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5.0 out of 5 stars
Follow That Guinea Pig! (A Culture Is As a Culture Clues & Eats?), Mar 29 2006
Follow any mention of the guinea pig in GOD SAVE THE CHILD. It's like a clue-magnet for unraveling character, plot, and purpose (or motives, however you want to call it).
Parker opens ths second Spenser novel with the P.I. droning in liquid narration, turning fool's gold into the functional lead of realism. Spenser artfully exposes his disgust for the husband/wife clients in his office. His descriptions of the outfits and arguments adorning these two seersucker, suburban bozos become a classic caricature setting for the husband/father's comment that his son took his guinea pig with him when he left home and disappeared.
That single observation, made by Roger Bartlett, that his son came home to get his pet before taking off, lifted him from the miasma his self-absorbed wife had immersed him into, beginning under his skin, continuing outward through the awkward, classless, tasteless clothing she had him don for the interview with Spenser. The only comment which cleared through the putrid artifice of that interview was Bartlett's mention of the guinea pig, which, of course, the wife, "mother" hated.
So, okay, Spenser, you were telling me that the only thing in that home which may have given warmth to this kid was that pet. And, the fact that the father noticed his child's attachment to it without rancor, began to paint the man out of the seersucker and into the quiet, subtle honesty of a man who cared about his son, but had probably not been able to demonstrate it.
The first two chapters were so impregnated with 70's ambiance (hey, yeah, this classic mystery was written then, and is still around to be bought and sold!), so packed with clues and character enrichment, I'm surprised this book didn't birth a horde of ...
Well ... actually, in a sense, it did ...
Decades later Parker's readers have a total of 34 Spenser novels to trudge through with high entertainment diligently dogging their heels.
This novel, along with the pilot, THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT, felt to have been composed in a more sensual, molasses-type rhythm, gathering more dense, lush detail around settings, character enrichment, and classic mystery dynamics, than Parker's later Spenser offerings. I enjoy the early narrative labyrinth meandering as well as the later smooth, speedy jazz. Mostly I enjoy that Parker's writing style has rhythm. Not all novels do. All novels (by definition) have some sort of plotting, setting, narrative means, and characters. But, actually, not many writers have a discernable syntax rhythm, which draws a reader along on its natural, symphonic momentum, through dialogue and plot machinations. Most novels draw readers through a book more by baiting curiosity than by rhythm-ing their brain waves into a dance through literary prose cast so smoothly the reader might not notice the constantly effective undulations of literary lace. More likely, the reader notices he's collecting an increasing repertoire of questions about what (among a plethora of outrageous or cunning actions or commentaries) Spence is gonna do or say next.
I found myself looking forward to the next time I could pick up this novel, and I noticed that welcome surge of pleasure each time I reached for the book. Some mysteries require me to push through the plot at times, and I don't always feel that spark of anticipation as my hand reaches for a novel I've been into for a few sessions, when I know I'm going to have to force a focus, and reread a few paragraphs or pages prior to being caught up on the book's momentum, when I'm no longer required to apply effort.
Loved the way the local police chief responded to his lack of comprehension of Spenser's use of the word, "candor." The extended means of coverup of lack of vocabulary easily and expertly exposed the breadth and width of Chief Trask's personality and pumped-up pomp. I'm not sure if I want to say Spenser is good or Parker is good. Sometimes I wonder where to draw the lines between them.
Oh my. Spenser meets Silverman, sets up their date, and moves into a relationship. What could I say but what Spenser did when he met her. Perfect. How cool that Spenser cooked dinner for Susan on their first date. And what a dinner. Maybe Nero Wolfe would have been impressed with Spenser's balsamic gourmet routines. Of course I wouldn't know. But, I know that I wallowed in the cooking prep scenes, and loved when Spenser noted that he hates when someone asks him for a recipe. Maybe he was a precursor to the Discovery Chef shows debuting in the 90's (if I remember the timing correctly) in which the flowing art of cooking took precedence over the craft and, possibly for the first time in cooking class history, no recipes were given, no lists of measured ingredients flashed on the TV screen (though they were made available on a web site for those who wanted that detail).
Reading the first Spenser novels in 2006 & 2007, written in the 70's, is a treat of living, breathing cultural history. In fact, from this "now" perspective its easier to see how the Spenser series might be the best type of analog of the phenomenal cultural progression from then to now. It's easier to see why Parker was "set up" and compelled to include multiple tidbits, not only about what Spenser cooked for himself (lots of gourmet tomatoes, including pre-fame fried green ones), but what and how other characters ate, all of which surge into solidity in this second Spenser novel. Each character's eating choices and habits were telling, not only of 70's ambiance, but gave amazingly accurate insight into each plot walker. Not only that, the contrast (and sometimes lack of it) from the 70's to now, in eating habits and attitudes toward food and nurturing is mind blowing.
Eating/nurturing habits and attitudes might expose more about human culture and its historic development than any other significant factor, except possibly policies and proclivities toward sensitivity Vs cruelty.
And, Vic Harroway. His first appearance shows him not as a villain, but as a monster of the first (swamp) water. The way he jumped from his porch and landed, posed in baiting hostility, a few inches in front of Spenser, was so demonic in spirit, horns and tail were only a short nightmare away.
This book captivated me totally. I found myself rereading passages, not merely to seat them into memory, but to savor the flavor. When I arrived at the scene of Spenser beginning his supper prep of a pork tenderloin en croute, pausing to phone Silverman on impulse, and continuing the culinary coups up to and through her arrival at his apartment the first time, I was home. In a detective novel? Yeah.
Some readers have complained that the yummy, homey, cultured parts of Spenser take away from the expected P.I. mystique of the no life, a quarter-inch-away-from low life, lonely, solitary, macho man.
Okay. That's a valid addiction, and the availability of classic P.I. novels is readily enormous. Why should Parker create another one of those when he was obviously born to carry human culture through the transition from reefer madness to a prescription madness in which health is perverted beyond natural boundaries, and the joy of cooking and eating have been condemned into a phobia of the first water when 90% of the human population is suffering from chronic dehydration and related illnesses aggravated by 90% of the medical prescriptions which have become addictive. Many warnings for heart pills indicate that a heart attack will be induced if the pills are discontinued (not because the pill was successful at holding off heart failure, but because it is frighteningly addictive).
The redemptive generosity and rightness of the way Spenser brought antithetical elements and ugly character traits to catharsis in the denouement was to stand up, stomp feet, and cheer for.
Then, when Spenser and Susan had their concluding chat, I felt a "right on" slug come out of my psyche as Spenser offered his explanation for Harroway's appeal to Kevin, and for knocking that anti-hero off his pedestal, for the child's benefit.
Though I love Susan's character, her psychologist's hedging didn't have the brilliance of reality's uncompromising weight that Spenser's natural insights had.
From my canned predictions, if Susan's lucky, she'll be gleaning psychological truth not as much through her continued training and careful analysis, but through Spenser's struggles to understand his guilt and lack of it as he "boxes" his way through his P.I. cases. He'll be the one to grasp The Brass Ring of Wisdom. She'll be smart enough to share it, after nudging his elbow the quarter inch he wouldn't have had to reach it. What her training will be worth is its foundation to allow her to know he couldn't have done it without her contributions, and to see that he's right when he snaps the last puzzle piece into his Code of Ethics. Will that happen in # 38 or 39 in the series? In this prediction I'm not diminishing the woman; elevating the man. I'm just honoring the fact that Parker's the boxer/poet who's out there on the front line daily, regularly getting his ego bashed and nose in jeopardy.
The last line was a literary killer. I'm meaning "killer" there in the colloquial sense of being an awesomely appropriate "final sentence" to wrap the second novel in a detective series which would evolve to solidly span 3 decades. Or, would a more accurate description be that the Spenser series constructed a "bridge over (the) troubled waters" of 3 decades?
And, it doesn't hurt that his plotting is riveting and his style is smooth jazz. Usually I don't seek books which are toooo riveting. But, how nice to have this one...
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3.0 out of 5 stars
OK book... Beginning to really like Spenser though, Jun 25 2004
I can actually visualize these books on TV. Smart-ass detective, predictable plots. So far, it's true. You don't read these books for the plot, you read them for the funny antics of Spenser.
I am hoping these get better or I may have to stop reading them.
It's kind of like...ho hum another Spenser book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Parker gets to second base..., April 11 2004
In this second Spenser novel, Parker finally gets off running. The first one was a bit sketchy, with Spenser being drawn with large strokes, but not yet as solid a character as he becomes here.You don't really read these novels for the plot; you read them for the great dialogue, the humor, the repartee, and Spenser. Okay, the story's good as well - Spenser looks for a missing boy, after the parents hire him, but ends up finding more than he bargained for. In this novel, Spenser meets his lady-love, Susan, who has an important role throughout much of the later novels. A fine Spenser, and Parker is now at cruising speed. Read the rest of the series.
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by Robert B. Parker
by Robert B. Parker
by Robert B. Parker
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