As has already been discussed on this blog here and here, P.D. James is the best. What has previously been commented upon succinctly by my colleagues, will now be expanded upon heartily.

In my house, we have fallen in love with the television adaptation of James’ excellent mystery novels. The show is simply titled Dalgliesh, after the central Detective Chief Inspector figure. Each novel is covered by two episodes; therefore, each mystery is given an hour and a half of introduction, development, and resolution. The stories have that shimmer of reality because of the complex detail James devotes to them. More than that, our detective Dalgliesh feels real as well. Slowly, the audience is told that he is a somewhat famous poet, a widower, and a fully-fledged person with emotions and friendships.

I suppose it’s somewhat backwards to have started with the TV show and now gone back to the novels it’s based on, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. There are 14 Adam Dalgliesh murder mysteries to gorge yourself on. Woefully, there are only four print books and two audiobooks in our collection. But if you are intrigued, fill out a Suggest a Title form, and we will try to borrow a copy for you from another library system!

Back to the four titles we have, in no particular order:

Novels:

The Murder Room

Devices and Desires

The Private Patient

The Lighthouse

Audiobooks:

A Certain Justice

A Taste for Death

Dalgliesh reminded me of how wonderful an author James is. I read her only science fiction novel, Children of Men, several years ago. Thinking back to the well-written and quietly disturbing prose, Kazuo Ishiguro’s brand of soft science fiction comes to mind. Both authors deal with dark, speculative subjects but juxtapose that with leisurely, descriptive passages about calming subjects, such as the English country or seaside. The tension between the still, calm outer worlds they create and the disquieting dystopia underneath the surface is exquisite. The premise of Children of Men is that it’s the year 2021 (an unimaginable future date) and it’s been 25 years since the last baby was born. It’s a short, powerful, dystopian jaunt into a stark scenario, but James suffused the writing with such brilliance that you often forget to be scared.

Alfonso Cuarón directed an adaptation of the text in 2006 that truly adapts the source material, in every sense of that word. The central idea of the novel, the dystopian concept is there, but I’m not sure much else is the same. It’s been a while since I read the book and saw the movie. My recollection of the latter has been reduced down to one action sequence that was shown to me in one of my Film Studies courses in university as an example of an accomplished one-shot that carries on for several minutes. It is an impressive thing to behold, and the movie is memorable. Cuarón did the same thing here as he did with the third Harry Potter movie –made it his own. His auteur style of adaptation isn’t something you see everyday. Oftentimes, popular novels are adapted into film to be as similar as possible to the written world — so much so that the director’s influence becomes virtually invisible to the untrained eye. Cuarón has always put his own spin on everything, it seems. That makes him unique. I have submitted a request to have the novel added to our collection. As a customer of VPL myself, I would like to re-read some of its virtuoso passages. Hopefully, it’s soon available to borrow. While we both wait, dear reader, we can watch the movie.

P. D. James has also written a “fragment of autobiography” in the form of a diary of a year. Time to Be in Earnest. The title comes from a Samuel Johnson quotation: “At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest” (although he apparently never reached that time in his own life). The diary spans the time from August 1997 to August 1998. Here is where I must admit I feel a kinship with James because of some unlikely coincidences we share. The day her autobiographical ‘fragment’ starts — August 3rd, her birthday — just happens to be the exact day I started reading it. Her daughter is named Clare. And the Children of Men was published the year I was born.

The history of her life is filled with morsels of information. She lived to be 94 years old. She was made a Baroness, which allowed her to sit in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, and she was an ardent fan of Jane Austen, to say the least. The appendix of Time to Be is a speech James made to the Jane Austen Society’s Annual General Meeting entitled “Emma Considered as a Detective Story.” What better way to combine the two foremost fascinations of her life than to draft such a speech?

The prologue of the book talks about the reasons people write diaries and autobiographical works in general. I was struck by her idea that the most primary need in keeping a diary is to take back control over time, “to assure ourselves that, as the past can be real, so the future may hold the promise of reality. I write, therefore I am.” ¹

I write, therefore I am.

The famous words Descartes introduced to the world of philosophy but tweaked slightly. As a writer, they almost make more sense to me now than they ever did. It’s a fascinating prologue to an exciting text, and I encourage you all to do your own deep dive into P. D. James’ back catalogue. There are many treasures to be found there. And please let me know if you’ve read any Adam Dalgliesh novels or Children of Men. Similarly, what did you think of the TV or film adaptations?

Till next time!

Citations

1. James, P.D. Time to Be in Earnest. New York, Ballantine Books, 2001.