More with the questions, yet
Two questions I missed, and one latecomer:
Q: Nikki wanted to know, Ok I caught the Lord Peter reference, and I know you said no more questions (I can wait ’til June if I must, but this has been bothering me for AGES!!), but how do Holmes and Russell know Lord Peter??
A: You think I know? And you think I’e2’80’99d ever be able to find out, since I can’e2’80’99t write Lord Peter without permission? But London is a small city, smaller yet in the years after the Great War, and surely such eminent minds wouldn’e2’80’99t have overlooked each other.
Q: And Ruth asks, As a criminology and criminal justice student I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever studied any criminological theory? Having studied feminist criminology this year and then re-read Night Work, I found myself looking at it from a slightly different angle, which made for an interesting read.
A: Theory? No. I like the idea of feminist criminology, but couldn’e2’80’99t begin to guess what it involved.
Q: Meredith asks, in the blog weeks ago you spoke about the “quickening” of the character of Belinda Birdsong and said we would hear more. Might some of this be mentioned in TAOD?
A: Yes, definitely: BB is a central character
Meredith asked:
Q: Meredith asks, in the blog weeks ago you spoke about the “quickening” of the character of Belinda Birdsong and said we would hear more. Might some of this be mentioned in TAOD?
Yup! It always pays to read Laurie’s blog, and many many thanks to you, Laurie, for making it available. It gives your fans plenty to think about between devouring your books. I can’t wait for TAOD. Your blog helps with the anticipation and excitement–keep up the good work!
Maer
Ruth said she “…studied feminist criminology this year…”. That sounds fascinating, Ruth. What makes feminist criminology feminist, as opposed to (looking for a suitable word…ummmm…) chauvinist criminology? Is it the investigatory procedure or is it a focus on feminist issues or…? This is really fascinating–how does it work, if you don’t mind my asking?
Maer
Quote: “Q: Nikki wanted to know, Ok I caught the Lord Peter reference, and I know you said no more questions (I can wait ’til June if I must, but this has been bothering me for AGES!!), but how do Holmes and Russell know Lord Peter??
A: You think I know? And you think I’e2’80’99d ever be able to find out, since I can’e2’80’99t write Lord Peter without permission? But London is a small city, smaller yet in the years after the Great War, and surely such eminent minds wouldn’e2’80’99t have overlooked each other.”
Another helpful suggestion, they all went to Oxford. 🙂
And I loved the Tolkien reference in “A Letter of Mary” too. I hope that estate didn’t have a fit too.
A Tolkien reference in A Letter from Mary?! I’ll have to reread that. Thanks, Kitchebookworm.
Laurie, I’ve an apparently congenital habit of keeping track of typos in my work for future revisions . . . and believe you once solicited your readers to offer any typos they found towards more-perfect revisions of your work for collected editions, etc.
ANYWAY, if such are still useful:
p. 71 hardbound O Jerusalem, just below midpage: “I took one furious step forward and felt Holmes’ hand freeze like a vice on my upper arm.” Would that not be vise? Forgive my unfamiliarity with the HTML tags, couldn’t figure the appropriate itals, underline. If you intended the unusual use of vice there, no worries.
Feminist criminology (the little that I’ve looked at) is mainly a critique of traditional criminology based on the predication that men oppress women. There’s many different types of feminist criminology, with Gelsthorpe counting at least six, including Marxist and Radical. However, all share common factors; all are anti positivists, all reject the methods and concepts of the natural sciences to understand the social world, a world of meaning and interaction which needs other methods to illuminate it. They all question and challenge stereotypical and cliched assumptions about women and insist that the concept of gender is important for understanding the social and political world.
It really began to emerge, in the UK at least, in the late 1960s when Frances Heidensohn criticised the emission of women from criminology (which is a traditonally male occupation) with Carol Smart criticising the stereotypical and cliched view of women that existed in the little research that was available at the time.
Feminist criminology criticises the positivist viewpoint, which saw women as irrational, neurotic and compulsive, and which commonly influenced (and still does) policies. For example female offenders at New Holloyway Prison were offered therapy but no vocational training.
Positivists gave women the worst male characteristics of male offenders, a clear confusion of gender as masucline traits were applied to females, and stated that they lacked maternal instinct (which eventually kicked in and turned women away from crime).
Feminists have also critised the work of Pollak, who believed women used their passive natures to their advantage when dealing with the police and the courts and W.I. Thomas amongst others.
There’s many theories that stem from feminist criminology, which I’ve yet to cover so for more information I’d try various textbooks that are available on criminological theory, especially as a lot of the criticism that stems from feminist criminology is aimed at the positivist school of thought, which stems back to the beginnings of criminology.
Another “can’t resist” or two: very interesting feminist stuff; thanks. And a favorite trivial point of my own. Tolkien’s favorite pub in Oxford was The Eagle and Child, to a point that they have little signs up in it to say so. But the locals Never call it by that name; it’s The Bird and Baby. For some reason that tickles me to death.–Meredith T.
As a newcomer to Laurie’s blog, I’ve been reading past editions and comments and VERY much enjoy the lively conversation here. Someone asked earlier this month why 4% is considered nearly full employment. If I may offer two comments about this:
1) “Full” employment will theoretically never happen, since there are actually a small percentage of individuals who are supposedly capable of employment but will never, short of a miraculously wise and innovative employer, be employ-able, whether for emotional or educational issues or social challenges or other difficult reasons. As my brother once said, once unemployment levels dip below about 3.5%, you know that there are a few ‘place-holders’ being paid out there, that are perhaps not otherwise contributing in their place of work.
But, 2)and to my mind more importantly, unless Congress has done something to rectify the problem, the unemployment statistics do not report or include those individuals who lost their jobs, drew unemployment pay and extensions of unemployment pay, and then fell off the edge of the known and counted world when they were no longer eligible to collect unemployment, but still had not found jobs.
Our cowboy actor president of the ’80s ‘adjusted’ unemployment reporting to count only the new unemployed. The old unemployed no longer eligible for gov’t. assistance but not yet employed again, no one keeps track of them, so far as I know. It’s not clear whether there are a lot or a few of them, these days, but in the late ’80s, there were an awful LOT.
Thanks for tolerating my lengthy explanation.
You must get asked this all the time, and if so I am sorry to bother you with it again, but I just finished Locked Rooms (I read it in about 48 hours – wonderful story) and must know: are there plans for another Mary Russell novel to come out within the next few years?
Thanks for writing what has become my favorite series..
-kb
Re L. Crampton’s post:
“I took one furious step forward and felt Holmes’ hand freeze like a vice on my upper arm.” Would that not be vise?
Not in UK English, which (yay!) Laurie uses when writing about Russell and Holmes (since in fact, they do speak UK English themselves). The tool is indeed spelled vice in UK/NZ/AUS English. See here for the Cambridge Dictionary entry.
TRIX, Cool! I never knew that. Thanks so much for enlightening me!
I think Tolkien’s estate might not have as much of a leg to stand on, since that reference is to the man himself and not to any of his characters.
In response to KLCtheBookWorm: I could have sworn Holmes was a Cambridge man, but I know that this is one debate thast will go on for ever.
Regarding Holmes and Russell knowing Lord Peter — Dorothy Sayers wrote a charming little piece about a young (8-9?) Peter consulting with Holmes about a missing cat. It was published in a collection called ‘Sayer on Holmes’. Apparently the Wimseys and Musgraves were friends of long standing whence came the connection with Holmes. It would naturally follow that a friend of Holmes would be a friend of Russell.
Beth: ” I could have sworn Holmes was a Cambridge man, but I know that this is one debate thast will go on for ever.”
True dat. 😀
I was using Laurie as a reference for Holmes’s past. In “A Monstrous Regiment of Women” he told Russell that he went to her presentation (only to discover she was missing) with his own gown and it wasn’t from his costume closet. So that’s what made me think he attended Oxford.
Though if Cambridge had a course that Holmes was interested in, I doubt very little would’ve stopped him from taking it. And if I’m remembering right, I think Baring-Gould had Holmes going to both–but not getting a degree from either one.
I’d like to get the Sayers on Holmes. I remember run across a short story in which the retired Holmes helps a young lady out with finding her missing fiance (a crook) and the lady turns out to be a young Miss Marple, but I can’t remember who wrote it. It was in a collection of similar stories of various famous detectives.
The book was ‘Great Detectives: Seven Original Investigations’ by Julian Symons. The Holmes/Miss Marple story is’How a Hermit was Disturbed in his Retirement’. There is another Miss Marple story and also stories about Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot, Maigret, Ellery Queen, and Philip Marlowe.