The Marlow Murder Club

The Marlow Murder Club has become one of our favorite mystery shows of recent memory. Who would've thought a show featuring a retired archaeologist, a dogwalker, and a vicar's wife solving murder mysteries in the small town or Marlow could be so addictive? The show's mysteries are usually not the most elaborate or shocking, but the show (and presumably the books?) do an excellent job of making Marlow a character itself. Judith Potts brings her backbround in archaeology to deductive skills and observation, by far the most able and competent slueth of the trio. The vicar's wife knows many people through her church community and the dogwalker, a single mother of a teenage daughter off to uni, both know people in Marlow that contribute to the solving of crimes. DCI Malik, who usually follows along with the trio of sleuths despite her initial hesitation, becomes a partner of the group. There are laughs, drama, and peculiarities unveiled as more about Judith, the others characters, and the town of Marlow appear throughout the series. While we still prefer Ludwig for the incomparable David Mitchell, Cara Horgan's presence brings back fond memories of Peep Show...

Ludwig

Although not the most brilliant mystery series, Ludwig features the incomparable David Mitchell as the sleuth. As one might expect, Mitchell's character, a puzzle setter masquerading as his detective twin brother to uncover the reasons for his disappearance, is rather hilarious and very Mark-like. Indeed, fans of Peep Show will appreciate some of Mitchell's characters lines, such as his critique of metaphors or the quirky awkwardness of his relationship with his brother's wife or others. Our biggest issue with this otherwise entertaining murder mystery show (with one overarching mystery that will continue in the next series) is that most of the detectives at the Cambridge police department seem rather useless. It will be interesting to see how the show develops in its next season and if the other members of the police department who work with Mitchell will become more compelling characters. Perhaps Robert Webb and other alumni of Peep Show can guest star as murder suspects in the subsequent season's cases.

James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw and Borno

We here at the blog finally read the brief autobiography of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw. Said to be from Borno, we thought it mandatory to examine his autobiography as another potential source on the history of Kanem-Borno. Unfortunately, upon closer examination, the fascinating character which emerges in this autobiography could not have been from Borno. Too many inconsistencies and errors suggest that James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was probably from another part of West Africa, perhaps a region closer to the Gold Coast than his narrative suggests.

While Borno certainly did have trading links to the Gold Coast in the 18th century, which may have involved ivory, it is remarkable that Gronniosaw's autobiography creates a portrait of a Borno which couldn't have been in the 18th century. Claiming to be the grandson of the king of Borno, one would expect Gronniosaw to have been a Muslim, or at least familiar with Islam. Unless his mother married a non-Muslim, he would have definitely been raised in the faith and possibly received at least a basic Koranic education. Instead, Gronniosaw fails to mention Islam, but mentions the worship of the Moon, Sun, and stars. Further, Gronniosaw was astonished when he first saw a man (the Dutchman who purchased him on the Slave Coast) read a book. If he was indeed from Borno's capital, and of royal blood, one would expect him to have familiarity with literacy and books. 

Furthermore, when describing their congregations of worship, he only mentions worshipping under trees in the city. Supposedly their day of Sabbath was on Saturday, not the expected Friday of Muslims. How could he not have been familiar with the mosques of Birni Gazargamo or the rituals of Islamic worship? Was his Islamic background erased by the Christian writer who recorded his narrative? Or, as we think more likely, was he from another part of West Africa? That might elucidate the autobiography's allusion to palm wine consumption in Gronniosaw's homeland. It would also explain the use of bark to produce cloth. After all, in our experience with the sources on textiles in Borno, most was produced with cotton.

Despite these flaws and questions of its accuracy for the origin of Gronniosaw, one should still read it. As an autobiography, filtered through the Christian propaganda and symbolism of his interlocutor, it provides some insights into the experiences of West Africans in the "Atlantic World" in the 18th century. Gronniosaw visited Martinique, Barbados, and Havana and lived in New York, Holland, London, and other parts of Britain. He experienced the life of a privateer in the Caribbean, as well as a difficult life of poverty in Britain. Indeed, his white wife, Betty, a weaver, experienced hardship due to labor unrest in her field. Thus, one can see elements of 3 forces that defined the increasingly closer "Atlantic World" of Africa, Europe and the Americas through the lens of race, class, and colonialism in the life of Gronniosaw. 

Joe Harriott: Jazz File Documentary

Although I have not fully explored the music of Joe Harriott or British jazz, this short BBC documentary on his life and music is a great overview. Born in Kingston, and a product of an orphanage which produced a startling number of prominent Jamaican musicians, this documentary informs us about the ways in which Harriott devised his own form of free jazz independently of Ornette Coleman and the American jazz scene. Artists like Harriott have long reminded me of the importance of uncovering innovative jazz artists beyond the confines of the United States. 

Howards End

I only know Foster's classic through Zadie Smith's On Beauty, but I felt it was necessary to read Howards End. After reading Forster's "The Machine Stops," my interest in Forster only grew. However, Howards End is achingly slow, albeit quite philosophical, and perhaps is too optimistic about the future of English class relations and a synthesis of the English practical character and German idealism. Nonetheless, it is rewarding to see where Smith's fascinating novel comes from, despite their radical differences in setting and the racial themes of Smith's work. However, Foster, in his own way, was quite critical of Empire and the ascendant commercial classes, which leaves him relevant to posterity, though the characaters of Howards End are by no means radicals. It's a shame that such an optimistic novel of the future would be broken by World War I and renewed German-British conflict. For the urban/rural character of the novel (London versus the provinces) and the hybrid German-English protagonist, Margaret, one sees how this novel influenced Zadie Smith.

Moses Ascending

Sam Selvon's Moses Ascending is not what one expects from a sequel of sorts to Lonely Londoners. Like Pressure, a film Selvon co-wrote, the novel addresses Black Power and race and gender in a 1970s London setting. Unlike the film, however, this novel, save Brenda, a young woman born in London and devoted to the Party, Selvon's novel does not try to understand the appeal of Black Power to Black Britons born in the Mother Country. To his credit, Selvon's carnivalesque commentary on race and gender includes Indian and Pakistani immigrants (including trafficking in illegal immigrants) along with some Selvonian wit for great laughs, but it was much more difficult to relate to the characters here, not to mention Moses's unsuccessful attempts at finding some peace, whether as a writer, friend, or lover, or community. 

Interestingly, the rather temporal nature of the setting (Moses's building is slated to be demolished at some point in the future) may foreshadow Moses's return to Trinidad in the final part of the trilogy. Indeed, at multiple occasions throughout the novel, Moses longs for sweet memories of Trinidad, for the trees of his home, and will have to make some changes at some point once the Shepherd's Bush home is destroyed and he can no longer profit as a landlord (in this world, a black man in London cannot live like a 'lord' for too long). The black nationalism, subverted Caliban-Friday relationship with Bob (also a 'migrant'), and challenging times of white racism, growing xenophobia, as well as some of the rather problematic assumptions and biases of Selvon regarding black nationalism or the role of literature in social struggle provide interesting themes, but not in the engaging or direct sense of Moses's first adventure.

Kureishi's Last Word

"Literature was a killing field; no decent person ever picked up a pen." 

Hanif Kureishi's postmodern novel, ostensibly based on Patrick French's biography of V.S. Naipaul, is a worthwhile read for all devotees of Naipaul. However, those expecting Mamoon and his biographer, Harry, to overwhelmingly resemble their "real-life" inspiration, will be a little disappointed. What is fascinating about Kureishi's novel is how he suspends judgment, focusing on the thin line between fact and fiction, not to mention fact and reality (yes, that's a thing, not just a reference to a time I mispoke at a dinner). As a work full of humor and numerous references to allegedly factual occurrences in Naipaul's life, especially regarding his infamous relationship with women in his life and his troubling position as a brown colonial often perceived as adopting racist positions, Kureishi's prose is surprisingly dull and almost uninspired, but the novel's successful for revealing how, like that famous Naipaul quotation indicates, fiction never lies. Perhaps a film adaptation should be attempted for Kureishi's novel, which strikes me as an excellent idea given that Kureishi's fiction writing always struck me as better fit for film, much like The Buddha of Suburbia movie. 

Pressure

Worth watching just for its portrait of 1970s Black Britain and the screenplay co-written by Sam Selvon, Pressure sort of a sequel in spirit to The Lonely Londoners. Instead of the immigrant experience of Tony's parents (who would be the equivalent of the characters in Selvon's famous novel), the film tells the story of the generation of West Indians born in Britain, as they struggle with identity, Black Power, racial discrimination in all sectors of life, and the generation struggle and divide between them and their parents. As one would expect with Selvon, there are some humorous moments and allusions to interracial sex between black men and white women, a theme in some of Selvon's novels.