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The Requip has gone from making the RLS worse to helping. Sort of. I still have to take oxycodone to sleep, and I'm not getting any more fond of it the longer I take it.
Started physical therapy Monday. The therapist was very encouraging and helpful: my ankle's mobility is already improved, although there's still a long way to go. And I've met an old friend: one of the exercises he has me doing is the towel crunches![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thecoughlin had recommended for my tendinitis--which, the therapist tells me, is likely to make a comeback when I start walking normally again. Something to look forward to, you betcha.
On the plus side, as I discovered out of idle curiosity, I can now do the tree pose to the left--it's not a fantastic tree, but it's pretty solid, compared to what I could manage before. So there are benefits to being unable to put any weight on your right foot for six weeks. Really.
I'm reading and re-reading and re-reading Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails, and I'm not quite sure why. It's a very peculiar book; I don't know of any other book quite like it.
On the one side, it's part of the sequence with Ten Days' Wonder where Dannay and Lee (EQ the author) are taking a baseball bat to the god-complex of EQ the character, which I find fascinating on the meta/genre theory level.
( background and unpacking for those who are interested; spoilers for Ten Days' Wonder )On the other side, it's a serial killer novel written in 1949. As far as I know, it is the only Golden Age mystery written about a serial killer (as opposed to the dozens, if not hundreds, of Golden Age mystery novels written about villains who commit serial murders), and it is a very strange hybrid. Because it's still an Ellery Queen novel, with the elaborate logical structure, hypothesis and counter-hypothesis and all the artificial trappings of the form, but it's also aware, as Ellery Queen novels sometimes aren't, of the human cost--even just in fictional lives--of its existence. The victims in Cat of Many Tails, even though we meet none of them until after their deaths, are very vividly presented, as is the grief of the survivors. There's a sense of them as real people quite contrary to the usual attitude of Golden Age detective fiction, which tends to treat its characters as chess pieces. (Possibly there is a sly remark on this habit in the fact that the first victim is a complete and utter cipher, so complete that the police can't quite believe it.) Dannay & Lee love their genre, that's very clear, but this novel is one where they're also exploring its limitations.
It's also a novel about New York City--and in that sense may be a partial exception to my claim that Dannay & Lee did not write novels with mysteries in them. Because the novel is very interested in New York and in New York's reaction to the serial killer called The Cat. This novel is very conscious of its setting and very aware of that setting as a character, as it signals from the opening lines:
There's a sort of triangular relationship in this novel between detective, murderer, and setting, and it's handled with the affectionate irony characteristic of later Queen. I'd still say it's a mystery novel rather than a novel with a mystery in it, but it's a very large mystery novel (spiritually, if that's the word I want), a generous one. Dannay & Lee have gotten through their pretentious phase; they're confident enough that they don't need to call attention to their craftsmanship. Which means that this is a profoundly readable novel.
Hence, I suppose, the fact that I am rereading it obsessively, despite the fact that I do not like serial killer stories.
It's dated, of course, particularly in the very Freudian nature of its psychology, but I don't even mind that. There's something about it that hits the sweet spot in my brain, something about the story-telling and the use of Ellery Queen as a character and a detective, and particularly as a character who is well established as a detective, and . . . I don't know. I suppose if I could figure it out, I wouldn't be on my sixth or seventh chain rereading.
The book also has my current favorite example of implied stage directions in dialogue. Ellery and his father (Inspector Richard Queen, NYPD) have just found out something vital, their first real clue:
That cigaret won't draw, Ellery, because you haven't lit it. I love this sentence. I love the throwaway nature of it, sandwiched in the middle of a discussion of ways and means. I love all the work it does, everything it tells you--everything the narrative is not telling you--about Ellery's state of mind, and everything it incidentally tells you about the two characters involved. (The relationship between Ellery and his father is something else, previously in the series rather implausible and irritating, that this book deals with very well.) It's beautifully done and it's barely even noticeable. For me, the whole book, even the clunky bits, is like that. It has a sense of grace.
This is a funny place to find grace, but I'll take it.
Started physical therapy Monday. The therapist was very encouraging and helpful: my ankle's mobility is already improved, although there's still a long way to go. And I've met an old friend: one of the exercises he has me doing is the towel crunches
thecoughlin had recommended for my tendinitis--which, the therapist tells me, is likely to make a comeback when I start walking normally again. Something to look forward to, you betcha.On the plus side, as I discovered out of idle curiosity, I can now do the tree pose to the left--it's not a fantastic tree, but it's pretty solid, compared to what I could manage before. So there are benefits to being unable to put any weight on your right foot for six weeks. Really.
I'm reading and re-reading and re-reading Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails, and I'm not quite sure why. It's a very peculiar book; I don't know of any other book quite like it.
On the one side, it's part of the sequence with Ten Days' Wonder where Dannay and Lee (EQ the author) are taking a baseball bat to the god-complex of EQ the character, which I find fascinating on the meta/genre theory level.
( background and unpacking for those who are interested; spoilers for Ten Days' Wonder )On the other side, it's a serial killer novel written in 1949. As far as I know, it is the only Golden Age mystery written about a serial killer (as opposed to the dozens, if not hundreds, of Golden Age mystery novels written about villains who commit serial murders), and it is a very strange hybrid. Because it's still an Ellery Queen novel, with the elaborate logical structure, hypothesis and counter-hypothesis and all the artificial trappings of the form, but it's also aware, as Ellery Queen novels sometimes aren't, of the human cost--even just in fictional lives--of its existence. The victims in Cat of Many Tails, even though we meet none of them until after their deaths, are very vividly presented, as is the grief of the survivors. There's a sense of them as real people quite contrary to the usual attitude of Golden Age detective fiction, which tends to treat its characters as chess pieces. (Possibly there is a sly remark on this habit in the fact that the first victim is a complete and utter cipher, so complete that the police can't quite believe it.) Dannay & Lee love their genre, that's very clear, but this novel is one where they're also exploring its limitations.It's also a novel about New York City--and in that sense may be a partial exception to my claim that Dannay & Lee did not write novels with mysteries in them. Because the novel is very interested in New York and in New York's reaction to the serial killer called The Cat. This novel is very conscious of its setting and very aware of that setting as a character, as it signals from the opening lines:
The strangling of Archibald Dudley Abernethy was the first scene in a nine-act tragedy whose locale was the City of New York.
Which misbehaved.
There's a sort of triangular relationship in this novel between detective, murderer, and setting, and it's handled with the affectionate irony characteristic of later Queen. I'd still say it's a mystery novel rather than a novel with a mystery in it, but it's a very large mystery novel (spiritually, if that's the word I want), a generous one. Dannay & Lee have gotten through their pretentious phase; they're confident enough that they don't need to call attention to their craftsmanship. Which means that this is a profoundly readable novel.
Hence, I suppose, the fact that I am rereading it obsessively, despite the fact that I do not like serial killer stories.
It's dated, of course, particularly in the very Freudian nature of its psychology, but I don't even mind that. There's something about it that hits the sweet spot in my brain, something about the story-telling and the use of Ellery Queen as a character and a detective, and particularly as a character who is well established as a detective, and . . . I don't know. I suppose if I could figure it out, I wouldn't be on my sixth or seventh chain rereading.
The book also has my current favorite example of implied stage directions in dialogue. Ellery and his father (Inspector Richard Queen, NYPD) have just found out something vital, their first real clue:
"We've got to have the run of that apartment for a few hours." Ellery took out a cigaret.
"Without a warrant?"
"And tip him off?"
The Inspector frowned.
"Getting rid of the maid ought to present no problem. Pick her day off. No, this is Friday and the chances are she won't be off till the middle of next week. I can't wait that long. Does she sleep in?"
"I don't know."
"I want to get in there over the weekend, if possible. Do they go to church?"
"How should I know? That cigaret won't draw, Ellery, because you haven't lit it. Hand me the phone."
That cigaret won't draw, Ellery, because you haven't lit it. I love this sentence. I love the throwaway nature of it, sandwiched in the middle of a discussion of ways and means. I love all the work it does, everything it tells you--everything the narrative is not telling you--about Ellery's state of mind, and everything it incidentally tells you about the two characters involved. (The relationship between Ellery and his father is something else, previously in the series rather implausible and irritating, that this book deals with very well.) It's beautifully done and it's barely even noticeable. For me, the whole book, even the clunky bits, is like that. It has a sense of grace.
This is a funny place to find grace, but I'll take it.
