At this point in my rereading of Marsh I realize that I am having trouble seeing the books as they were received when first written and published. This particular story bothered me particularly for a number of reasons:First, Marsh's books continue to be painfully class ridden. Members of the gentry are well educated, speak standard English and either privately wealthy or hold down jobs as artists, lawyers or doctors. Members of the lower class are badly educated, speak painfully broad dialect and carry on the modern day equivalent of the jobs of their forebears. The books was published in 1956 and yet it reads as if it were a flashback to a time far earlier.Second, one expects the murder mystery writer to use smoke and mirrors to distract the reader from the "truth" of whodunnit. What is not reasonable is that her detectives should be able to solve the crimes they are investigating in little time if it were not for the fact that they are constantly unwilling to do their actual work. In earlier books Alleyn felt uncomfortable requiring fingerprints from suspects and in later books he seems to feel uncomfortable actually asking questions. People don't answer questions. Police don't ask questions. Suspects are allowed to mill around and move things. In this particular case the SPOILER WARNING!!!!! murderer spends much of the book ordering those who witnessed the murder to shut up whenever they come close to spilling the truth--in front of police officers. The only way Marsh can account for the difficulty of solving the case is to have the local police officers act like bucolic yokels and the men from Scotland Yard to spend more of their time deferring to the gentry and feeling uncomfortable asking questions than doing the work they were called in do to.Marsh does not limit her stereotyping to the gentry and the "peasants" either. The German woman in this book acts not like someone who has lived in England for years but rather as a recent refugee from the movie version of Nazi Germany. Marsh also throws in, for good measure, a rather nasty picture of the those who are 'inappropriately' interesting in British forkways. Appropriate interest is felt by members of the British gentry. Inappropriate interest is felt by foreigners who wear "different" clothes and speak with accents.Throw in a thoroughly broad and uninformed picture of epilepsy and you have a book that seems to have been designed to reflect the biases and preconceptions of the fairly narrow demographic that made up Marsh's readership.
Hm. I know not what to think about Ngaio Marsh. According to SOME PEOPLE (aka the people who write blurbs for the back of Ngaio Marsh's books), Agatha Christie should be compared to her, rather than vice versa but that's a bit of a stretch. Because I love Agatha Christie, I've been desperately searching for The Next Agatha Christie. I like Ngaio March better than Margery Allingham but slightly less than Dorothy L. Sayers. And that's because I love Lord Peter Wimsy.The problem I have in reading all three of the aforementioned authors is that I often feel that the humor and most of the situations in general are way over my head. Inspector Alleyn / Lord Peter / Albert Campion are always making nonsensical proclamations, ostensibly solving the mystery, then following up with, "Right-ho, cheery-bye!" and their respective companions are like, "Ah yes, capital plan!" and I'm like, hulk no read good. Is it supposed to be that way? I don't know if it is because things are supposed to remain obscure and hidden until The Big Reveal or because I am not familiar with pre-war British parlance or WHAT, but it makes me feel really stupid. I always think I am missing something but I'm not sure what. However, Agatha is different - sure, there are things that aren't entirely clear until the genius last chapter, but it's okay because even if you don't understand, at least you're not as stupid as Hastings.
I have long been a fan of Ngaio Marsh, so I've read this book several times before. But as I'm laid up with a casted leg after Achilles tendon surgery—and as it's Christmas, and this book is set on the winter solstice—I thought it would be fun to re-read it again. And it was! This is Golden Age detective fiction, and Marsh was in love with both art and the theatre, so one has to expect that a novel written by such an accomplished and erudite woman and set in a rural village in north England would at times seem a teensy bit "precious" to a Yank now, reading it in the 21st century. That may put some readers off, but to me, that's part of Marsh's charm. [In this book, characters often say that things are a "farrago of lies," for example; and everyone seems to quote Shakespeare.]I thoroughly enjoyed this story about morris and sword dancing, if not as much as Marsh's other Christmas offering, Tied Up in Tinsel. Alleyn as always is charming [there's that word again] and gracious and insightful, Foxkin is jolly and comfortable, and Marsh offers up some gently sardonic humor in her observations of the various characters, including the German refugee and folklore enthusiast Mrs. Bünz, the five Andersen brothers and their crusty father, the local gentry, the drama student/ingenue Camilla Campion [what a name!] and her lawyer-love Ralph Stayne. Marsh can be a lot like Jane Austen in her approach to her characters, and since I love Austen, that may be another reason why I like Marsh's books so. This is a pleasant and diverting holiday read.Note: its original title was "Off With His Head."
—Nancy Butts
Sigh, why can't I make the Goodreads website work so that the British version of the book is the one I can display.'Off With His Head' is my version, a much better title too!Marvellous plot this one, and a real puzzler when I read it first. The characters are a wondrous mix of the sweet and delightful, right up to the fantastic. You can tell, reading this, that Marsh was someone who loved the theatre. The plot reads like a play script, full of dramatic moments.There are some lovely in-jokes, punning and the actual Mardian Morris of the Five Sons is a fabulous construction. Marsh is such an intelligent writer. And her dialogue is spot on. I wish the younger writers of historical novels would study her dialogue to learn how to effortlessly flow between rural working class, rural middle and upper middle classes and the so called 'old gentry' in the 1st half of the 20thC. She had a good ear and her dialogue never descends into artificial 'this is how a doctor/lord/servant should speak.
—P.D.R. Lindsay
1956, #19 Roderick Alleyn, CID, rural village of South Mardian; classic village cosy/police procedural. Narration by Nadia May is good. Novel also published as OFF WITH HIS HEAD. The Winter Solstice celebrations in the odd little village of South Mardian are ancient, very well-respected, and very private, seen by invitation only. But they become extremely public when the lead dancer gets his head cut off during the sword dance. Absolutely perfect setting, tone, characterization and mood, with classic characterizations and a really neatly twisted plot. Not all that “genteel” despite all the usual flourishes, as there’s plenty of dark doings abroad, and the murder itself is rather grisly. The denoument seems a touch sweet now-a-days, but overall this is an excellent example of Marsh’s craft and considerable talent.
—Abbey
