Charlotte JayRecensioni

Winner of the first Edgar Award...takes place in Papua New Guinea

The narrative is beguiling. It offers an exotic locale which Charlotte Jay documents in meticulous detail while using the other worldly tropics as an assist in building suspense. It also weaves in the chillingly real historical context that adds great depth to the horror of the crime. It's not hard to see what the CWA committee found so compelling in its decision to crown the book with first Award.

This can be firmly placed in the psychological thriller genre. The uncertainties of the interior landscapes are just as prominent as those in the exterior settings. All of the characters, including the protagonist, are wracked by indecision. Jay is evenhanded in that regard but it made it difficult to find much sympathy with any of them. This tale deserved the Edgar but I would not put it in the 'page turner' class.

This book by Charlotte Jay, written in 1952 won the first ever Edgar Allan Poe Award. I have made it my mission to try to read all the Edgar award books. Mystery and suspense is my favourite genre, and it will be nice to see how the genre has evolved. This book is set in Papua just after the end of WWII. It's probably one of the best books I've ever read that portrays the atrocities and iniquities of colonialism. It also is written in descriptive and beautiful language that distinctly depicts the setting in which the book is written - the thick encroaching jungle, the beautiful flowers and trees and the almost impossibly blue ocean that surrounds it. The book is about Stella Warwick and her quest to find out what actually happened to her husband while he was stationed in Papua. All the bureaucrats are telling her that he committed suicide, but that is not the David Warwick she knows, so she comes to the island to figure it out. Not even she is prepared for the devastating truth that she uncovers. Yes, some of the society norms in the book are dated, especially the role of women women played in a colonial province, but Ms. Jay has crafted a complex and frightening suspense thriller that is terrible in its realism. I enjoyed the book, and look forward to continuing my journey with the other books that have won this prestigious award.

An enjoyable though dated read. Felt like Jay was attempting to induce a feeling of claustrophobia with the whites hemmed in on all sides by savagery and decay, I did not find this attempt successful.

This is one of the books that I read for English I and considering some of the reviews that the book received, it seems as if I will be the odd one out on the grounds that I simply did not like it. However a lot of people have compared this book with Heart of Darkness, and that was a book that I really did like. I have put Heart of Darkness on the list of books to read again, so I will try not to say too much about it here. I guess it is because I would like to be a little more familiar with the book before I comment on it, where as for this book I think I will make a commentary without reading it again (not that I actually own a copy of it any more as I gave it to a friend who was studying English the year after me).
It is suggested that this book is a murder mystery as it is about a gold deposit that was found in the mountainous regions of Papua New Guinea and an anthropologist who is living in the region ends up committing suicide, apparently. However his wife, who lives in Australia, does not believe it so she decides to travel to New Guinea to attempt to uncover the mystery and to prove that he did not kill himself. Unfortunately I can't remember all that much about the novel to actually say how it ends, and I raise this because it is not an uncommon theme in mystery stories to try to prove that a suicide is a murder.
It is a difficult concept though because the idea is that a suicide is murder, but translated it means self-murder. Homicide is the murder of another, fracticide is murder of a brother, patricide murder of a father, and so on. However, the problem with suicide is that the culprit and the victim are the same person, so it is not easy to arrest the culprit because the culprit is dead. However, things have changed a lot because it is seen that somebody wanting to commit suicide must be mentally ill and treated as such. In a way I find that a bit disappointing and disrespectful because it is an idea that if you wish to commit suicide then there must be a problem with you namely because no sane and mentally stable person would want to end their life (which is pretty narrow minded in my opinion).
Things are changing somewhat though because it is beginning to be recognised that there are generally external factors that would lead a person to this position. Take an idea where somebody is locked up in gaol and knows that this is what the rest of their life is going to be. The victim is now placed in a position of hopelessness, there is no escape, well, none but an attempt to end one's life. This is a bad example though because, ideally, if one lands up in gaol then one must have done something to put one there (though this is not always the case, and it is pretty narrow minded of me to suggest that). This is not always the case, especially if somebody is subject on going and intense bullying, say a teenager with an alcoholic father (or mother). If the situation is that when the teenager goes to school, he (or she) is subject to bullying, and at home is subject to bullying, there literally is no escape. Wherever the teenager goes the teenager is subject to bullying. As such, there is only one escape.
However, I have moved quite a way away from the main theme of this book, and that is the failures of colonialism (which is said to be the main theme of Heart of Darkness). Colonialism was a problem (and still is with Neo-Colonialism) in that it involves transplanting a society in another land. It worked with the Greeks, apparently they never lost a colony, however it was much different when it came to the British. They actually did lose a few colonies, and also had a lot of trouble transplanting their society into a new realm. The difference that I suspect is that the Greeks colonised the Mediterranean whereas the British colonised the world. With the Greeks, distance wasn't as great, and also many of the colonies were set up in mostly uninhabited regions. This was not the case with Britain, especially when we come to India and China.
However, the book is set in Papua New Guinea, and here we have a vastly different realm to good old England. Like Australia, most of the settlements are on the coast, and even then there aren't that many settlements anyway. Like Australia New Guinea is a pretty harsh land, however in a different way. Australia lacks water and is mostly desert, while New Guinea is mountainous and full of jungle. Even today civilisation does not stretch much inland. This is in a way what the book is about, in that the natural realm will run rough shed over civilisation. We see that in Heart of Darkness, the deeper one travels into the jungle, the more civilisation seems to vanish. Hey, you see this in Australia as you travel further inland into the desert the less civilised the realm becomes. There are places in Australia where it is strongly encouraged that tourists do not go, this is the case with Africa, and New Guinea as well.½

Charlotte Jay, an Australian author, wrote this book during the months leading up to the Suez Crisis in 1956 when she was living in Beirut during a one year tour of duty by her husband John, a senior official for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Middle East. This gives the setting of the novel a touch of authenticity and also gives it a relevance to today's readers.

This novel reminded me of those I read in the 60s, by authors like Susan Howatch and Victoria Holt. It is a thriller/romance almost gothic in style. The description of the setting is wonderful and sent me off Googling the tourist sites of Lebanon.

I don't think I was ever in any real doubt about how the plot would turn out but there were a few twists and turns that caused the occasional doubt. I think the plot is much better drawn than the novella HANK OF HAIR by the same author that I read recently.

Embedded in the main story are Jay's reflections on the political revolution taking place in the Middle East in the 1950s and in particular how it affected ordinary people. There is also reflection on how Britain is being affected by a flood of refugees who despite being Moslem can claim British citizenship. They aren't always going to be an asset to their new country.½

This plot didn't quite turn out the way I expected it to. It is a relatively short novel, but I can't see how the author could have made it much longer. In this Wakefield crime classics reprint there is an interesting epilogue in which the author discusses with the editors Gilbert Hand's hair fetish. The author raises points that I didn't see in my reading of the novel, so perhaps I really missed the point.

The first winner of the Edgar for Best Novel, this book by an Australian writer is set in Papua New Guinea shortly after WWII. Although it has an excellent sense of atmosphere and setting, I found the psychological thriller to be far less than thrilling, and couldn't begin to care about the characters.

As they say in Minnesota..."That was different!" Although the book contains a mystery, which is solved by the end of the book (although with a loose end or two left hanging), it is primarily a psychological and to some extent, an anthropological study. Set in Papua New Guinea shortly after WWII, when it was evidently an Australian protectorate, the book can shock the contemporary reader with the assumptions and prejudices the white characters display. The difference in attitudes toward the natives between the best and worst of the white men (for it is they who wield the power) is slight. Only a very few characters seem to be able to think of the Papuans as adult human beings with a worthwhile culture. To the rest, they are either "the white man's burden" or simply the denizens of a country which is to be exploited, and if they are wiped out in the process, so be it.

The protagonist, Stella Warwick, has lived an incredibly sheltered life with an invalid father, but has somehow been courted and married by David Warwick, an anthropologist who was employed in Papua New Guinea. She did not join him immediately because of her father's illness, and after a mysterious letter from David causes her father's death by stroke, she learns that David has committed suicide. Or has he? Stella travels to Papua New Guinea to find out the truth, and her growing independence of thought and action is really the central feature of the book.

The setting is masterfully done, as is the portrait of a colonial society. I was reminded (dimly, as I read it over 40 years ago) of Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS. But I must confess that this book did not meet my criteria for a mystery novel; for one thing, I found it rather slow going, and somehow the mystery of David Warwick's death did not seem to be central to the plot. Since the MWA does not list nominees for this award until 1956, I don't know what the competition may have been.

When Stella Warwick hears that her husband David, an anthropologist working on New Guinea to protect the indigenous people from exploitation while she cares for her invalid father in Australia, has committed suicide she is disbelieving and travels there to find out the truth. She has been told that he committed suicide due to worry over his mounting debts soon after returning from a trip deep into the jungle but Stella wants to know more and keeps asking questions of her husband’s former colleagues, the people who travelled with him and the boys who do menial work for the Australians. In the end she believes the only way to find the answers will be to recreate his final journey into the jungle.

Beat Not The Bones has an excellent sense of its setting both in terms of its physical geography – the heat, humidity, isolation and wild jungle are depicted so well I swear I started to feel sweaty despite reading the book on cold winter days – and its social status as a colonial outpost of Australian government and business interests. As cringe-making as it might be now the reality is that in the 1950’s behaviour towards the country and its people by Australian interests was undoubtedly as patronising as is described in the book. Even the people who are portrayed as enlightened treat the Papuans as little more than ‘the white man’s burden’. Sometimes when I read historical fiction that takes place in times or places where sensibilities are very different from current ones I get the sense that things are altered just a little (even unintentionally) to fit in more comfortably with modern ideas, usually by the insertion of at least one incredibly forward-thinking individual and/or the careful omission of the least palatable facts. For better or worse this contemporary story has none of that ‘glossing over the nasty bits’ feel.

The characters were a less successful aspect of the book for me. Stella for example is a woman so sheltered from life and so utterly dependent upon men (her father, husband and random strangers as long as they are men) that she is barely functional as an independent human being. Perhaps she is a realistic depiction of a woman of her time (though my mother, being roughly the same age, would vehemently disagree) but regardless of that I found it very difficult to care what happened to her. Even when she started developing a smidgen of independent thought towards the end I found I’d lost interest in what happened to her. Although they too were probably credible portrayals none of the other characters generated much in the way of my empathy, with the possible exception of Stella’s travelling companion in the jungle who does seem to suffer from the consequences of his own prior actions and a heat-induced madness (I’m more sympathetic to the latter).

While I found the overall story mildly interesting I must say I wasn’t completely gripped I put the book down for several days a couple of times and was never drawn back to it in any hurry. The main reason for this was the almost gothic, certainly melodramatic, style of writing that did have me rolling my eyes a few times. The ending though was remarkably strong and tackled the thorny issue of there being consequences for the evil that one does during one’s life. Overall I’d recommend the book, especially if you enjoy visiting your tropical locations virtually rather than in person or could do with being reminded that no matter how screwy our current world is we have made some fairly amazing social advances in 60 years.

I have been promising myself for a few years now to go back to some of the older classic Australian Crime Fiction books and reread them with a view to noting something about them on the website. Mostly because all of these books were read a long time before I started writing my own reviews, and I really need something to check my reactions against if I re-visit them again (which I'm inclined to do every now and then).

Hence ARMS FOR ADONIS, which Wakefield Press published in 1994, with an excellent afterword by Peter Moss and Michael J Tolley. ARMS FOR ADONIS was first published in 1961, and re-reading it again, there are a number of elements to the book which remain fascinating and somehow still topical. I do note that Jay revised / rewrote some aspects of the book for the Wakefield release, and to be honest, I can't remember the orginal details well enough to know what changed / didn't. But there are particular aspects of the book which really make it an interesting read. Originally written in leadup to the "swinging sixties", it was particularly striking how laid back the characters are about their sexual freedom. Another aspect of the book that was subtly but pointedly drawn is the inter-cultural understanding, or more pointedly, lack of understanding. To the point where some of actions of some of the characters were extremely discomforting.

The political aspects of the book are extremely interesting, given the point in the history of Lebanon in which it is set. Jay wrote the book in the 1956, in the time leading up to the Suez Crisis. She was living in Beirut during a year long tour of duty by her husband, a senior UN official. Her admiration for both the country and the people shines through, as does her observations of the erratic nature of local politics.

The major downside to the book for this reader is the overly romantic ending - which, frankly, you can see coming from very early on. Mildly interesting because of the depiction of cross-cultural relationships, but way too "happy ever after" for my taste.

Once Stella Warwick was meant to come to Marapai in Papua New Guinea as a young Australian bride. Now, a little over 6 months later, she comes to find out who murdered her husband.

Although her husband, a distinguished anthropologist in charge of protecting the natives from exploitation, was over 20 years older than her, and in reality she barely knew him, Stella feels that the verdict of suicide after David's death is really out of character.

David Warwick died over 3 days walk into the jungle away, and as Stella attempts to visit there, she becomes aware that everyone is telling her lies. Nobody wants her to uncover the truth.

The novel is as much about how the officials of the Australian protectorate and handling cultural and climatic differences, as it is about whether David Warwick was murdered or whether he committed suicide. The story is played out against the background of interaction and conflict between a supposedly primitive culture and Australian civilisation.

Charlotte Jay lived and worked in Papua New Guinea 1942-1950 and obviously placed BEAT NOT THE BONES in a setting with which she was very familiar. This was her second mystery novel and Anthony Boucher commented on "its deft plot".

BEAT NOT THE BONES gives the reader plenty to think about.½

First Line: It is said of a young man in a popular song that he has the moon in his pocket. Alfred Jobe had two moons in his.

David Warwick is a distinguished anthropologist living in Marapai on New Guinea. He is in charge of protecting the natives from exploitation. His young wife is in Australia taking care of her invalid father. When Stella is told that her husband has committed suicide, she doesn't believe it and travels to Marapai to investigate for herself.

At first, I wanted to slap Stella silly because she's exactly the type of woman who drives me nuts: "She had come here for comfort and peace, to be helped by her husband's friend, to be looked after, to be guided and directed as she had always been." Stella is a young woman who's been convent-educated-- not because her family is Catholic, but because her father believed that this sort of education would make her more biddable and "womanly". Stella fully believes that she will be able to find the answers to her questions simply because she's young and nice and pretty and has always behaved. Pah.

When Stella finally realizes that she's been lied to by just about everyone in Marapai, she finally develops the beginnings of a spine and takes her impromptu investigation to a different level-- even leaving Marapai for a bit:

"Behind them the wharf grew smaller with extraordinary rapidity. With each moment Marapai was more infinitesimal. An hour ago it had been the whole island, now it was almost swallowed up. As they moved towards the long coastline stretching ahead, the land they were seeking reached out to them, hungry and waiting for victims."

Even though I found Stella exasperating for the most part, I did admire her sheer stubbornness. Once she had an idea in her head, she clung to it like a barnacle, and since she was so young and innocent, the men she was trying to deal with went out of their way to avoid scraping her off their keels.

I can see why this book was the winner of the very first Edgar Award for Best Novel. There's an innocent young heroine looking for the truth. There are well-camouflaged bad guys. Several characters have been in the tropics too long, and they've either had nervous breakdowns, or they're right on the verge of them. And they're all in a lush, alien landscape where the weather, the colors-- almost everything around them-- is just more than human senses can take in and protect itself against.

At the beginning, I read this book because it took place in a part of the world I knew very little about. By book's end I knew I'd just finished reading a well-crafted mystery. I'll definitely be looking for Charlotte Jay's other books.½