I want to give another big thanks to Stacy and Kurt for posting during my absence and to put out another call for guest posters in late July. I will be heading to Chandigarh, India, for my long-delayed service trip with the Global Autism Project. Currently, I am seeking someone to cover:
- July 20 (LW Ch. 45-54)
- July 24 (LW Ch. 55-62)
- July 27 (LW Ch. 63-end)
- July 31: (TB Ch 1-9)
If you are interested, please send me an email message via the link in the right column.
I am delighted to pick up with blogging again, because Lethal White is my favorite book of the series. I explained why several months ago on one of my last Hogwartsprofessor.com posts:
The favorite: 1. Lethal White. Its position as the midway story turn of our presumed seven series, Potter-parallel series gives this volume a place of its own. After the high body count and gruesome killings and woman-directed violence of Career of Evil, Lethal White was a like a breath of fresh air. I also have a personal fondness for this book, having predicted years in advance that the London Olympics would form the background, and having speculated on the pre-book predictions podcast that Robin would get to don her Green Dress again for a Yule Ball type event. My chance googling of the name Rattenbury was one of the luckiest “strikes” I ever made in the world of literary sleuthing. And, this book, with its dozens of connections to Goblet of Fire, this book was proof positive of the parallels with Harry Potter.
Other high points: the addition of Barclay to the team, Robin’s undercover action as both Venetia Hall and Bobbi Cunliffe, Strike being there for his critically ill nephew Jack and Robin being there for him, the recurrent white horse motif, the connection to Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, Robin’s A Doll’s House-like dumping of the Flobberworm, and Strike first comforting her on the verge, then buying her a mini-champagne to toast her newfound freedom. Overall, this book was a ideal balance of mystery, action, romance and humor. (“Maybe you should put that on your next employee satisfaction review. ‘Not as f*cking annoying as the woman who shagged my husband.’ I’ll have it framed.”) I think it’s the audiobook I’ve re-listened to more than any other.
Today's post will cover chapters 8-13, though I am going to focus on the first meeting with Minister Chiswell. This is timely, given a recent post on the new Substack version of Hogpro, where I made some brief comment, which inspired me to elaborate a bit more on the Chiswell family, particularly the male contingent, here. The most recent post there goes through an exercise of connecting the Potter and Strike books to Christian virtues. I was struck by John Granger's connection of Lethal White to gluttony.
Lethal White: Abstinence/Gluttony. I suspect that I cannot see this correspondence because ‘gluttony’ and ‘abstinence’ in my mind are categories of self-control chiefly with respect to food, drink, and sex. Strike does go on an overnight binge with a red-headed bimbo, a self-indulgent fall that means Robin was easily able to make-up with Matt in the Maldives, but that hardly is the tone or theme of the novel. What am I missing?
My first thought was that what was missing was the classic line where Strike is explicitly called out on his gluttony: Lorelei's texted message: “If you want a hot meal and a shag with no human emotions involved, there are restaurants and brothels.” Then, on second thought, I thought that was a bit harsh on Strike. In re-reading Chapter 11, we see that Strike is intentionally limiting his consecutive nights with Lorelei, and therefore voluntarily moderating his intake of both her cooking and sex with her: so "gluttony" may be a bit strong. He only broke his "only one night" rule when he buggered his knee and honestly, what choice did he have?
My second thought for gluttons are the Chiswell, who seem to binge not on food, drink or sex, but their own power and prestige. The introduction of Jasper Chiswell in in chapters 8-10 certainly does not give a favorable impression. I was struck, when Strike meets him in Pratt's, how close his physical description matches that of the despicable Roy Carver:
Chiswell did not smell very fresh...He didn’t seem happy at the moment. His ruddy skin had an odd, plaque-like appearance close up. Dandruff lay thick in the roots of his coarse hair and large patches of sweat spread around the underarms of his blue shirt.
And:
To the hair was added a large red face, small eyes and a protuberant lower lip, which gave him the air of an overgrown baby perpetually on the verge of a tantrum.
This description plays out over the the course of the book, as we see Chiswell not only spit out his food at multiple points during the meal, but verbally berate his subordinates, hotel workers and even his own wife and daughter.
Ultimately, the family patriarch epitomizes Raff's later description of the family attitude:
Bullets would bounce off their self-regard. They think there’s a kind of natural law in operation, where Chiswells get what they want and lesser beings just fall into line.
Re-listening to Chapter 9 of LW this morning, I wondered how much it cost Jasper Chiswell to be part of Pratt's club, a place designed to impress people not with the quality of the food (simple "nursery style" roast beef and potatoes) but with its exclusivity. Jonah Agyeman, even with Lula's 10 million, would never be admitted.
The Chiswell family, as a whole, may be considered more gluttonous than greedy. What they are determined to hoard to is not so much wealth itself but their power and prestige as an "upper class" family. In one sense, the familly is wealthy, owning both a London home and a country estate, albeit a diminished one, but most of their wealth is in the form of valuable but non-too-useful objects--horses, lacquer cabinets, diamond necklaces, 24-carat gold money clips--and much of that has been given to a 10-year-old grandson to protect against inheritance taxes. They have considerable cash-flow problems, and their actual living quarters are falling into disrepair, in part because their unwillingness to part with these family heirlooms. They'd rather live with a leaky roof and burnt out light bulbs that give up those status symbols. Rather than being greedy for cash, I would characterize them as gluttonous for power and prestige. We see this early on with Pratt's Club, and we'll see a lot more of it later.
Given the example set by their father, it is little wonder both his despised bastard Raff and his favored but wastrel legitimate son Freddie (the true White Horse who haunts the series) turn out the way they do.
Even though Jasper Chiswell comes across as a pretty loathesome character, we don't see much of an improvement in the appearances of Matthew (Chapter 12, still being an ass about her job with Strike) and in the introduction of Geraint Winn (Chapter 13) both of whom manage to exacerbate panic attacks in poor Robin. It is good to see her relationship with Strike starting to heal, because she needs one supportive man in her life.
Back on Monday for Chapters 14-25.
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