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SUSPECT_BELOW
August 25, 2006
Patrick Butler, the (primary)
point-of-view character in The more unbiquitous Dr. Fell
Carr's "Below Suspicion", was is on hand in this one to
only used by Carr on a few provide the final answers.
occasions.
SPOILERS
This is a character lifted from
the "Father Brown" stories,
by G.K. Chesterton: The POV wanders
shamelessly, though,
"The prisoner was defended by *including* into the
Mr Patrick Butler, K.C., who mind of the murderer--
was mistaken for a mere flaneur you might think that
by those who misunderstood the this would establish
Irish character-- and those who guilt or innocence, but
had not been examined by him." Carr wiggles out of that
one with what amounts to
"The Man in the Passage" a split personality
by G.K. Chesterton gimmick. That's
"fair play", all right.
Patrick Butler is much better CASTLE_SKULL
characterized than most of
Carr's vehicles -- which are
usually sketched in with only
the bare minimum required to
fufill their combined role of
romantic lead and Watson.
Butler is a defense lawyer,
and a fightin' Irishman, and
could easily have been a
prefunctory exercise in
ethnic stereotype, and yet he Or at least he strikes
stikes me as something close me as likeable. There
to a well-realized character: are some people
flawed, but likeable. (e.g. S. T. Joshi) who
are rubbed the wrong
Hot tempered, way by Butler -- just
excessively proud. because he's a
conceited blowhard?
Fakes a hearty
brogue when Let he who is without
convenient. sin cast the first
billiard ball...
Always on the verge of
sabotaging himself with JUST_JOSHI
his conceits.
A man in a respectable
profession, constantly
sailing near the edge,
dangerously flirting with
wreckless behavior.
SPOILERS
Butler is a character with some
fire in him, a man with just a
touch of the devil about him...
And it's entirely appropriate that the
villains of this story turn out to be LIKE_EVIL
a revival of a satan-worshipping sect.
I find that Carr's rendition of
Satanism has a suspicious amount
of sympathy about it.
Gideon Fell discusses post-war England:
"Let us look at the intolerable dreariness
in the life of the average man today. ...
"He is stifled in crowds, hammered to
docility by queues, entangled in
bureaucratic red-tape, snubbed by
tradesmen with whom he must deal. His
nerves, frayed by five years of war and
air raids, are scraped raw by reaching
for something which isn't there.
Haven't you ever observed those long
theatre-queues, blank-faced as sheep,
waiting in the cold to lose themselves
for a time in the sugar-candy nonsense
of a motion picture?
"And what is his state of mind then?
"Well, let's look back to those withered --
but all too familiar -- figures in the
Middle Ages. To many of them, in their
dreary lives, the Lord of Lords was a cold
enigma. But there was another God, just as
authentic and far more exciting. *He* had
power too. *He* could dispense rich gifts.
*He* would reward the faithful against
Church and State. And so they could -- ...
"They could worship Satan ... Then, as well
as now, in sheer lust for excitement."
"Below Suspicion" (1949),
Chapter 13, p. 131
Carr's mouthpiece
here is his detective (Yes, Carr got
Gideon Fell, a figure to this long
based in appearence before Gaiman's
and manner on Gilbert.)
G.K. Chesterton.
And the name
I think Carr "Gideon Fell",
betrays a what does that
fascination that suggest?
goes beyond mere
intellectual Fallen angel?
diversion.
BOOKSHELF_OF_CARR
A satanist enthuses:
"To worship one ... is tedium and drabness.
To worship the other," she passed her hands
down over her body, "is fire and delirium
and light."
-- Chapter 19, p. 190
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