*back we go again -- The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton

9780486255347
Dover, 1987
originally published 1905
146 pp

paperback

Whew! I see that my last visit here was on April 14th; in the meantime I've been to Seattle, then home for a brief visit before moving on to South Carolina for just under a week.   Home now, and back to reading and I'm a happy camper. 

I actually finished The Club of Queer Trades some time ago but I gave it a quick reread last night just to refresh my memory.  Arthur Conan Doyle's The Return of Sherlock Holmes was published the same year as this book,  combining several stories published between 1903 and 1904  following a huge backlash from readers when he killed off his great detective in 1893.  I mention this because in Club of Queer Trades, Chesterton takes to the familiar Holmes and Watson-ish format to tell his own tales, following the adventures of detective Rupert Grant and Swinburne, the narrator of these tales, who is often dragged into Rupert's adventures.  And then, there's Rupert's  brother Basil who generally comes up with the real solution to Rupert's cases.   The thing is that, when all is said and done, Chesterton has given us much more of a detective-story parody here, but it's parody with a purpose.

There are six stories in this collection, and while I'm not going to delve into each of them individually, they all connect to The Club of Queer Trades itself:

"It is an eccentric and Bohemian Club, of which the absolute condition of membership lies in this, that the candidate must have invented the method by which he earns his living."

The rules say that the trade involved must be "entirely new," that it can't be an "application or variation of an existing trade." It must also be "a genuine commercial source of income," from which the member gains his livelihood.  And right from the very beginning of this book we know that we're in for some snarky and satirical observations about society in general, as Chesterton describes people who might pass by the building in which it's housed as the sort who wouldn't even be curious enough to take a look or ask what it's all about, as if

"the Thugs set up a Strangers' Assassination Company in one of the great buildings in Norfolk Street, and sent in a mild man in spectacles to answer inquiries, no inquiries would be made." 

Exactly what oddball trades are involved in the Club I won't say, since a) they have to do with the short cases in this book and b) half the fun is in figuring out exactly what each might be as you're reading each story and once you get the pattern of these tales down in your head.

 What I will say is that as far as the actual detection that happens in this book, there are some clever conundrums to be found here.  My favorite is the "Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit," which not only presents a clever little mystery but also made me laugh out loud.  And as far as the actual detective who is "solving" these cases,  Rupert takes himself quite seriously, but he has a habit of  never being  right in his deductions and ends up deferring to Basil who has a way of seeing exactly what's going on in each situation.   The law, morality, and society itself all come under scrutiny here, and what seems to be a lot of silliness actually has some serious purpose when all is said and done.  The trick is that you have to get to the end of the book before actually discovering what that purpose really is.

While it turned out to be anything but what I thought it might be, The Club of Queer Trades is actually a delightful and entertaining book.  People who enjoy Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries (not the later TV versions but the short stories themselves) will find that same sense of understanding of human nature in this book but this one makes for a completely different sort of reading experience.  It won't be for everyone, but it suited me just fine.

*Caleb Williams, by William Godwin

9780199232062
Oxford University Press, 2009
362 pp

paperback

"They told me what a fine thing it was to be an Englishman, and about liberty and property, and all that there; and I  find it is all a flam. Lord, what fools we be!"
           -- 195

According to Ian Ousby, author of Bloodhounds of Heaven, this book is the first in English fiction to "display a sustained interest in the theme of detection," and that the book's hero, the titular Caleb Williams, is "the first important detective in the English novel."  Well-known British writer Julian Symons also noted that this book was important in the history of crime fiction, saying that it is in this novel that "The characteristic note of crime literature is first struck," and that it's "about a murder, its detection, and the unrelenting pursuit by the murderer of the person who has discovered his guilt."

Caleb Williams is also the first choice in this year's quest to read early crime fiction through the onset of World War I, which I've tagged as ecfp for early crime fiction project and which will be the asterisked posts for 2017.   It's also very good, and while it works very well as a commentary on social injustice, class and the abuses of power, it's also a novel that finds a man on the run after uncovering some startling information.

The nutshell version is this:  young Caleb Williams finds himself working as secretary for a respected local squire, Fernando Falkland.  He becomes curious as to what's up with his employer, who has taken on a solitary life with "no inclination to scenes of revelry and mirth," avoiding "the busy haunts of men." After about three months of employment, Williams is accused of spying on his master, which leads him to feel "uncommon dejection and anxiety," so for help he turns to Falkland's steward Collins for answers.  What he learns only increases his curiosity, and when Falkland reveals the secret he's been hiding for so long, Williams takes a vow that he will never disclose what he's learned.  He also decides that it's time to move on.  Unfortunately, due to the the nature of what Falkland is hiding, the squire decides that Williams must be punished for what he knows, and starts a relentless campaign of revenge and terror.  The novel follows Caleb through the persecution hell that Falkland puts him through, leading Caleb to fight for his very survival in the process.

There is a vast amount of scholarship on this novel available online, so I'll just throw in a couple of observations.  I'll agree with what Ousby says about this story --  that the detection in this book starts out as "an activity apparently designed to establish moral and intellectual clarity" and that "the detective, voluntarily or involuntarily, assumes the role of an agent of justice, seeking to distinguish good from evil and to identify the source of evil."  But, as has happened in so many of the better crime novels that have come after this book, Godwin reveals that "good and evil" and "the detective and the criminal" are "inextricably linked," growing into what he calls "symbiotic twins."   And in his piece about William Godwin in The Literary Encyclopedia, Andrew McGann notes that this book is also important in another area, the linking of "psychological exploration with political radicalism" which has also long been prevalent in crime novels.

It is a wonderful novel, to be sure, and while some people may find the prose a bit slow going, once you  pick up the rhythm there's a great story in here. It's most certainly a tension-ratcheting piece of work and quite frankly, I was so tempted to turn to the end to see what happens.  I didn't, but the temptation was definitely there.  The novel appeals to my sense of reading crime fiction with purpose, which for me is all about human nature and what it says about the factors (social, political, economical) at work that have everything to do with why people do what they do. Godwin makes this exceedingly clear in Caleb Williams -- making it well worth the time I put into this book.  It's another one that I will say is probably not for everyone, but oh  my gosh -- what a great novel to kick off my reading project!!

Anyone interested in reading about the author will find a great article here by Pamela Clemit, the author of the introduction to this edition of the novel; another excellent source is the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.

Definitely recommended and for me, highly satisfying.