The Saint, P.G. Wodehouse, and copy editing

The introduction to the new edition of The Saint and Mr Teal invokes the name of P.G. Wodehouse, and aptly so; the writing is that good.

The introducer, one John Goldsmith, claims a place for author Leslie Charteris alongside (or above) the stars of British adventure writing of the early and middle twentieth century. The Saint was a rule breaker, Goldsmith writes, free of the anti-Semitism and racism of his upper-class British fictional counterparts. Goldsmith also offers an astute discussion of Charteris' literary style.

The introduction's one conspicuous weakness is Goldsmith's account of his trip to "a remote fishing village on the coast of Brazil," where "when I mentioned the Saint faces lit up, recognition was instant. It was smiles and ecstatic cries of ‘El Santo! El Santo!’ all round."  Why the Brazilian villagers spoke Spanish rather than Portuguese is a mystery to be solved by Goldsmith, his copy editor, or, just maybe, a linguist. (Read Goldsmith's introduction at the Hodder & Stoughton website.)

Wodehouse lovers will also note the name of the Scotland Yard detective Claud Eustace Teal, whom Charteris introduced in 1929 — six years after Wodehouse had created Bertie Wooster's unforgettable scapegrace cousins Claude and Eustace Wooster in The Inimitable Jeeves. That makes Charteris the earliest crime writer known to your humble blogkeeper to have paid apparent tribute to Wodehouse. He joins such later authors as John Lawton and Ruth Dudley Edwards.

And finally, a tip of the Yorkshire wool cap to Zoë Sharp, who talked up Charteris and The Saint at Crimefest this year.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Keeping one's hair in Dublin, plus books I got at Crimefest

Left: Sculpture,
Archaeological Museum of
 Morbihan, Vannes, Brittany. 
Above: View from the rear
 of my guesthouse, Gardiner
Street Lower, Dublin. All photos
 by your humble blogkeeper.

I opened two packages of books yesterday that I'd shipped home from Crimefest, and I must be a nice guy because I sent myself some good stuff. Among the highlights:

1. Betrayal, by Giorgio Scerbanenco. This is a new translation of a novel by the master of Italian noir. Its previous English translation was released in the 1960s as Duca and the Milan Murders.
2. The Killing Way, by Anthony Hays. A mystery set in Arthurian Britain might not ordinarily be my cup of tea, but this looks low on sorcery and faux-Celtic wiftiness, and high on low-down, dirty political intrigue.
3. The Saint and Mr Teal, by Leslie Charteris, included in my book bag, talked up by panelist Zoë Sharp, and published in a handsome new trade paperback edition. Includes an entertaining tribute to P.G. Wodehouse in one character's name.

Because everyone else is doing it?

When the crew announced itself for my Aer Lingus flight from JFK to Dublin, I first produced my pistol, and I then produced my rapier. Then I realized that Farrell was not, in fact, the captain of the plane but merely a crew member, so I stowed my musical weapons under the seat in front of me and restored my seat back and tray table to their full upright and locked positions.

Muiredach's High Cross
(detail), Monasterboice,
County Louth, Ireland

Speaking of tunes one just might hear in Temple Bar of a Saturday or any other evening, I love the song, but, unless you're Luke Kelly reincarnated, could we vary the repertoire a bit, lads?

© Peter Rozovsky 2013


Neolithic
passage grave,
Loughcrew, County
Meath, Ireland