A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George

She left the room and stalked down the corridor towards the lift. Was there anyone in all of New Scotland Yard whom she hated more than she hated Lynley? He was a miraculous combination of every single thing she thoroughly despised: educated at Eton, a first in history at Oxford, a public school voice, and a bloody family tree that had its roots somewhere just this side of the Battle of Hastings. Upper class. Bright. And so damnably charming that she couldn't understand why every criminal in the city simply didn't surrender to accommodate him.

-A Great Deliverance 

These are the thoughts of DS Barbara Havers, of late a uniformed cop working for the Metropolitan Police. Havers has the chops to make it as a detective, but her difficult personality has won her few friends in the department. When her superior officer assigns her to a thorny murder case in Yorkshire, she might have been pleased to have another shot--except for the fact that he partners her up with DI Thomas Lynley. Havers, as you may have gleaned from the passage above, has no love lost for Lynley. She considers the assignment to be a form of punishment, a cruel joke--why else would you pair up the working-class Havers with Lynley, better known in some circles as the eighth earl of Asherford?

Yes, Havers has a wee bit of a chip on her shoulder when it comes to class. And while everything she thinks about Lynley in the passage I quoted is true enough, it quickly becomes clear that there's much more to him than meets the eye. A Great Deliverance is as much a story of the two detectives groping toward a working relationship as it is the story of the (rather lurid) case that they've joined forces to investigate.

I first became acquainted with Lynley and Havers by watching the Masterpiece Mystery adaptations of Elizabeth George's stories starring Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small--I'm currently in the middle of the third season. I was immediately charmed by Lynley--as Havers notes, it's difficult not to be--and I was quite fond of his prickly partner from the outset as well.  I feel as though the television adaptation honed this story well--I could have done without some of the more histrionic moments in the book, or the oddly two-dimensional ugly American character*. Still, I read the book in two days, which certainly reflects how caught up I became in the story. One thing I particularly enjoyed was the chance to get a window into the thoughts of both Lynley and Havers, which gave me some new insight into how they viewed one another at the start of their partnership. I would be lying if I pretended I was anything else but hugely invested in seeing how that relationship develops on the page, as it certainly has been pretty engrossing on screen.

On the whole, it was a good read, and it was refreshing to have a book that I became so absorbed in after a pretty uneven run of books in the last few months. I'll definitely be seeking out the next book in the series.

Up next: Getting back to Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes, which I'm about halfway through.

*Particularly considering that George herself is American.

Poem: "Stanzas Written In Passing The Ambracian Gulf"

Cleopatra (Lyndsey Marshal) and Antony (James Purefoy) on HBO's Rome*

 It's April once again (I note belatedly), which means that it's also National Poetry Month. Last year at this time I was on a Keats kick and, after having read The Age of Wonder, I thought it would be good to revisit the Romantics. This time I selected Byron. 

I've long been familiar with Byron's libertine reputation, but I don't think I'd ever read any of his poetry until recently. I was pleasantly surprised with how readable it was, and how witty. I was charmed from the first poem I read, which I've decided to highlight in this post.  

Stanzas Written In Passing The Ambracian Gulf

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,

Full beams the moon on Actium's coast:

And on these waves for Egypt's queen

The ancient world was won and lost.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;

Where stern Ambition once forsook

His wavering crown to follow woman.

Florence! whom I will love as well

As ever yet was said or sung

(Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell),

Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,

When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes:

Had bards as many realms as rhymes,

Thy charms might rise new Antonies.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,

Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd!

I cannot lose a world for thee,

But I would not lose thee for a world.

That last couplet, am I right? Also, I'm a sucker for Roman history: he had me at Actium.

*I suppose I could have used any number of pictures to illustrate this post, but James Purefoy's performance as Antony is brilliant. Love him; love the crazy, twisted soap opera that was Rome.

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

At all events, Coleridge treasured the memory of his father's eager demonstration of the stars and planets overhead, and the possibility of other worlds: 'I remember, that at eight years old I walked with him one evening from a farmer's house, a mile from Ottery -- & he told me the names of the stars -- and how Jupiter was a thousand times larger than our world -- and that the other twinkling stars were Suns that had world rolling round them -- & when I came home, he showed me how they rolled round. I heard him with profound delight & admiration; but without the least mixture of Wonder or incredulity. For from my early reading of Faery Tales, & Genii etc etc -- my mind had been habituated to the Vast.'

-The Age of Wonder 

I find it pretty remarkable to think that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, some 200 years ago, thought his mind "habituated to the Vast." What hope, then, do we in the 21st century have to experience wonder, when so much more of the world has been discovered and analyzed and explained? Luckily for us, we also have books like The Age of Wonder to help us to consider the world around us in a new light.

If I were to try to sum up The Age of Wonder in one sentence, I might say something like, "It's about the monumental discoveries that were made in every scientific discipline in the late 18th and early 19th centuries." Even with that "monumental" in there, though, I suspect that that sounds rather dry. (Also, passive voice. Badly done.) Imagine this instead: A Scotsman exploring an area of Africa that cartographers have left blank. A German immigrant building the largest telescope in England...and promptly discovering a new planet. A wealthy young English botanist going native in Tahiti. A 20-year-old who spent considerable time experimenting with the effects of nitrous oxide, to which he became addicted, before going on to discover elements like calcium. The Age of Wonder covers all of these stories and many more. If you've guessed that it's ambitious in scope, you would be correct.

It's amazing how much we know of science dates from this time-- even the word scientist itself didn't come into usage until the 1820s. Richard Holmes has quite a lot of territory to cover. He juggles his stories in a way that makes it look quite easy, but I can't imagine how much time must have gone into researching this book. His voice is clear and he sometimes manages to work in some very clever asides--I would definitely be interested in looking into other books of his. (He seems to have primarily written about the Romantic poets, who flit in and out of The Age of Wonder.)

It did take me a little while to get into the book, but before long I was utterly absorbed in the Tahitian adventures of Joseph Banks. On the whole, it's a very interesting book. I particularly loved the parts about astronomy (because if anything can inspire wonder, I really think it's the stars) and the dramatic tale of the adventurer Mungo Park, the first European to find the Niger River. I was less enchanted with the story of Humphry Davy, but that may have been in part because he just didn't come across as a particularly likable fellow. Overall, I feel much better informed about this era than I did prior to reading this book, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Up next: Using Joseph Banks as a jumping off point, I'm on to Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes, in which he retraces the travels of Captain Cook. I loved the other two Horwitz books I read, so I have high hopes.