Ruth Rendell's world reminds me of Shakespeare's. In a Rendell novel, there is often one character who is an example of unrepentant evil--like Shakespeare's Iago. A famous example is the murderer in "A Sight for Sore Eyes." In Rendell's last novel, "Dark Corners," the Iago figure is Dermot, who blackmails another man and also becomes increasingly irritating "just for the fun of it." (We can't call this behavior "motiveless malignancy"--since the obvious motive is money--but the behavior is still quite awful.)
As in a Shakespeare story, Rendell's characters seem to wander into magical forests and undergo dramatic changes. The magical forests aren't literal, and the changes don't often involve gender-swapping or human-to-statue magic. (We're not talking about "The Winter's Tale.") Still, in Rendell's world, there's that same fascination with assumed and/or new identities. Rendell seemed interested in weight gain and weight loss: This was one way a character could quickly attain, or lose, status in the world. (Think of the actress in "Dark Corners." Weight is also a concern in "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me.") Rendell also really did use a cross-dressing plot--at least once, in "A Sleeping Life.")
Often, the changes are subtler. In "Dark Corners," a young, unlikable woman takes pleasure in the death of a friend--because now that woman can wear her dead friend's clothes and pretend to have her dead friend's social power. Also, in "Dark Corners," a man must pretend to function normally while wrestling with a secret: The actual secret is maybe not so terrible, but the work of play-acting, and the burdens created by lying, *become* terrible for this character.
Marilyn Stasio said, in the NYTimes, that Rendell was her "dream writer," and she specifically praised Rendell's use of suspense. From the first page of a Rendell novel, you sense something isn't quite right--and then the reading process is just waiting breathlessly for a house of cards to fall. At her best, Rendell could be very lean: There weren't digressions, there weren't lengthy descriptions of landscapes. I especially like Rendell because she is focused on action: She gives us scene after scene with bizarre characters being uncomfortable together, withholding the truth. There aren't lengthy interior monologues or flashbacks. (By contrast, the popular writer Liane Moriarty relies far too much on inner monologues: These quickly reveal themselves to be a kind of excuse. They are a way for Moriarty to get around having to think of crisp, dramatic scenes *unfolding in the present* ...The passivity of several characters in the first half of "The Husband's Secret" drove me up the wall.)
Rendell wrote somewhere around sixty books, and the later books are among my favorites. That's because they were coming out at the same time that I was discovering Rendell. I was in my early twenties, and I wasn't so conscious of the mechanics behind writing: I could more easily "get lost" in the world of a story. So "The Rottweiler," "Dark Corners," "The Water's Lovely," and "Not in the Flesh," among others, are special to me, even if they aren't generally ranked among Rendell's "all-time greats." I also have the sense that Rendell became freer in her sociological observations toward the end, and I love these observations. For example, in "Dark Corners," she pauses to note that "arguably" is a favorite adverb among journalists. And she slips in some thoughts on caller ID, and on the evolution of "time-checking" (from wearing a watch to carrying a mobile phone). These observations seem to be a source of delight for the writer, and so they're a source of delight for the reader--for me.
If you haven't read Rendell, give yourself a treat! "Dark Corners" was her last book, and it has been good company for me this weekend. I wish there were someone with Rendell's abilities still at work today.
P.S. It's striking to me--and I'm not the first to note this--how often writers appear in Rendell's fictional world. Carl ("Dark Corners") is a writer. There's one in "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me," and one in "A Sleeping Life." There is Tim in "No Night Is Too Long." (Also: I think there's a later Vine where the narrator becomes a cartoonist, and cartooning seems, to me, to be a close cousin of writing.) It's additionally striking that writers do not seem to earn extra sympathy from Rendell--despite their status as writers. There's likely a "thesis" somewhere in that.
As in a Shakespeare story, Rendell's characters seem to wander into magical forests and undergo dramatic changes. The magical forests aren't literal, and the changes don't often involve gender-swapping or human-to-statue magic. (We're not talking about "The Winter's Tale.") Still, in Rendell's world, there's that same fascination with assumed and/or new identities. Rendell seemed interested in weight gain and weight loss: This was one way a character could quickly attain, or lose, status in the world. (Think of the actress in "Dark Corners." Weight is also a concern in "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me.") Rendell also really did use a cross-dressing plot--at least once, in "A Sleeping Life.")
Often, the changes are subtler. In "Dark Corners," a young, unlikable woman takes pleasure in the death of a friend--because now that woman can wear her dead friend's clothes and pretend to have her dead friend's social power. Also, in "Dark Corners," a man must pretend to function normally while wrestling with a secret: The actual secret is maybe not so terrible, but the work of play-acting, and the burdens created by lying, *become* terrible for this character.
Marilyn Stasio said, in the NYTimes, that Rendell was her "dream writer," and she specifically praised Rendell's use of suspense. From the first page of a Rendell novel, you sense something isn't quite right--and then the reading process is just waiting breathlessly for a house of cards to fall. At her best, Rendell could be very lean: There weren't digressions, there weren't lengthy descriptions of landscapes. I especially like Rendell because she is focused on action: She gives us scene after scene with bizarre characters being uncomfortable together, withholding the truth. There aren't lengthy interior monologues or flashbacks. (By contrast, the popular writer Liane Moriarty relies far too much on inner monologues: These quickly reveal themselves to be a kind of excuse. They are a way for Moriarty to get around having to think of crisp, dramatic scenes *unfolding in the present* ...The passivity of several characters in the first half of "The Husband's Secret" drove me up the wall.)
Rendell wrote somewhere around sixty books, and the later books are among my favorites. That's because they were coming out at the same time that I was discovering Rendell. I was in my early twenties, and I wasn't so conscious of the mechanics behind writing: I could more easily "get lost" in the world of a story. So "The Rottweiler," "Dark Corners," "The Water's Lovely," and "Not in the Flesh," among others, are special to me, even if they aren't generally ranked among Rendell's "all-time greats." I also have the sense that Rendell became freer in her sociological observations toward the end, and I love these observations. For example, in "Dark Corners," she pauses to note that "arguably" is a favorite adverb among journalists. And she slips in some thoughts on caller ID, and on the evolution of "time-checking" (from wearing a watch to carrying a mobile phone). These observations seem to be a source of delight for the writer, and so they're a source of delight for the reader--for me.
If you haven't read Rendell, give yourself a treat! "Dark Corners" was her last book, and it has been good company for me this weekend. I wish there were someone with Rendell's abilities still at work today.
P.S. It's striking to me--and I'm not the first to note this--how often writers appear in Rendell's fictional world. Carl ("Dark Corners") is a writer. There's one in "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me," and one in "A Sleeping Life." There is Tim in "No Night Is Too Long." (Also: I think there's a later Vine where the narrator becomes a cartoonist, and cartooning seems, to me, to be a close cousin of writing.) It's additionally striking that writers do not seem to earn extra sympathy from Rendell--despite their status as writers. There's likely a "thesis" somewhere in that.
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