Cold as Marble: A Likeness in Stone

A Likeness in Stone by J.Wallis Martin

New English Library

Pp. 361

In the powerful opening scene of the novel, two divers exploring an old flooded house at the bottom of a reservoir find a decomposed body in a wardrobe. We soon discover it is that of Helena Warner, an undergraduate reading English at Somerville College, Oxford, who went missing twenty years ago. At the time, Thames Valley Chief Inspector Bill Driver, was convinced that she had been killed by her lover, Ian Gilmore, but with no body, the case was never solved. Now it is re-opened by the new policeman on the job, Detective Superintendent Rigby, who works with Driver to try to bring Gilmore to justice. It may be set in the same cosy world as Morse and Midsommer Murders (and it was made into a miniseries starring Andrew Lincoln and Ruth Jones) but it is far more grim than that, because, “horror wasn’t choosy. It manifested in the most unlikely of places, and in various guises.”

Of course, this is a mystery, so nothing is as it initially appears, and submerged secrets rise to the surface, as the timeline shifts back and forth. Helena was part of a group of friends who don’t actually like each other very much and still have affiliations and implications many years later. These three university associates are all implicated in a very dark world which includes sadism and psychopaths.

Rigby and Driver must work together to solve the case despite their different methods. Driver looks down upon Rigby whom he dismisses as, “Well-dressed, intelligent-looking; no doubt the product of one of these new-fangled schemes that sends graduates shooting up a ladder Driver had to climb rung by painful rung, year after frustrating year.”

Women are victims; objects to be possessed and preserved in youth before they age and supposedly lose their beauty. Other examples of casual sexism and lazy stereotypes are scattered throughout the novel. Artists are troubled and odd; mental health facilities are a comfortable alternative to a hard life; computers are new (it was published in 1997) and, apparently, the police one is female, “What’s more, this little sweetie was a redhead. One false move and she could go off on one, no trouble.”

This gripping and clinical, fast-paced police procedural has been likened to the work of Ruth Rendell or Minette Walters. It is certainly dark and moody with a chilling aspect. “Real evil, unlike the romanticised fantasy of evil, was merely gloomy, monotonous and boring… The majority of murders were committed not with malice, but with indifference, by people who lived in the type of environment that deadened the soul.” It is eerie, creepy, and a thoroughly captivating thriller.

An Age Old Question: The Devil and Miss Prym

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Thorsons
Pp. 201

Leo Tolstoy is said to have said, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” This is the latter of those two options, and its claim to great literature is subjective, but the author has sold over 175 million of his books worldwide. One day a stranger comes to the town of Viscos (spoiler alert: he is the devil of the title) with a backpack containing twelve bars of gold. He offers one of them to Chantal (the Miss Prym of the title) on the condition that she communicates to the villagers that they will receive the other eleven if they commit a murder.

In essence it is a very simple morality tale; are people intrinsically good or evil? The basic prose may be a matter of translation from the original Portuguese (Coelho is Brazilian) but it suits the elements of fable, incorporating many parables. As it is a philosophical conceit, the narrator is omniscient, the characters are ciphers, and the events are unrealistic. It is cerebral rather than emotional; designed to make the reader think rather than feel.

The village of Viscos is remote and irrelevant, chosen deliberately by the stranger for his experiment. He wants to pit the villagers against each other, knowing that they are all in desperate financial straits and would welcome a windfall. It does not matter to the stranger whom the villagers choose to murder, only that they commit the act, and therefore, this is also an exploration of the conflict between the individual and society. “The story of one man is the story of all men. I need to know if we are good or evil.” Most cultures and religions have tales of the eternal struggle between good and evil. A Native American myth posits that we all contain two wolves; a kind and gentle one and a fierce and vicious one. The one that survives is the one we feed. This is incorporated into the metaphor of the rogue wolf which stalks the forest and terrorises the villagers, keeping them afraid. Many religions also have “a place of punishment, where the immortal soul goes after committing certain crimes against society (everything seemed to be in terms of society, rather than of the individual).”

The fundamental question is whether we are intrinsically good or bad, and what makes us this way. Coelho suggests that we are only good due to the fear of consequences. The stranger says, “I am a man who walks the earth with a devil at his side; in order to drive him away or accept him for once and for all, I need to know the answers to certain questions.” He chose Chantal because she is orphaned and searching for a way to escape her dull life in the village, but she wants someone to rescue her rather than acting for herself. She has several meetings with the stranger – as a single woman these may cause consternation but she has no one to protect her morality and can do as she please. She realises, however, that she too is bound by the fear of the future.

The metaphysical problem is described as game theory – gambling on the actions of others in order to protect yourself. It’s an old conundrum and one that doesn’t really have an answer. Chance exists and bad things happen to good people (the story of Job from the Old Testament is included along with many other myths and legends); perhaps we need the hope to carry on, like the widowed Berta, who sits outside her house every day watching the villagers and commenting on their action with her dead husband. The problem with the severely pedagogic tone is that it leaves little for the reader to do. Just as Chantal is trapped in the village, we are trapped in this narrative and will only be released when Coelho has finished with his lecture.