Letters from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mystery Weekend

Once upon a time, I read a biography of Arthur James Balfour of Balfour Declaration fame. The book did not really make the man come alive for me, leaving the impression that he was either too private or too intellectual to come across as a vivid human being; or that the author could not do his subtle personality justice. Nevertheless, I liked what I learned about the "happy prime minister." I particularly liked him for the fact that in spite of the metaphysical dabbling which troubled some of his political colleagues, he possessed a healthy appreciation for the detective story. He was said to have advised a young man that the best way to get a really good rest was not to go away for the weekend but to shut himself up in the house with a detective story. (Or perhaps he said several detective stories). In any case it is a piece of advice I consider very sound indeed. Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.

My introduction to the detective story was, very conventionally, through Sherlock Holmes. I was about 9 years old when a cousin enthralled me with the story of The Blue Carbuncle. Soon after, I was either given or lent a book about Bugs Bunny's antics involving some Big Red Apples. On reading it I was struck by the inanity of the plot: How could Bugs Bunny's adventures compare with those of a man who could, from a careful examination of a battered old hat, gauge the physical and mental attributes, the financial situation and the matrimonial difficulties of its erstwhile owner? I decided that detectives were far more interesting and entertaining that anthropomorphized animals.

My childhood affection for Sherlock Holmes did not wane even after I learnt to think in terms of whodunits rather than detective stories. The lean, laconic individual of Baker Street can hold his own with private eyes of the Philip Marlowe genre as well as the intelligent, understated breed of Inspectors Grant and Dalgleish. And the dash of French artist blood in his veins ("Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest form") makes him more fascinating that the meant-to-be exotic investigators like Hercule Poirot. But of course it is not the detective, or the spy, alone who makes a weekend spent with a mystery or two so satisfactory. Apart form the complexity of the plot and the element of suspense, the style of writing, the little details that build up the atmosphere of the story and the fascination of secondary go a long way toward contributing to my enjoyment of a whodunit.

While Inspector Maigret is a great favorite, Madame Maigret is an even greater favorite. I like best the stories in which she features large and comfortable, the image of a good "memere," always at her cooking pots, always polishing, always mollycoddling her big baby of a husband. Even more than the domestic vignettes of the Maigrets, I enjoy descriptions of the sights and smells of Paris and the food the gourmand inspector eats with solid appreciation. The small restaurants he discovers in the midst of his investigations seem to specialize in robust, full flavored provincial dishes reminiscent of Elizabeth David's book on French country cooking.

It is probably because of my love of experimenting in the kitchen, a pastime in which I no longer have time to indulge, that the eating habits of fictional characters are of such interest to me. I seem to remember that in one of his adventures, which I read years ago and the title of which I have forgotten, Maigret expressed a dislike for calves' liver; in another, however, he claims that if there is anything he likes better than hot calves' liver a la bonne femme, it was the same dish served cold. An inconsistency as intriguing as any of his cases. I cannot recall with clarity a single plot of any of the stories about Nero Wolfe that I have read but the flavor of the confabulation he had about food with his Swiss chef lingers. And it was because this obese private investigator's fulsome praise of the chicken fricassee with dumplings he ate at a church fete that I learnt to cook that deliciously homely dish.

Of course one does not read whodunits for memorable descriptions of food. Does George Smiley ever eat? I cannot remember. And one does not recollect, as one follows the developments of espionage in Berlin, that Len Deighton has written a number of cook books. As for Dick Francis, horse feed it more germane than human diet to his plots but that does not make his fast-moving tales any less gripping.

Why is it that Englishwomen produce some of the best crime fictions? I am thinking of Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, P.D. James and Ruth Rendall. Theses and probably books have been written on that subject. It is a mystery I would like to have the opportunity to mull over some time when a weekend of leisure becomes a possibility. In the meantime, there are enough complexities in Burmese politics to keep one's faculties for unraveling intrigue fully engaged.