There Are Some Changes Being Made

When The Villa Rose opened its doors, three years and fourteen days ago, I didn't think it would live that long. My previous blogging experience had been short-lived for the same reasons I thought would plague this one: a lack of regularity in posting and a natural shyness keeping me from marketing myself, meaning that I would be my sole reader. I was right to worry about the former - more on that later - but wrong about the latter, and I'd like to thank the few but faithful readers who kept reading and encouraging me over the years. 

Now to the point. As you may know, I own two other blogs - three actually, but the third was never officially launched, so it doesn't count. Mayhem Parva is supposed to be a French-language version of this blog, whereas The Small Back Room's aim is to collect my film criticism. Both are pretty somnolent, because of my recurring bouts of writer's block and the simple fact that managing three blogs, while a bed of roses in theory, proves to be quite difficult in practice. Since I've decided in the meantime to launch yet another blog devoted to my creative writing, I thought it might be a good idea to merge all those dealing with my "random thoughts" into a new, and I hope improved, Villa Rose. No, you won't have to update your bookmarks: this blog remains the same, at the same address. The only difference is that it will be bilingual, and, while remaining a mystery blog first, will occasionally deal with non-mystery matters such as film or the other kinds of books I read.

If you have any complaint, question or suggestion about these changes, feel free to voice it in the comments, or drop me a line - I love mail.

Lost in Translation: Stanislas-André Steeman

Martin Edwards' glowing review of Six Dead Men ("Six Hommes Morts") provides me with a much-needed opportunity to revive my "Lost in Translation" series (when I said it would be irregular, I didn't mean it would appear only once a year!) and tell you about one of the greatest authors of the French Golden Age, and arguably one of the greatest mystery writers of all times: Stanislas-André Steeman.

It's hard not to think of his fellow-compatriot Georges Simenon when considering Steeman's trajectory. Both were French-speaking Belgians ("Wallons") hailing from Liège, stopped their studies early and dabbled into journalism. Both were precocious writers and gained celebrity thanks to their mystery novels. What sets them apart, however, is that Simenon mostly saw the mystery genre as a vehicle - and a convenient, if sometimes boring, way to make a living - whereas Steeman always regarded himself as a mystery writer first and foremost, one fully at home in the genre and its conventions - while never afraid to subvert them. Most of all, Steeman had an almost carrian devotion to fair-play which he always kept even though he distanced himself from the formal detective story in his later years.

Steeman, as said above, was a precocious fellow - he created his first comics (Steeman was as gifted with a pencil as he was with a pen) at age six. He later branched into poetry and wrote several "histoires légères" for Parisian specialized magazines whose editors were unaware of their prolific collaborator's tender age. Then he joined the staff of the "Nation Belge" where he befriended journalist Herman Sartini, a.k.a. Sintair. Together they wrote what they intended to be a parody of the roman-problème so popular back then, and sent it to the French publisher Le Masque as a joke. To their great bewilderment, it was accepted and Le mystère du zoo d'Anvers (The Anvers Zoo Mystery) was published in 1928. It was followed by Le treizième coup de Minuit (The Thirteenth of Midnight), Le maître de trois vies (The Master of Three Lives), Le diable au collège (Devil at High School) and Le guet-apens (The Trap). Sintair, however, never intended to become a full-time writer and their collaboration ended; Steeman was now on his own.

His first three solo detective novels were experimental works at the fringe of the genre as commonly known then: one of these, Zero, introduced Inspector Aimé Malaise who can be described as Steeman's own Maigret. He struck gold with the comparatively more orthodox Six Dead Men, which earned him the Grand Prix du Roman d'Aventures in 1931, and definetely established him as a major mystery writer at only 23. The book marks the first appearance of Steeman's favorite detective, urban and witty Wenceslas Vorobeitchik, and sets the tone of his later production: extremely clever, ironic, respectful of the rules while at the same time gently poking fun at them.

Steeman followed with another Wens mystery, La Nuit du 12 au 13 then surprised everyone with an atmospheric novel in the Simenon vein, Le démon de Sainte-Croix, manifesting that he was not one to be bound by categorizations. Steeman's output in the thirties, while not as prolific as his fellow-compatriot's, is extremely varied in tone, genre and style. "Traditional" mysteries featuring Mr. Wens alternate with thrillers (Le lévrier bleu*), fantasies (Feu Lady Anne**) parodies (L'Infaillible Silas Lord***) and more psychological works like Le mannequin assassiné**** (Malaise again) or La maison des veilles *****. Even in his comparatively more orthodox work, Steeman finds room for experiment: L'ennemi sans visage, which borders on weird fiction, is a good example. His works are very representative of the French Golden Age of mystery fiction with its emphasis on originality and inventivity, while rivalling at the same time with the Anglo-Saxon masters in terms of rigour, fair-play and cleverness. The points culminants of this period are Le trajet de la foudre (The Course of Lightning) and L'Assassin habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives At Number Twenty-One) a London-set story of a serial killer going by the name of Mr. Smith, arguably his masterpiece in the whodunit genre. This book provided Henri-Georges Clouzot with his first shot behind the camera, and the result was a film that is as brilliant as its source, with Pierre Fresnay starring as Mr. Wens.

As the war broke, Steeman slowed down. He started an imprint in Belgium, Le Jury, which revealed promising writers like Thomas Owen, Paul Kinnet or André-Paul Duchâteau. The experiment was short-lived as the German occupation forces because of the imprint's (and its creator's) alleged "anglophilia". Steeman published only one novel during the war years, Légitime Défense, a brief yet seminal work as Steeman went further in "pushing the envelope" than ever before - the result is a psychological crime novel to please Julian Symons - except that Steeman even there didn't abdicate his fondness for clever plots with surprise endings. Henri-Georges Clouzot made a remarkable film out of it, arguably the best adaptation of Steeman's work and one of the summits of French cinema - Steeman, while recognizing the film's qualities, resented that it changed the guilty party; Steeman's relationship with the big screen was always a sour one.

The post-war period brought some radical changes to the genre, and Steeman's work experienced some as well. After a final traditional mystery, Crimes à vendre (Crimes for Sale) Steeman engaged in increasingly experimental work. First he dabbled into soft-boiled fiction with three novels starring private investigator Désiré Marco: Madame La Mort (Madam Death) Dix-huit fantômes (Eigtheen Ghosts) and Faisons les fous (Let's Go Crazy). Then he brought Mr. Wens back, but a Mr. Wens nothing like the old one. The Wenceslas Vorobeitchik of Poker d'Enfer (Hell's Poker) and Six hommes à tuer (Six Men To Kill) is a fregolian, desincarnate character who can and does assume any appearance and identity; who he is, where he is and what he does replaces the standard "who's done it" as the books' big questions. Naturalism in these stories is completely abdicated but not Steeman's usual outstanding cleverness, and the plots, wild and hard to follow as they are, remain scrupulously fair.

The last decade of his life saw Steeman turning to suspense fiction, and his work getting increasingly bitter and darker. Impasse des Boiteux, Le condamné meurt à cinq heures (The Convict Dies At Five) Une veuve dort seule (A Widow Sleeps Alone, much admired by Boileau-Narcejac) and his final novel, Autopsie d'un viol (Autopsy of a Rape) a courtroom mystery set in the United States, display a grim worldview with none of the author's previous flippantness. Not gone, however, was his mastery of plotting and misdirection which remained firm and strong to the end. When Steeman died in 1970, he still had a lot of projects (including a promising Crime On Orbit) which never came to fruition - and this world is a poorer place for that. He was only 62.

Steeman, while not a household name like Simenon and often berated by fans of the latter, is a capital name in the history of French-speaking mystery fiction. He was one of the earliest writers to take the form seriously, both formally (he was a notorious perfectionist, and entirely re-wrote some of his early books as they didn't please him anymore) and conceptually. He was also one of the few pre-war mystery writers to try and come to terms with the new paradigms that emerged after WWII, and managed to stay relevant without abdicating any of its individuality and principles. Finally, he was one of the greatest and most inventive plotters of all times, ranking with Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr for the period before the war and Margaret Millar or Fredric Brown for the period that followed. It is a shame that he remains so little-known in English-speaking countries where only two of his books were translated.

Let's end with an anecdote typical of Steeman's sharp wit. Having stayed in a hotel whose service he found mediocre, Steeman as he left was asked by the manager to write some words in the hotel's golden book. He complied and wrote: "Souvenir of an unique stay at the X hotel". The manager gushed with pride and asked: "Unique? Why?" To which Steeman dryly replied: "Because it is the only one I'll ever have!".

* The Blue Greyhound.

** The Late Lady Anne

*** The Unfallible Silas Lord

**** The Murdered Dummy

***** The Waking House

Tony Curtis

Hats Off to Barry

As those kind - and patient - enough to follow this blog on a regular basis must know by now, I'm an enthusiastic defender and promoter of the short story, which I regard as the most demanding (and thus most rewarding) form of fiction, especially mystery fiction. Stanley Ellin, Henry Slesar, Robert Arthur, Edward D. Hoch or John Collier rank high in my personal pantheon, and Donald Westlake's or Lawrence Block's shorter work I always found to be more interesting than their longer efforts. 

Before going further I must admit to a slight bias here as the author I'm about to discuss is a personal friend and has been for years, even though we never actually met - only Internet may make such things possible. Barry Ergang is one of the highly interesting fellows I've encountered on the highly interesting GAdetection board; we come from opposite corners of the mystery field, being of a decidedly traditionalist bent while he is more of a hardboiled guy (nobody's perfect) but our common liking for the Man Who Explained Miracles and our devotion to short stories made sure we'd get along very well, if not always seeing eye to eye. As many GAders, Barry doesn't content himself with reading mystery fiction: he writes some, too. And I think he does quite well.

Years ago I was one of the privileged ones he asked to review his then-latest effort, a piece called "The Play of Light of Shadow". To review a friend's work is always a difficult experience, as you have to balance criticism and sensitivity in a more careful way than you do when asked to judge the work of someone you don't know. Regarding "The Play of Light and Shadow", however, I didn't need to worry about that, since it was just excellent. Barry successfully blended there his two favorite themes, the tough and the impossible. I don't want to spoil anything and I'm not that good at summaries anyway, so let's say that it's about an impossible crime solved by a hardboiled dick going by the name of Darnell and that it's an absolute winner, both in term of plotting (with an elegant and - to me, at least - original solution) and good characterization, especially of the lead character. (I have spent the last half-decade or so asking Barry for a sequel as I think Darnell has a lot of potential - and I'm still waiting) And then there is the writing - lean, sparse, precise. 

His latest collection, "A Flash of Fear" displays Barry's pointe sèche at its best. It is a collection of six flash stories - or short-shorts if you're not into Internet neologisms. As I said above, the regular short story is the most demanding of all forms, and the short-short is the most perillous of its variations - telling, as opposed to outlining, a compelling story in a few lines requires virtues that not every writer possesses. Barry does, however, and if you think I'm just pouring friendly praise on an old comrade, you might like to know he's a past winner of the highly coveted Derringer Award, in - guess what? - the "Flash Fiction" category. 

On AFF's evidence it's easy to see why. Each one of the six vignettes has enough material for a more verbose writer to make a novel or at least a novella out of it; Barry for one packs it all in a few lines, complete with endings as sardonic as anything Jack Ritchie ever deviced. I mention Ritchie here as, I think, he would have approved of such sarcastic gems as "The Merchant of Varnish" with its devilish pun, "Moaning Lisa" or "Mother's Day Present" - he would, too, have liked the darker "No Such Thing" where Barry shows he can handle serious issues and drive his point home without hammering it (a poor pun as you'll realize when you read the story, but I couldn't help it) Ritchie was after all a master of both the cynical twister and the compassionate noir. 

The best piece, however, reminds one of Hammett in its extremely stripped-down, yet evocative, prose. Barry says it was intended to be "an experiment in the objective style" and for fear of seeming overly complimetary I'll just say it is very effective. "Ambition" may not be the cleverest story in the collection, but it summarizes what, in my view, makes Barry a writer to follow, that is, his ability to suggest a setting, invoke a character and a situation in a unique, convincing way with a few words and just basic English. Quite a feat and, in these times, worthy of encouragement. I strongly advice you to encourage Barry by reading his works.

Further reading:

All of Barry's works previously discussed, as well as a few others, can be found (and, for some, bought) as Smashwords e-books (click here)

Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

Inglourious Basterds est, si mes comptes sont bons, le sixième long-métrage de Quentin Tarantino, et c'est le premier dont je puisse dire qu'il m'a vraiment plu. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que je suis soudainement converti au tarantinisme - les réserves que m'inspirent le réalisateur et son approche du cinéma subsistent; elles sont même, paradoxalement, renforcées.

Comme le film est assez récent et a rencontré un franc succès - le plus gros de toute la carrière de Tarantino, avec plus de 300 millions de dollars au compteur - je ne pense pas avoir besoin d'en faire un résumé très approfondi. Sauf à avoir passé les deux dernières années sur une île déserte, ou dans un abri anti-atomique dépourvu de toute réception radio ou télévisuelle et de toute connexion internet, vous savez probablement que l'action du film se déroule pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, et suit en parallèle les exploits d'une bande de "salopards" spécialisés dans le nazicide sanglant, emmenés par le sémillant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) et la vengeance de Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) contre les nazis responsables de la mort de toute sa famille. Un tel point de départ, et Tarantino aux manettes, laissait supposer que Inglourious Basterds ne serait pas un film de guerre académique. Supposition qui s'avère on ne peut plus fondée, et participe du succès du film. Tarantino applique en effet ses méthodes habituelles - citation/récupération/plagiat d'oeuvres célèbres ou complètement obscures, clins d'oeil au spectateur, violence décomplexée, dialogues-fleuves - à un genre souvent pétrifié qu'il renouvelle avec vigueur. Il n'hésite pas non plus à s'asseoir sur la vérité historique - et le fin du Reich telle qu'il la voit est certainement plus... galvanisante (au sens propre comme figuré) que le triste "dernier tango à Berlin" de la réalité. Vous vouliez voir Hitler se faire réduire en charpie à la mitraillette? Tarantino fait de ce rêve une réalité. On saluera également le coup de poker qui consiste à faire porter le film sur les épaules d'un acteur peu connu, incarnant un personnage résolument ignoble. Car c'est bel et bien ce Landa, interprété avec génie par l'Autrichien Christoph Waltz, qui s'avère le personnage le plus intéressant du film, celui qui reste le plus vif dans le souvenir. Voilà belle lurette que l'on n'avait pas vu une telle figure de salaud, et l'adage de Hitchcock - "meilleur est le méchant, meilleur est le film" - se vérifie donc une fois de plus.

Mais nous sommes chez Tarantino, ce qui veut dire que ce qui fait la force du film est également ce qui pose problème. Le dépassement de la vérité historique - qui ne me pose, en soi, aucun problème: c'est l'une des prérogatives de la fiction - s'accompagne également d'une oblitération du contexte. La seconde guerre mondiale n'est ici qu'une toile de fond, et les nazis sont des méchants comme les autres, parfois ridicules mais pas particulièrement violents ni impitoyables, puisque tout le monde ou presque dans le film est violent et impitoyable. Tarantino s'est fait plaisir en tournant une histoire pleine de sang, de bruit et de fureur dont le cadre se trouve être la France occupée parce que c'est exotique, et les méchants des nazis parce qu'ils sont tellement cinégéniques - bref, il a fait du Tarantino: un cinéma référentiel et au final parfaitement abstrait. Que le brouet prenne ici remarquablement bien, n'empêche pas de se poser des questions sur la recette et sur les intentions du chef.

Tarantino m'a toujours paru la démonstration par l'absurde de la théorie des auteurs, et de son inutilité fondamentale. Si par "auteur" on entend un réalisateur au style immédiatement reconnaissable, aux thèmes récurrents et personnels et dont la "vision" se retrouve de film en film, alors Tarantino est indubitablement un auteur. Mais ce style, ces thèmes, cette vision sont au service de rien. Il ne s'agit pas de reprocher à Tarantino de n'avoir "rien à dire" - ce qui est l'un des reproches les plus stupides que l'on puisse faire à un artiste. La filmo de Tarantino donne cependant plutôt l'impression d'une suite d'exercices de style que d'une oeuvre véritable; l'auteur s'amuse avec le petit train cher à Orson Welles, mais on reste au niveau de l'amusement: tout ceci n'est qu'un jeu. Et parfois, Tarantino est le seul à s'amuser comme dans le déplorable "Boulevard de la Mort" qui pousse la méthode à son extrême masturbatoire. Rien d'étonnant, donc, à ce que Inglourious Basterds soit vide de toute perspective morale; c'est le cas de tous les films de Tarantino et on ne voit d'ailleurs pas pourquoi il en serait besoin, puisque tout cela est un jeu. N'empêche que la cruauté universelle de ce monde où la violence est seule loi, a quelque chose de glaçant, surtout ici, et débouche sur des résultats assez paradoxaux, les "bons" étant presque plus effrayants que les "méchants". On peut évidemment y voir une volonté de "subversion" de la part de Tarantino, de dynamitage des conventions et des idées cinématographiquement reçues. On peut. Mais on peut également - ce n'est pas exclusif - y voir une indifférence souveraine aux enjeux, à la limite de l'irresponsabilité. Tout cela n'est qu'un jeu, après tout.

La fille du bois maudit (The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Henry Hathaway, 1936)

Sorti en 1936, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine est l'un des tout premiers longs-métrages en technicolor trichrome, et le premier tourné en extérieurs. C'est également l'un des plus beaux films de Henry Hathaway, à coup sûr l'un des metteurs en scène les plus sous-estimés de l'âge d'or hollywoodien.

L'histoire explore un thème récurrent du cinéma américain, à savoir la rencontre entre la nature et la civilisation - et ce qui en résulte. La nature est ici incarnée par June Tolliver (la délicieuse Sylvia Sydney) et sa famille de hillbillies coupés du monde et plongés depuis des temps immémoriaux dans une guerre sanglante contre leurs voisins, les Falin; la civilisation vient bousculer tout cela sous la forme d'une voie ferrée et de son séduisant ingénieur, Jack Hale (Fred
McMurray) Si les deux cultures semblent raisonnablement s'accorder dans un premier temps, les choses se gâtent très vite comme la civilisation commence d'exercer son influence "délétère" sur le clan Tolliver, June surtout qui, bien que fiancée à son cousin Dave (Henry Fonda) lui préfère de plus en plus Jack Hale, et se met à rêver d'émancipation. Mais c'est l'ingérence de Hale dans le conflit entre les Tolliver et les Falin qui précipitera la tragédie...

Le film est également une méditation sur la violence, son absurdité et son coût humain exorbitant. June naît littéralement au milieu du champ de bataille (admirable prologue) et la haine que se vouent les deux familles, à force d'exclure tout autre sentiment, les maintient dans
la misère, voire une certaine forme d'animalité: tout ce joli monde est analphabète, signe les contrats d'une simple croix et ne reconnaît un chèque qu'au logo de la compagnie ferroviaire qui y figure. Dans un tel contexte, il n'y a guère de place pour la beauté (les papillons sur lesquels on s'exerce au lancer de couteaux) ou l'intelligence: la scène qui résume le mieux le propos du film est celle de la mort du petit Buddie Tolliver - qui rêve de devenir ingénieur et a commencé d'apprendre à lire - victime d'une bombe posée par le plus dégénéré des fils Falin. Même l'amour maternel (bouleversante Beulah Bondi) est impuissant à mettre fin au carnage. L'opposition entre nature et civilisation, je l'ai dit, est un thème cher aux cinéma américain, mais elle ne tourne pas ici à l'avantage de la première, quand bien même le film reconnaît l'impossibilité de la dompter entièrement(June, malgré son bref passage en ville, retourne "à l'état sauvage"après la mort de son frère)

Hathaway joue remarquablement du contraste entre ces ténèbres humaines et la beauté luxuriante du décor, admirablement filmé et photographié. Ceux qui pensent que le Technicolor est nécessairement artificiel et criard (ce qui n'est pas forcément une mauvaise chose, mais
passons...) gagneraient à regarder ce film aux couleurs magnifiques et surtout naturelles, au point qu'il faut parfois se pincer pour se souvenir que le film date de 1936, et que le procédé n'en était encore qu'à ses balbutiements. L'interprétation est d'un très bon niveau, mais c'est le tout jeuneot Henry Fonda qui se distingue par son jeu très moderne, tout en non-dits et en retenue. On sent déjà pointer la grande star qu'il deviendra quatre ans plus tard.

NPR List Fails To Thrill

Remember the lacunal, maddening, consterning and ultimately useless lists of the allegedly best in crime fiction devised by The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian? Bad ideas sadly travel better than good wine and now we find the NPR weighing in with a list of 100 "Killer Thrillers" as selected by its audience. Like the Guardian's round-up, it is fairly inclusive - as it happens, Jurassic Park does show its reptilian head in both. For NPR's and its audience's defence, it might be said that "thriller" is so nebulous a concept (much like "crime novel") that you can put virtually any kind of book under its broad tent - and this is what happens:

Of course, there will be arguments about whether some of these books truly count as "thrillers." (You know who you are, Shogun.) The many 19th-century novels, in particular, may raise eyebrows. But David Morrell, novelist and co-editor of the recent anthology Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, defends such choices. "A lot of people see 'thriller' and think 'spy book,' " Morrell says. But a book like The Last of the Mohicans is "unquestionably a thriller — filled with chases and derring-do." Morrell also mentioned Dracula ("take away the supernatural elements and it's a serial-killer novel") and The Count of Monte Cristo. "As long as you have that breathlessness and sense of excitement," Morrell says, "then they're in."

I'm old enough to remember the time when The Last of the Mohicans was considered an adventure novel and people routinely described Dracula as horror and The Count of Monte Cristo as a story of revenge. But it was yesterday and today is a busy time, too hury to care with definitions and categories. Let's drop them all and let's paint everything with the same brush, the broader the better.

"Thriller" was historically meant to refer to a peculiar brand of fiction, lying somewhere between adventure and the burgeoning crime genre, whose aim was - of course - to thrill. Main features of the form included fast pacing (making up - though not always - for coherence) high action quotient (in the guise of plot) and brave, courageous protagonists facing incredible (in every sense of the term) dangers to defeat crime bosses, secret societies or evil masterminds bent on controlling/destroying the world - which at the time and the somewhat ethnocentric world of standard thriller fiction, meant Great Britain and its empire. Since those books had little time or use for subtlety, they were often crude in their effects and execution. Still, at their best they displayed a wild imagination and stamina that makes the best of them still readable after all those years - it's no chance that Edgar Wallace, the archetypal thriller writer, still maintains a small but loyal following.

Of the NPR's 100, only a few are thrillers in the historical sense, and the presence of Stephen King, Carlos Ruiz Zafon or Cormac McCarthy demonstrates how far the term has derived from its original meaning - or any other for that matter. Whether or not it's a good thing, you decide.