Frailty

What you believe and what you know: some envision these two sources in confluence like the twin mouths of a river.  Amidst the thankless difficulties incumbent upon those of us who do believe to prove that our beliefs are justified (belief by definition cannot be proven, but no one seems to listen to that argument), we are confronted by moments of terror and, I daresay, hallucinatory images.  For brief interstices in time we sense what is in others, what makes them tick, what they see as right and wrong; in short, we see their dreams, wishes, fears, and hopes.  These glimpses into our fellow men and women are necessarily rapid, almost flash-like.  Are they the truth about that person? 

This device is old hat in fiction, especially in short stories where characters are often defined by a single gesture, a repeated word, a facial expression when no one else is supposed to be looking.  And what do we think we see, deluded beasts that we are?  That will depend on a number of factors, most of which can be easily dispelled by modern science as irrational or unreal.  Perhaps that nice middle-aged neighbor who always sports a crooked smile in the window of her nice middle-aged house has a different agenda when handling her children, or talking to her sister, or dealing with the much younger and prettier woman who just pinched her husband.  And that high school dropout, a young man who listens to violent music and wears violent clothes, perhaps he is just a lonely soul in search of acceptance, even if acceptance means leaping into the bottomless cesspool of nonconformity.  Which of these two would law enforcement authorities have an easier time picturing as a criminal?  Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?  Using a most original format, this film attempts to answer that strange question.

There are four characters of note, two brothers, Fenton and Adam Meiks, their widower Father (Bill Paxton), and the FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe), who one warm night is approached in his office by a grownup Fenton (Matthew McConaughey).  Fenton has a rather nasty confession to make: he knows the identity of the serial murderer known as the God’s Hand Killer because that person is none other than his own brother.  The film alternates between flashbacks, as recounted by Fenton to Doyle, of the boys’ childhood with their Father and the present day, where the two men sit gaming details out of one another that could only be known by the police, the killer, or someone who, like Fenton, abetted his brother by not stopping him.  Doyle asks and receives pertinent information, but never considers the possibility that the person sitting in front of him might be much smarter than he is.  But the thought crosses our mind, as do other thoughts.  And knowing that we may be missing something, we turn our attention to the flashbacks.

This is where Frailty distinguishes itself from all other films of its genre, if it can fairly stuffed into just one pigeonhole.  Fenton tells Doyle about his Father, a man of great faith who was informed by God that he had a mission: to seek out those who have grossly violated divine law and to mete out punishment with an axe.  When their Father touches someone, he can see within their conscience and determine what if any crimes lie hidden.  The kicker is that Father Meiks also enlists his two young boys, who could not possibly wield as tempered a sense of right and wrong, to help him in his vigilante pursuits.  At this point, the viewer has a choice.  Either the Father is mad and we must look on this production as thinly-veiled satire or misled manipulation, or the director, writer, and protagonist (all of whom happen to be Paxton) are obsessed with showing us a side of man that is so primal as to be forgotten in our modern day of hedging, relativity, and cultural sensitivity: that of moral justice.  There is no trick dialogue or occultism.  What we witness is theurgy in its extreme form, as the film proposes a storyline ingrained in an impossible belief and then follows that trail into darkness from which there cannot be any return.  One image, an image above all other images, is seen towards the end that justifies the actions of one of the characters, and I have never been able to remove that image from my head.  Nor have I tried.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

An egregious mistake was rectified with the publication of this novella, one of the finest in the English language.  In it returned the most renowned of all fictional detectives, and with him, we are told, thousands of readers.  All to a man were relieved that one of their constants in life was back from, well, the dead.  Yet if you are familiar with the arc of this story you know that Conan Doyle was more than a little reluctant to resurrect his immortal.  This hesitation was caused in part by his wish to become more than a “writer of detective stories,” an honorable calling, doubtless, although not literature’s highest.  In the felicitous creation of Holmes and Watson, Conan Doyle ensured that readers would celebrate the  quadricentennial of his birth as they once feted the centennial.  Sure enough, Conan Doyle forayed into other fields, including some books on spirituality that I will probably never bring myself to read, and we can definitely respect his literary ambitions.  But his genius lay in his development of an art form that seems lesser but was actually superior.  Superior because it had no peers, and perhaps its most glorious manifestation remains the tale of the evil hell–hound on the moors.

The setup will be old hat to mystery buffs: an aged millionaire dies under mysterious circumstances and his young heir pays no heed to warnings about a family curse.  To make matters even worse, the heir is an American and untrained in the ways of his British ancestors, rendering him even less suitable to handle the situation, the mansion, and, of course, the beast that allegedly scared his relative to death.  Since the family Baskerville is a known commodity, Holmes monitors the developments.  He is initially delighted to be consulted on the matter by Dr. Mortimer, the family doctor of the recently deceased Charles Baskerville.  Holmes’s enthusiasm wanes, however, when Mortimer argues for the hound’s supernatural origin, to which Holmes suggests that he might make better use of a priest than of the residents of 221B.  Nevertheless, a personal meeting with the heir, Henry Baskerville, and another series of what could not possibly be coincidences motivate Holmes to venture out into the granite upland of Dartmoor.  There he meets a few more characters who will be pieces in the puzzle and begins his investigation in typical Holmesian fashion by retreating, masquerading, and for a long time leaving Watson as befuddled and uninformed as his readers.

Holmes’s other three novellas share one fatal flaw that escapes The Hound of the Baskervilles: a wholly unnecessary back story that, while thorough in its explanation, casts the meat of the novel in a rather superficial light.  The most unfortunate of these devices can be found in this novella written after The Hound of the Baskervilles, but inferior in every way imaginable, although the methodology of the crime itself is ingenious.  But the tale of the padfoot might also be the best Sherlock Holmes tale by virtue of its freshness and observation of the fundamental rules of suspense, character development, and plot.  One occasionally gets the feeling in other stories that many of the barbs and details are throwaways for the sake of atmosphere and propriety (this later adventure is one example of too much talk, not enough snooping).  Nothing of the kind here.  We get instead an allegory, which when done garishly is one of the lowest forms of literature, and when done with great artistry sublimates into the stratosphere of the magnificent.  The fact that we are uncertain about the nature of the beast, or even of its ambitions (Dr. Mortimer relates the gory legend with great relish), whether it be flesh at all or simply a maudlin ruse in animal form, makes the book a late cloudy afternoon one–sitting classic.  And let us not forget the moor, because after this experience, you never will.             

Confessions of a Justified Sinner

We are no longer naive enough to believe in an evil force that could manipulate our actions and cause our damnation.  I fear that some readers may not bother to venture past that last sentence, and may think impatiently to themselves what other fringe topics divert my attention (there are indeed others).  Malevolence in the human soul is considered by many theologians to be the wage of weakness and indulgence, of giving in to the primeval, selfish and often highly destructive desires that besiege us from all corners of our fallen world.  Yet we should not forget that while evil may or may not involve free will, it is necessarily an active force.  It cannot exist in a vacuum, nor lack an object upon which it may direct its action; in other words, if you were alone on a desert isle, you could not be evil.  You may injure or mutilate yourself, or subject your body and mind to deprivation and fatigue, but could you be justly charged with anything more than self–loathing or masochism?  To inflict woe you need another soul or another body, which brings us to this lesser-known masterpiece.

You will be surprised to learn, as was I, that the author became literate at a rather late age.  The only advantage of such a delay is the chance to devote oneself to a mastery of the colloquial language quite out of sorts with a school education, as well as an intimate knowledge of the objects of a bookless life.  Obviously, reading and writing are so essential to the development of the soul that it is hard to imagine an existence without their joys.  But sometimes, in rare cases of outstanding genius, one will find a mind that has been broadened not shrunk by its lack of exposure, dimensions which then increase exponentially once pen and paper are befriended.  Hogg’s interspersion of Scots dialect is not forced.  This is, one assumes, exactly the tone and delivery that these characters would have used.  That does not prevent it, however, from becoming somewhat of an annoyance and something gladly skipped in favor of Hogg’s magnificent normal style.  Look at how a street brawl comes to life in his able hands:

The unnumbered alleys on each side of the street had swallowed up the multitude in a few seconds; but from these they were busy reconnoitring; and, perceiving the deficiency in the number of their assailants, the rush from both sides of the street was as rapid, and as wonderful, as the disappearance of the crowd had been a few minutes before.  Each close vomited out its levies, and these better armed with missiles than when they sought it for a temporary retreat.  Woe then to our two columns of victorious Whigs! 

To the modern ear this style goes above the rich conversational language that contemporary writers use and which, unless the writer is staggeringly talented, tends to commix with plain talk.  Hogg is rehearsing the battle for a soul, split as it were in half.  Following these guidelines, the book folds into two parts: the first describes events mysterious and sinister in nature with no immediate explanation; the second part details a horrible alliance.

 

The soul in question belongs to Robert Wringhim Colwan, the adopted son of a Scottish clergyman and a beautiful if tortured youth.  The title tells us that he will fall hard upon the materialist wickedness of the world, but to what degree he has repented, if repentance is at all an option, makes us read on.  Robert has a half—sibling, George, and it is a dark day when Robert becomes his brother's shadow and keeper.   He lurches in his proximity at every corner and stretch of the gloomy, dour Edinburgh streets until George cannot believe that a mortal could know all his moments and move with such alacrity.  Soon enough, he is provoked into crime, or that is at least what the first narrative states plainly while hinting otherwise.  Then something even worse happens to George, and Robert is, well, somehow both implicated and perfectly alibied.  Yet when Mrs. Logan (the helpmeet of George's father) and Mrs. Calvert (a prostitute) travel to the country:

Mrs. Calvert sat silent, and stared the other mildly in the face.  Their looks encountered, and there was an unearthly amazement that gleamed from each, which, meeting together, caught real fire, and returned the flame to their heated imaginations, till the two associates became like two statues, with their hands spread, their eyes fixed, and their chops fallen down upon their bosoms.  An old woman who kept the lodging-house, having been called in before when Mrs. Logan was faintish, chanced to enter at this crisis with some cordial; and, seeing the state of her lodgers, she caught the infection, and fell into the same rigid and statue-like appearance. 

What they saw precisely will not be revealed here.  But the novel's second half has sufficient data to spin a thick web of conjecture around these events, if these were really events to begin with and not the ravings of a mad mind.  I would guess that many readers will find the second half too drawn out, each step too ponderous, each stride overextended.  I would also guess that immediate gratification of the type found in popular novels of the supernatural eschews suspense for horror, and deprives the reader of the most terrifying of all revelations:  an evil that knows no bounds and which seems to grow larger the more one knows of it.  This is the quandary of Robert Wringhim, a wretched youth who has little of the hero in him and much of the jackal.  It is here that we realize that the title is not meant to evoke pity, but is taken in all seriousness, and we shudder at the consequences.

The Ninth Gate

If you are familiar with this book, you may wonder why director Roman Polanski was so bent on transforming it into a film.  The book deals with, on the one hand, a club based on the works of a nineteenth–century Frenchman, and, on the other hand, a triptych of rather macabre illustrated tomes written by a seventeenth–century Italian who was burned at the stake.  We are all well aware how many innocents fell victim to inquisitions during that harried time, but this fellow, Aristide Torchia, seems to have had certain forces on his side that led to his downfall.  Yes, those forces.  And if this conceit is not painfully clear from the first few minutes of The Ninth Gate, this is probably not going to be your type of movie.

Regardless of the original novel’s name, the Dumas story line is both secondary and far less compelling (occupations of the idle rich usually are), so Polanski wisely elects to focus on Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) and his journey through a wicked game of cat and mouse.  The problem is that Corso is both the pursued and pursuer, slipping effortlessly from Spain to Portugal and then to Polanski’s beloved France on the trail of three extant copies (the rest were torched with Torchia) of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows.  Depp is particularly skilled at playing down a character’s inner needs in favor of reacting to his environment in a composed manner.  He is never really flustered, although he witnesses both death and evil deeds.  And when he understands a chance encounter in a train with a rather seductive blonde (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s wife) as just that, a chance encounter, we know his character is far too intelligent not to suspect that more devious gears are churning.  Yet for some reason he feels that these gears have been in motion for a while now and that his entanglement is inevitable, as evidenced by the very last action he takes.

Without giving too much away, I should add that Polanski does a little tinkering.  Corso’s book dealer chum Bernie (James Russo) and the “dishy” (to use the film’s terminology) widow Leona Telfer (Lena Olin) are given slightly different roles, with the latter becoming a foil to the green–eyed stranger who keeps running into Corso at opportune times just like, well, a guardian angel.  Then there is the matter of Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), who in the film combines the roles of two of the novel’s personages.  Balkan, a fabulously wealthy man and renowned translator and bibliophile, is seen very early on giving a lecture that Corso finds soporific, but that doesn’t discourage him from accosting Corso and showing him the money.  The favorite subject of Balkan’s priceless shelves just happens to be the alleged collaborator on Torchia’s work.  And if you’re wondering who might be famous enough to have thousands of volumes written about him and still find a reason to help an obscure Italian achieve eternal infamy in the year 1666, of all years, I would recommend rewinding to the beginning to survey the entire audience at Balkan’s lecture.

In the novel Corso has a back story and a soul.  He loved a young Jewish woman, but his love for books and money has come to justify their separation, at least when he doesn’t think about her too much.  Polanski’s Corso, while perfectly cast, remains a shell seeking some kind of form.  Guidance from the stars, belief in the supernatural, skepticism of coincidence and human intentions — all of these may or may not be factors for his actions and statements, which belie his actions.  Corso is not a liar, but he’s not honest with himself or anyone else, and in time he begins to understand that the happiest of men are those whose lives permit them to tell the truth as often as possible.  There is no one to whom he can open up or reveal the mildest traces of humanity and compassion, but we recognize in this condition so many lives bound by invisible, self–imposed rules and past pain that Corso becomes a real person with real problems.  And what he chooses in the end is peace with himself, or whatever is left of it.   

The Italian Secretary

Although widely and justly considered second–rate works, the library of this legendary sleuth's  further adventures has been growing by leaps and even greater leaps the last forty–odd years.  A staggering number of these books, of course, wallow in that corner of chilly obscurity especially reserved for epigones.  Even an authoritative collection penned by Arthur Conan Doyle's youngest son and Agatha Christie's most heralded contemporary and based on unsolved Holmes cases never fleshed out in print suffers from the ingenious self–limitation of recycling actual Doylean plot lines.  Thus, if you are more than superficially acquainted with the original stories, you will see the guilty party marching towards you from the other end of Baker street.

Not so with the American author Caleb Carr, who comes up with an entirely new adventure and one not remiss in its Holmesian eccentricities.  Carr is the author of this other bestselling novel, which I cannot recommend, as well as a noted military historian.  His training in that field must definitely have imbued the villain's weapon of mass devastation (I shall not describe it further) with a certain  authenticity, although that is again not my business to judge.  What I may say, however, is that the historian finds Victorian dialogue to be a rather delightful affair and, while generally refraining from archaic constructions, dispatches a convincing Watson (no story is complete without him) to lead the reader from room to darkened room in search of, well, a ghost.  The ghost has been biding its time for a while now:  the Italian secretary in question is none other than this murdered gentleman, once a member of the court of  Mary, Queen of Scots, and now still very much bounding about this old palace.

Mycroft, Holmes's older brother always described by Sherlock as having the better brain of the two, if beset by irreparable indolence, summons the dynamic pair to Scotland to investigate the evisceration of an architect and a mason.  Along the way, a few belligerent Scottish terrorists decide to ventilate the train that the two visitors happen to be riding.  We are to gather that this small piece of action will be a foretaste of the revolt awaiting the detectives in the North, although the extreme violence of the novel (a very modern addition) is tempered by the cozy whispers of ghosts and goblin–like baddies from every crevice and crack of  Holyrood.  Once there, the usual chain of events ensues: Holmes becomes moody and finds the whole operation either tedious or hilarious, while Watson drifts from one shady character to another, inspecting each of them with severe medical thoroughness.  Holmes of course knows exactly what's going on and just has to test out a few of his theories to substantiate his peerless intuition; Watson, on the other hand, is tasked to play the role of the silly goat.  This thankless assignment involves irrational fears of the supernatural, excessive politeness (especially to the fairest and most distressed of Europe's damsels), and an unerring tendency for absurd deductions based on a hint or a sniff of a clue (or the hint of a sniff of a clue).  This is both the trademark of the Holmes stories and its cardinal shortcoming, and Carr smartly chooses not to tamper with a proven product.

I cannot say I like the end of The Italian Secretary, neither what happens nor how and why it happens.  The history of Rizzio's murder is a nice backdrop, but how many Holmesian solutions do we have that truly involve the otherworldly?  Despite this obvious straw–man, on most pages Carr offers a flattering and sincere imitation of Watson's unique cadence.  More impressively, the reader's attention is held even though the vast majority of the novel are lengthy dialogues: Holmes and his foil, or the Brothers Holmes, or Watson and the young woman he finds wandering the castle.  Yes, it's always Watson who finds the woman.  Holmes found a woman once, in this, his first short story.  Conan Doyle immediately recognized the schmaltzy path that his beloved creation would be taking if he continued in this vein and wisely concluded that some artists should remain monks, or at least keep bees instead of grandchildren.  Had he not, it would have been one of the most disastrous decisions in literary history.  But perhaps still not as bad as this one.