A review by gretabeth
Black As He's Painted by Ngaio Marsh
2.0
When Marsh has contempt for one of her characters, she is superbly contemptuous; she is a virtuoso of contempt. Few do it better. I cringe, and admire her talent, and cringe some more. In this book the contempt is pointed at a mincingly effeminate fat man and his equally obese sister; two alcoholics; a coven of racists (rightly so); and, awfully, at Africans in general. Their politics, their bodies, their beliefs, all of which are inflected to one degree or another with a stereotype of savagery. While the most pungently offensive lines come from the overt and malignant racists, who are clearly the villains of the piece, there is plenty to go around in the observations and attitudes of the heroes as well (Troy possibly excepted, or at least nothing she said or did leapt out at me). It's clear that the latter are not unkindly intended, and no doubt Marsh and Alleyn were being as racially open-minded as their best-intentioned peers at the time of its writing. But as a contemporary reader, it spoils the reading of the book.
It's too bad, because it's one of her most superbly atmospheric and genuinely tense works. The Boomer is a vivid and memorable character, and the parameters of his friendship with Alleyn are very carefully drawn, full of allusions to long-ago conversations and to the gulfs of understanding and bridges of camaraderie between them. The relationship between them is a fascinating character study, yet still greatly inflected with the "savagery vs. civilization" motifs that make it nearly unreadable. (Dorothy Gilman, writing around the same time, managed to involve Mrs. Pollifax in African political intrigue without being so sneering about it). Also, too much of the atmosphere and storyline is driven by and depends on those same motifs. Corruption abounds in both the black and the white characters, and Marsh employs many cleverly wicked lines to tell us what she thinks about it all.
In the end, this is one of those books by an author I generally enjoy that just isn't redeemable by the quality of writing or the ingenuity of the whodunit. I won't re-read it, and won't recommend it.
It's too bad, because it's one of her most superbly atmospheric and genuinely tense works. The Boomer is a vivid and memorable character, and the parameters of his friendship with Alleyn are very carefully drawn, full of allusions to long-ago conversations and to the gulfs of understanding and bridges of camaraderie between them. The relationship between them is a fascinating character study, yet still greatly inflected with the "savagery vs. civilization" motifs that make it nearly unreadable. (Dorothy Gilman, writing around the same time, managed to involve Mrs. Pollifax in African political intrigue without being so sneering about it). Also, too much of the atmosphere and storyline is driven by and depends on those same motifs. Corruption abounds in both the black and the white characters, and Marsh employs many cleverly wicked lines to tell us what she thinks about it all.
In the end, this is one of those books by an author I generally enjoy that just isn't redeemable by the quality of writing or the ingenuity of the whodunit. I won't re-read it, and won't recommend it.