here's where the story ends · May 31, 03:20 AM · too early in the morning

And so, at the behest of the Litblog Co-op I’ve Read This! [This! being Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories.] And… I’m not seeing it. Don’t get me wrong, Atkinson’s novel is well enough written, and I enjoyed it well enough, but it inspires in me little more than that sort of tepid, repetitive praise. Yes, I savored a bit of in the know frisson when noting that a minor character’s maiden name was Vane, in nodding tribute to Dorothy Sayers’s Harriet Vane, and was charmed each time I recognized the small inversions of expectations and rules that Atkinson toyed with. But after the fun of the initial thrill, too often than not Case Histories read to me as a novel that ticked off genre conventions for the mere sake of ticking them off.

This, it’s been argued, is the pleasure of reading Case Histories, how it takes the stock rules and blurs or breaks or “moves beyond” them, and perhaps I’m just being intractable in my refusal to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Except I kept waiting for Atkinson to transform what is at its heart a pleasantly diverting exercise into something more—an exploration of the nature of fact, the messiness of the trap of not knowing, the inadequacy of detection as a model of epistemological inquiry in 21st century postmodernimperialchristian England. Something. Anything. Instead, the characters are and they were and they aren’t anymore. They are stuck and then they are confused then the are frustrated by their confusion and then they are, at last, freed. The narrative hand that guides is controlled and sure, knows precisely when to modulate a tense or shake up a sentence rhythm to keep our shoulders square in the direction that it wishes us to head. But that grip at the back of the neck? A mite too firm.

I’m not entirely confident that I understand what Stephen Mitchelmore at This Space means when he characterizes the voice at the beginning of Case Histories as that of “freeform journalism,” but if he means that type of narrative reportage that believes in the ability of objects, actions, or the said to provide a gateway to truth, I’m inclined to agree. It could be argued that reportage is one of the conventions of the detective novel that Atkinson works within, which might explain its dominance at the outset of the novel, but it’s a convention that’s never questioned or challenged, and that lapse ultimately frustrates. Objects tell their tales and killers are revealed, save the awkward torque of one plot line that felt most inspired but most unrealized, which is what makes Case Histories a great read but less a compelling novel. We always knew the hows if not the whys of the story’s end. There was in fact no doubt.

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Related: Bookworld links to an item from the Guardian that provides more context for the incredulous response of some blogs [primarily those focused on British literature] to the LBC pick. About the time the post went live, the Amazon UK ranking for the paperback edition of Case Histories: 30. The equivalent item on Amazon in the US: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, audio CD edition.

  1. I’m not entirely confident either! But I think I meant what Ellis Sharp means in his latest blog:
    http://ellissharp.blogspot.com/2005/06/bad-language.html

    But perhaps I mean that it has the chatty knowingness of a regular newspaper columnist. Apart from a general dislike of this tone, I feel that it also allows writer and reader to collude in a simultaneous setting up and ignoring of a barrier to the pain and suffering referred to in the story. That’s also the function of journalism, I think.
    — Steve Mitchelmore    Jun 13, 10:44 AM    #

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