think he wasn't purebred but a cross between a shepherd and a satellite dish.

The third chapter keeps amusing me with the philosophical banter:

In Beauvoir's experience Darwin was way wrong. The fittest didn't survive. They were killed by the idiocy of their neighbors, who continued to bumble along, oblivious.

But I have not yet told you what the book is about, have I? The facts alone can be gained from Louise Penny's official website where she divulges the first chapter of each of her books in its entirety so it is easy to get roped in.  Here is an image of the back cover tease from The Brutal Telling and a link to the first chapter which definitely develops a sinister mood.

 

An amusing anecdote is my learning of a new vocabulary word – dogsbody.

Never having been exposed to it before, the very next night I heard the word on the 2008 television series Merlin. A happy circumstance of being homebound due to Covid is the discovery on Netflix of this delightful British fantasy based loosely on the Arthurian legends with Arthur and Merlin as teenage boys.

Usually in my posts, I discuss the reason behind the title; but the correlation is explained well in the body of the book, not just in a fleeting phrase, so I will leave relaying its relevance to Louise Penny's inspiration and expertise. For more insight refer to an annoted link about The  Brutal Telling. 

There is a scene where Gamache's adult daughter gets in a screaming match with Beauvoir, Gamache's second in command because they do not see eye to eye. A glimpse into family dynamics adds a bit of zest to a novel already brimming with plot, characters, ambience, suspense, language, and a variety of settings. I rate it five stars ★★★★★ which translates in my scale to "Great! Read it!". I did not even subtract one star for lack of character familiarity. Louise Penny has fifteen books so I am a third of the way there and plan to go the distance.

Thanksgiving Decor

There will not be a large family gathering at our house this year due to Covid. We are not going to act like "Covidiots" either and hazard traveling. However, while remaining safe at home, I can still decorate and bring the ambience of the season to our dwelling. In a Zoom meeting with the SoCal grandkids this week I took my iPad around the downstairs and we counted turkeys - seven in all. Five were stuffed but not with bread stuffing. They were pillowy soft and huggable because their insides were polyester fluff. The first two turkeys were on the dining table, flanking a spiral table runner and three glass candle holders filled with pomegranates and tangerines. Take a peek at each of them up close and personal. 

 

On the nearby china hutch hangs an autumnal colored wreath with green and gold jingle bells and unique, orange, pear-shaped bells. Hmm. That bow gets a bit more bedraggled each year. Apparently my fluffing skills are somewhat wanting in 2020.

Continuing on around clockwise to the living room, I swapped out some Halloween decor for two pilgrim pumpkins, sitting on a pumpkin placemat, against the same backdrop of gourd-filled vases from Halloween. Zooming in you see the smiling faces of those girl and boy pilgrims.

The hearth had a few updates. I removed the black and orange pumpkins, turned the fabric Jack o' Lanterns so their toothy grins no longer faced the room, and added the gold-guilded papier-mâché pumpkins. Robin and Dan painted those pumpkins as elementary-grade school-age kids in a workshop sponsored by an unfinished wood furniture store.

Still wondering where the rest of those turkeys are? Continuing to the right of the hearth is our antique cash register with three turkeys #3, #4 and #5 roosting there. Two stuffed ones are on top. One itty bitty one made from a walnut and silk leaves is nestled between two other small pumpkins on the lower marble shelf.

Circling on around, perched on a chair by the front door is the biggest, plumpest turkey of the flock, #6. Actually, to be correct, a group of wild turkeys is called a flock but a group of domesticated turkeys is call a rafter. So he is the biggest one of the rafter.

A set of GIVE THANKS blocks is displayed on the second china hutch, on the wall opposite the fireplace. I bought these hand-painted blocks at a craft fair and never removed the cellophane wrap that was part of their packaging. They pack away and redeploy much easier that way.

Above the hutch I hung a quilt called Pumpkin Time. I made it this month and have a DianeLoves2Quilt blog post about it dated 11/22/20 . From a distance it looks like a big number "3" but is really a fence and pumpkin lined path to a cottage.

 

With an about face, on the floor behind the couch is a rug I bought this year with a red car carrying a pinecone as a variant on the red pickup with a Christmas tree theme of late. I think the pinecone and holly allow me to get dual holiday purposing out of the rug. Another Thanksgiving quilt called Gobble can be seen hanging on the back of the couch. Also made for this season, I published a DianeLoves2Quilt post about it dated 11/8/20. If you are truly serious about counting turkeys, there are thirteen squares in this quilt made with turkey print fabric. Each square has about three turkeys, give or take, so thirty-nine turkeys anyone? Now, that's a full rafter! If the grandkids were here in person we might count these but I am not up for the philosophical discussion on how to count a partial turkey; so, those birds can just gobble quietly amongst themselves behind our backs on the couch while I ignore them. 

A third wallhanging I quilted for this season I called Harvest Moon. It too has its own blog post in DianeLoves2Quilt dated 11/9/20. I displayed it on the back of our wing chair between the dining room and living room.

But where is turkey #7? Turkeys know better than to venture into the kitchen, so this wooden one stopped right before entering the kitchen at the small table next to the doorway. Hmmm. Looks like that teapot lamp could use a bit of a polish, putting a whole other interpretation of the phrase, "polishing the silver for Thanksgiving".

Pumpkins are not so skittish about the kitchen. These two sit on my kitchen counter to bring some Thanksgiving into there. The one on the left has a little crystal in each of the spirals that sparkles when a candle behind is lit. Unfortunately, every time we sat down to eat or read we caused the table to vibrate a bit and the crystals jiggled, making an annoying and distracting sound. I moved the metal/crystal pumpkin to the more stable tile countertop. The pumpkin on the right is actually a light infused Jack-o' Lantern but, once again, I get double holiday duty by turning the grinning face around. I flip the switch on throughout the day and evening to add a bit of a festive air.

Here is my more successful attempt at pumpkin pies – far better than my misadventures with Frank's birthday pie in my 11/11/20 post and my sugar and heat challenged pie in my post for 4/4/20. I fear I am a more consistent decorator than chef!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!