The Black Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black

“A Philip Marlowe Novel” caught my eye on the cover of this book in the charity shop. I had never heard of this title, and I had thought that, when a young man, I had read all of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe novels. On further checking I discovered I was correct; I had read all seven of the series and this was a new novel by a different author. Although Raymond Chandler had included this title as one in a series of possible titles for future works.

This novel was written by Booker Prize winner John Banville, under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black (author of the Quire series of Dublin crime novels). But it is written as if it were from the pen of Raymond Chandler. It is crime noir, set in 1950s America, where the hard bitten gumshoe tries to unravel crimes from messy situations.

John Banville has accurately captured Chandler’s style – you would be hard pressed to tell any difference between the two authors’ if you read extracts blind to the source. Fortunately, he is also very successful in capturing the tone and has a good story with an interesting plot. If you enjoyed Chandler’s work, then I’d put aside any misgivings and give this book a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised

I had never read any ‘fan fiction’ before. Probably because the authors I follow don’t seem to engender this type of enthusiastic following. However, I will possibly seek more of the genre and hope that there are fans of George Bernard Shaw and Aldous Huxley sharpening their pencils.

Fate

It had been a hectic and stressful week up until today. Although we have had sunny weather almost continually for a fortnight, we also have had no rain and thus we have been worried about our water supply (Though our spring seems healthy at the moment). We recently lost a dear friend, who died young with brain cancer, and thus needed to travel into a city in England to be present at his funeral. On the day of the funeral the main arterial route to the city was closed and we needed to start our journey in the middle of the night to be able to travel the extra miles and arrive on time. However, with the aid of modern GPS mapping technology this did work out satisfactorily. The holiday let business had also been busy so we were looking forward to a quieter, and relaxing weekend.

When we had finished preparing the cottage for new visitors, I was standing outside enjoying the sun and preparing to do nothing at all for the rest of the day. Fate had other plans for me. I heard a loud humming in the berberis bush and noticed that there was a swarm of bees hanging there. They were not from my hives and looking at the swarm it was going to be fairly easy to collect it. Although it was among berberis branches, a bush that is famous for its ability to fight back again anyone messing with it, it was fairly low hanging and we managed to collect it in a box quite easily.

As luck would have it, I had cleaned out and old hive just over a week ago, so I had a place ready to accept this swarm. (We had lost that hive’s bees in the serious cold weather at the beginning of the year, so I had cleaned it up and renewed the frames and foundation inside.) The first time I moved the swarm I had obviously failed to collect the queen as when I watched the bees would not settle and a small swarm had recollected at the bush. On the second transfer we had success, and they were all happily ensconced in their new home.

Bran, my helper, and I felt quite proud of ourselves and celebrated our good luck. We felt fate had rewarded us for cleaning and preparing the old hive. The swarm had been in the right place at the right time. But perhaps there was also a little bit of bad luck. Just after I had completed the transfer the young lads who are developing a smallholding just above us came round to cut some bamboo rods. They mentioned that they had recently reconditioned an old hive and joined the local beekeepers’ association and were now on the look-out for a swarm to start them off in their beekeeping. Perhaps fate had intended the swarm for them, but it was too late now to move the bees again. I have solemnly promised that when we see the next swarm, and there will be one in the next few months, I will help them collect it and their hive will have inhabitants before the end of this summer.

I Care A Lot

This was a difficult film to review. Sometime after watching it I am still in two minds as to whether it can be recommended or should be avoided. I was caught by the film’s premise and the opening half an hour which spelt it all out. Early on it was clear that this was a well-made film (apart from the dialogue) and had some serious acting from it stars. In particular, Rosamund Pike displayed her star quality, acting her socks off, as the amoral, grasping, greedy lawyer preying on the elderly and weak. Later Peter Dinklage gave a credible turn as the, slightly more likeable, Russian mafioso villain. And herein lies the problem, this was film about evil, nasty characters performing selfish, despicable deeds. At the beginning the viewer could see this all as scene setting for the eventual retribution or explanation, but it became clear, about halfway through the film, that these were never going to arrive. This was a film about nastiness for nastiness’s sake. This film was a peon to greed and cruelty.

As the film had no counterbalancing storyline it was impossibel to sympathise with any of the characters (The victims were mostly ciphers; only in the film to be cruelly treated). Indeed, the despicability of the main character had me rooting for the Russian mafia and hoping they would blow her away. I am not sure if the attempt to lever in a girl power, lesbian romance, theme really worked either – are we really saying that to be a successful lesbian you must be as cruel and distasteful as a macho man? However, it did manage to hide one of the difficulties of the film. Had the main characters been reversed, and the antihero not been played by a beautiful woman, it is unlikely that the audience would have tolerated a male actor behaving so badly long enough to get to the end of the film. Exiting the film before the end would not have lost the viewer much as the short, cop-out ending scene tagged on to close the film didn’t allow any point to be made. Except perhaps that if you are beautiful enough, rich enough, cool enough or just selfish enough the rules don’t apply to you.

I suppose, having thought about it, this is the nature of this film. It was well made and well-acted but had no story arc or moral content. If you get your rocks off watching beautiful people acting badly, you’ll enjoy this. If you don’t, prepare to be unsettled by the horrifying premise of the film, as well as the troubling thought that some people find cruelty amusing.