Kerry Greenwood - Ruddy Gore

Ruddy Gore is the 7th book about Phryne Fisher in which Phryne goes to the theatre to watch Ruddigore and celebrate the aviator Bert Hinkler who has flown from Croydon to Darwin.

The Bert Hinkler of the book is probably Herbert John Louis Hinkler the first man to fly solo from England to Australia, reducing the flight record of 28 days to 15. This all happened in February 1928, which had me somewhat confused about the timeline of the books, so I did a little bit of sleuthing through the books I have already read as to what dates are mentioned.

• Cocaine Blues: No dates mentioned at all as far as I could discern. (If you have noticed any indication as to any dates, please tell me in a comment.) 
• Flying too High: Amelia McNaughton mentions that her father wanted to marry her off like it was unbelieveable to happen in 1928. The date for her brother Bill's trial is set to 17th August 1928 as well and there is a mention of it being a winter's day, which for Australia would mean a day somewhere between June and August. 
•  Murder on the Ballarat Train: The murder of Anne Henderson took place on the night of 21th June 1928 and at the end of May that same year, Bobby Matthew's Megatherium Trust crasched, ruining Anne Henderson.
• Death at Victoria Dock: Bert and Cec are invited to dinner and mention that there will be a strike on 10th September and Phryne says it is the 1st September that day. Like Amelia, Phryne cannot believe someone was shooting at her because it is 1928.  
• The Green Mill Murder: No year is mentioned, but it seems to be set in October which is mentioned as Phryne is flying up to the mountains to meet Victor Freeman. 
• Blood and Circuses: The date is stated already in the beginning as Mr Christopher's body is found at the boarding house in which he lives. Jack Robinson, Constable Harris and Sergeant Grossmith also talks about the society getting harder and colder in 1928, so a police strike would not be so easy as it had been before. Also, when Phryne feels like her persona is slipping back to its primitive roots, her contemporary identity is refered to as "1928 Phryne". 
• The dates in Ruddy Gore are somewhat diffuse. 1928 is mentioned and based on what the boy Herbert Cowl (I wonder if he is named Herbert because of the other references to Hinkler.) who becomes Phryne's assistent tells her, it sounds like it would be a little before christmas. Phryne also tells the theatre manager Bernard Tarrant that she has had enough performance for a while and tells Dot Williams that this is not going to be like her time at the circus and she will come home every night. Phryne also have the St Christopher medal that Dot gave to her as she was leaving for the circus. So the book is definitely supposed to be set after Blood and Circuses.

Based on the preface of the book, there was a production of Ruddigore in Melbourne in 1928 (but it did not include any murderers). After a lot of hard googling I have not been able to deduce if there where a gala performance of the play for Hinkler for real and books on 1920's theatre in Australia has turned out to be pretty rare here in Sweden. Therefore my thoughts about the timeline will remain what it is. They might just have waited with celebrating Hinkler until November/December?

Anyway, Phryne and her friend Bunji Ross (one of those recurring characters of the books that I have talked about before) are at the theatre to celebrate Bert Hinkler's triumph. However, the performance is cut short when one of the main actors and then his understudy are poisoned. Phryne starts to investigate, but the main suspect seems to be the ghost of the late actress Dorothea Curtis who died playing Ruddigore in London thirty years prior to the events in Ruddy Gore.

'Could you call up a spirit for me? I've been trying to find one lately and she is very difficult to locate.'

~Phryne Fisher, Ruddy Gore

It is also in this book that we meet the character Lin Chung for the first time. On the way to the theatre, Phryne and Bunji helps him and his grandmother out of a fight and they are cleaned up at the Lins's house before they are off to the theatre. Throughout the entire book, Chinese men are following Phryne and she seems a bit worried about it.

Not only is the timeline between the books a bit confusing, but at the theatre history seems to be repeating itself with resemblances to thirty years prior. Phryne is also thinking how her life has turned into a comic opera. There are a lot of references back to Dorothea and Phryne is sure that her death was not an accident.

Hitherto I have liked each book about Phryne Fisher more and more, but this is a break in that trend. I prefer both Blood and Circuses and The Green Mill Murder over this one. I liked the plot and the theatre milieu and the world around the production of Ruddigore, but even though it was depicted just as thoroughly as the circus in Blood and Circuses which I really enjoyed, I thought this a bit tiresome. I also had problems connecting to all the people at the theatre. Everyone seemed to be quite full of themselves and they were all in love with each other and also left each other heartbroken. It was like a drama series on TV. Adding the Chinese and it got a bit messy. I still liked the book just fine. It was a fun read and it did not put me off the books.

Julkalender 1995 - Jul i Kapernaum

Jul i Kapernaum (Christmas in Kapernaum) was SVT:s julkalender 1995 and twice as long as the rest of them. The second half of it is devoted to puppet sketches. We get to visit Magister Munter at the school (who teaches the children that the English sentence I buy pink sheets is funny to a Swede), see short films at the cinema at Bio Rio and hear about when Fru Dito time travelled in her shower. (I might get back to those in later entries to this blog, but for this one, I want to focus on the main plot.)

Legend has it that a star came to rest on the place where the town Kapernaum later was built. Many thousands of years later, the evil king Sirius in his hunt for treasure, found it and trapped it underground. He killed everone, but a young man managed to flee and tell everyone. Sirius was locked up and the man left Kapernaum, only to return when it was time to release the star.
  

När tiden är inne,                         When time has come,
för lugn i sinne.                             For peace in mind
När staden skälver                        When the town is shaking
och jorden gnäller.                        And the ground whines
För julefrid,                                   For christmas peace,
öppna porten i tid.                         Open the gate in time.
Den som ingen sakna,                   The one no one misses,
hämta stjärna som vakna           Collects the wakening star

~ Jul i Kapernaum

1000 years later, the 10 years old orphan girl Amanda lives in an abandoned circus wagon in the middle of Tittutgränd in Kapernaum. She is sometimes lonely, but often plays around with the mayor Klopstock and Krampus. Besides them, Krampus has an aunt named Innocentia and there is also a lady who owns the café called Rosa. In Kapernaum also lives Assar Skoog who owns a pawnshop.

Skoog in many aspects resembles Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dicken's book A Christmas Carol. His brother died and Assar drove away his wife and newborn baby. Assar is extremely greedy and loves to make people pawn their most valuable things. He also mutters "Humbug!" from time to time.

Viktor, is the heir of the young man who fled king Sirius and he suddenly shows up in Kapernaum, scaring the life out of Skoog (like the three ghosts of christmas do to Scrooge). Amanda finds the gate to the underground and Viktor sets after her. They free the star and ride off for new adventures at the end. The battle against king Sirius and his troll guard is a little forced and lame, but the actors (even the children) are all good and the characters loveable.

Jul i Kapernaum belongs in the fantasy genre, but it is also a musical of sort. I have always been pretty sad that they never released the music on a cd because there were some pretty good ones in this. It felt even stranger when SVT chose to release the soundtrack of Mysteriet på Greveholm the following year even though it only contained instrumental music. (Snälla SVT, kan ni inte åtminstone lägga upp sångerna på Spotify nu?!) I remember having to rewind the VHS over and over because I wanted to listen to the music.To this day, I still remember Amanda's song (and no, it is not mainly due to her and I sharing first name!)

This calendar is sadly forgotten, but the Swedes voted for it to be part of the julkalender classics that SVT puts on their Öppet Arkiv site every christmas. Rewatching this now, made me think that it is actually even more relevant today. The awakening star creates havoc with the climate, making the town hot and everyone wonder what has happened to the weather. It is also worth mentioning Klopstock's line from the last episode: "Igår var Kapernaum nära sin undergång. Minnet av det som skett den här julen får aldrig blekna. Om historien hålls vid liv finns det möjlighet att inte upprepa misstagen (Yesterday, Kapernaum was close to its destruction. The memory of what has occured this christmas must never fade. If history is kept alive, there is a possibility to not recreate the misstakes.)" Definitely something to think about...


Picture was borrowed from here.