An Odd Follow-Up

I finished The Gentle Axe, by R.N. Morris last night, and it seemed worth discussing. It's amurder mysterty, set in Russia during the 1860s, that begins when an elderly woman comes upon a man in Petrovsky Park who appears to have hung himself. There's a suitcase nearby with a dwarf stuffed inside it, who appears to have had his head cleaved open by an axe. And there just so happens to be an axe on the person of the apparent suicide. As you might guess from all my "appears", and "apparents", that's not how it went.

What's interesting about the book, to me at least, is that it's set in the universe of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and the main character is the same Porfiry Petrovich that investigated the murders in that piece of classic literature. I wonder, if this common, that other authors revisit characters from works? I know Tolkein's son(?) has completed some of his father's works, and I think the same is true for Asimov, but a, as far as I can tell, random author, revisiting that world strikes me as odd.

Unfortunately it's been, geez, eight years since I read Crime and Punishment, so my recollection of it is a bit hazy (I think I also threw out the essay I wrote over it years ago, so no help there, even if I was in a position to look over it). At any rate, this offering feels more straightforward than its source material was. I suppose that's forced by us not knowing the murderer at the start. When there's no mystery as to "who", then you can spend your time investigating their reasons, their reactions post-murder, their justifications, and perhaps what they represent in the larger scheme of things, as it relates to their homeland. When you don't know whodunit, in theory that's the whole point, and the narrative focuses more on that, providing clues, false trails, seemingly irrelevant bits that become important later.

Morris does spend some time exploring psyches, primarily that of another young, starving student, who goes by the name Virginsky. He comes up in the course of Porfiry's investigation, and the investigating magistrate takes an interest in him. Virginsky's a complicated (perhaps too much so) character. He says he's a law student, says he doesn't believe in souls, hates his father, has a strong sense of pride, except when he doesn't, refuses to help Porfiry smoke out the killer, even though it would protect him and gain him three meals a day, but has no qualms with pretending to be capable of translating philosophy texts to get some money so he can eat. He's disraught over the death of his friends, except when he isn't, contemplates suicide, and fears a person he sees following him, because he believes them to be his future self, and he doesn't want to see what he's become. He's an absolute mess, and probably gets more attention than he deserves, given his relative importance to the mystery.

He is, however, very important to Porfiry, for the ways he reminds the magistrate of Raskolnikov, and I suppose that's where his use comes in, as this book seems primarily a way for Morris to have a little fun exploring Porfiry's character. I can't attest to how similar he is to the Porfiry in Crime and Punishment, but any changes might be explainable as being the result of the whole Raskolnikov case, which apparently was important enough to Porfiry that others recognize the effect it had on him. I can't be certain, but I think Morris is suggesting that Porfiry is developing some sort of health problem as the story progresses, since he seems to be blinking an awful lot by the end. Oddly enough, the copious amounts of cigarettes he smokes don't seem to be causing too many issues, other than one obvious case of a lack of wind. As a detective, Porfiry is a bit Columbo. He likes to play silly, or act very calm and conversational, and then spring the trap shut. There's a moment where he very nearly cracks, which struck me as a bit much, but I suppose it was meant to be a situation where his style of entrapment blew up in his face.

It's an easy enough read, and I was easily engaged by it, though I couldn't really tell you good of a murder mystery it was. It's probably easily solvable if you're good at those, I was lost until the end, and I'm still not entirely sure how everything tied together. It seemed there were connections between characters I hadn't picked up on, and I'm partially inclined to blame it on the focus on Virginsky's character, as it may have deprived those other connections of proper screen time. But that might have just been me. So it's fortunate that I enjoyed the character work, especially Salytov, who seems like a Harvey Bullock type: fairly competent, full of bluster, with a short temper that leaves him in a poor mood to put up with garbage from anyone, though Salyotv is more, haughty than Harvey I'd say. Again, I can't verify how similar he is to his portrayal in the earlier work, but he makes for an amusing straight man to Porfiry.