Updated Epigraph Clues for The Hallmarked Man: Spoilers for the Libby Preview

 I've had some family and work-related duties over the last couple of days, so I was a little late in my response to the most recent dollops of previews released as part of Mr. Galbraith's prepublication marketing efforts. I usually try to react to these morsels as soon as I can. I consider it a privilege to be able to share speculations with my fellow Strike enthusiasts, and the doubling-to-tripling of the daily readership of my blogs on any day I write about the most recent spoilers is all the compensation I need. New Strike books come around every two years or so; I see no reason not to savor every spoiler-filled drop.  So, without further ado, see the latest after the jump. 

The latest tidbits are:

1. An opening book epigraph from Robert Browning's The Worst of It:

I had dipped in life's struggle and, out again, Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see, When I found my swan and the cure was plain; The dull turned bright as I caught your white On my bosom: you saved me-saved in vain If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

2. Another quotation from Oxenham's A Maid of the Silver Sea as the epigraph to Part 1:

Concerning the mines themselves he was not called upon for an opinion... all he had to do was follow the veins and win the ore in paying quantities. 

3. Chapter 1 is given a the full stanza of Housman's poem as an epigraph; previously we had only the final  line:  

Oh often have I washed and dressed
  And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
  And all's to do again.

And, the first of my seven questions about the preview is answered: it looks like the book does indeed start with Grouchy Strike's solo drive to meet Decima, without the case previews in the form of news articles and letters that were seen in the last two books. 

So, let's look at each of these in turn:

1. What does it mean to have Robert Browning, poet and romantic counterpart to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose Aurora Leigh was featured in The Ink Black Heart?  Browning wrote about 70 years earlier than our other two known epigraph authors, John Oxenham and A. E. Housman and of course was too early to share their World War 1 connection. But I don't think we can conclude too much; after all, TIBH had poetry chapter epigraphs but book part epigraphs from Gray's Anatomy.  The opener may be Robert Browning's only contribution to The Hallmarked Man. 

More interesting is the text of the Browning selection. The "I found my swan" line sent shipping hearts aflutter, of course, given the symbolism of swans with love that pervades the series, particularly in Lethal White, and the Twitter-header promises of more swans in The Hallmarked Man.  But, the imagery it evokes for me is Strike and Robin's first meeting, where Strike nearly knocks her down the spiral staircase and saves her only by grabbing and reddening her "bosom." At that time, Strike was clearly struggling with life and the "bore specks" of it line evokes Galbraith's three-word description of the book as "what marks us." Robin "saved him" in many ways; she certainly stopped him from chasing after Charlotte and, were it not for Robin, he would never have solved the Landry case and reversed the financial failure of his business. 

But what then, are we supposed to make of "Saved in vain if you ruined yourself, and all through me"? To me, that sounds like someone who wants to pursue a relationship, but is holding back because he thinks it's not the right thing for the woman. If this is a full-book preview, it does not bode well for Strike and Robin being together at the end of the book. I am now wondering if we will see an inversion of the "Cheer the fuck up and eat your burger" scene from The Silkworm. There, Robin was wanting to be Strike's partner in the firm, and Strike had to express his doubts because she was "getting married to someone who hates you doing it," and he is afraid it will threaten her marriage. She assures him that her career is not up to Matthew and she can make it both her relationship and her job as a detective work. It becomes clear over the next two books that she is wrong and ultimately, she has to choose being Strike's partner over being Mrs. Flobberworm. 

So, what I visualize by book's end of THM: Robin and Ryan are history and she has acknowledged, to herself and to Strike, that she returns the love he kinda sorta declared to her at the end of TRG. But, now they are faced with yet another big question: can they become a couple without it threatening the agency to which they are both so committed. Unfortunately, I am predicting that, for at least one of them (probably Strike), the answer will be no, so they will agree that, despite their feelings for each other, they can't be together without ruining their professional partnership. 

The good news is, I think this sentiment will be temporary. Just as it took time to for Robin to realize that the agency was more important to her than Matthew, it will take time for Strike and Robin to realize their love for each other is just as important than the agency,  It may take until books 9 or 10, but I think that, just as Robin could not stop herself from putting aside Matthew for the sake of the job, Strike and Robin will not be able to put aside their feelings for each other for the sake of the agency. The challenge will be making both work, but this time, they will succeed. 

2. We have been given not just a third epigraph from The Maid of the Silver Sea, but the third to relate to the Sark silver mines. The first two (see here and here) show the heroine's father, Old Tom, eagerly anticipating his success in securing his fortune. Unfortunately, despite the optimism of the epigraph quotations, those who have read the book know that they are actually a harbinger of disaster; both occur shortly before the mine collapses and kills Old Tom. 

This latest epigraph seems similarly taken out of context. The "he" in the quotation is the book's protagonist and romantic lead, Gard. The epigraph seems to lay out a straightforward task for him. In reality, the line is taken from a section that outlines just how hostile an island he has landed on, and how hard and thankless a task he has been given. 

The managers of the Sark Mines, seeking a special man for somewhat special circumstances, had applied to Botallack for assistance, and Stephen Gard came to Sark as the representative of many hopes which, so far, had been somewhat lacking in results.

But, as old Tom Hamon had predicted, he very soon found that he had laid his hand to no easy plough.

The Sark men were characteristically difficult, and made the difficulty greater by not understanding him—or declining to understand, which came to the same thing—when he laid down his ideas and endeavoured to bring them to his ways.

Some, without doubt, had no English, and their patois was quite beyond him. Others could understand him an they would, but deliberately chose not to—partly from a conservative objection to any change whatever, and partly from an idea that he had been imported for the purpose of driving them, and driving is the last thing a Sark man will submit to.

Old Tom Hamon, and a few others who had a financial interest in the mines, assisted him all they could, in hopes of thereby assisting themselves, but they were few.

As for the Cornishmen and Welshmen, the success or failure of the Sark Mines mattered little to them. There was always mining going on somewhere and competent men were always in demand. They were paid so much a week, small output or large, and without a doubt the small output entailed less labour than the large. They naturally regarded with no great favour the man whose present aim in life it was to ensure the largest output possible

And so Gard found himself confronted by many difficulties, and, moreover, and greatly to the troubling of his mind, found himself looked upon as a dictator and an interloper by the men whom he had hoped to benefit.

Concerning the mines themselves he was not called upon for an opinion. The managers had satisfied themselves as to the presence of silver. If his opinion had been asked it would have confirmed them. But all he had to do was to follow the veins and win the ore in paying quantities, and he found himself handicapped on every hand by the obstinacy of his men.

As with Old Tom in the previous quotations, a lot depends on whether we are to take the epigraphs quotes at face value, or in the context of the book in which they were written.

3. As for the use of the full stanza as the Chapter 1 epigraph, I think it makes Strike's physical exhaustion after the 10 days of dealing with Ted's death, funeral and home clean-out, and his emotional frustration at the situation with Robin all the more apparent. If, at the end of TRG he felt like a trapeze artist swinging out into the darkness of empty space, now he is feeling like he missed the bar and crashed into the net. Let's just hope she gets over that nasty flu bug quickly. Pat, take her some soup!

That all, at least until I have the honor of reacting to the next spoiler tidbit.  More from the Troubled Blood reread tomorrow!