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Lament for a Maker

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on December 28, 2005 at 6:47:21 pm
 

Innes, Michael - Lament for a Maker (1938)

 

 

Review by Nick Fuller

5/5

One of the true classics of the detective fantasy, this, one of Innes’s masterpieces, recalls Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series in its denseness, doom-laden atmosphere which achieves its greatest effects by making the horrible amusing and the amusing horrible, and the delight in the possibilities of the English tongue. The plot is beautifully constructed, every narrative solving the previous narrative’s questions and posing new ones in a manner reminiscent of Carr’s Arabian Nights Murder, yet the final solution comes as a distinct surprise (despite certain resemblances to Trent’s Last Case). Wonderful.

 


A masterpiece of the 'Scotch' ilk (lairds, castles, and Highland villagers), told in the form of narratives and journals by various participants. Involves a lost heir, guilt-driven madness, and revenge. Superbly written with the narrators providing their own personalities by voice (especially Ewan Bell, the learned sutor/cobbler). The plot, as with most Innes's, is absurd, but it is the telling that counts. In addition, there are some beautifully descriptive passages about the Highlands in winter. One of the best mysteries of all time. But an atmospheric flaw: That impossibly Peter-Wimsey-ish Gylby English git who can quote Dunbar out of his head without reading a book -- Innes's quotation habits of his 'smart' people are really out of hand. The stodgy prose of the Edinburgh lawyers, etc. one can brook, but not these idiotic Bartlett's quotation characters that Innes habitually puts forth as the only intelligent people in the world. Gylby recognizes a quote from Coleridge's "Christobel" when the equally brainy American girl comes out with it and then feels ashamed when he comes back with the "Childe Roland to the dark tower came" phrase because he thinks it is trivial and unworthy -- whereas, in my opinion that is the best thing that could have been said under those circumstances. (Some characters from Hamlet, Revenge! reappear.)

 

Wyatt James

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