Things-I-Love-Thursday: The Hon. Phryne Fisher

Essie Davis as Phryne on the ABC

Last night, at the last minute, I heard that Kerry Greenwood - the author of my all-time favourite fictional detective series - was giving a talk at the Northcote Library. I've been known to stalk Kerry Greenwood around town on the odd occasion (Ok, several occasions).

I've gone to see her at every event she's attended in recent years, and stayed around to chase after her and chat afterwards like a giddy school girl. For some reason the event last night escaped my attention, but I was very glad I threw my shoes on and raced out the door into the freezing cold night as soon as I found out because the evening was wonderful and left me feeling so happy and inspired.

Therefore, let me introduce you to Phryne Fisher, as the star of this week's Things-I-Love-Thursday.

The detective series I speak of is the Phryne Fisher murder mysteries. Some of you might know the stories from their current adaptation as a mini-series on ABC1 on Friday nights. However, if that is true it means you've jumped on the bandwagon way too late in my humble opinion! You can't possibly call yourself a fan if you haven't read the books, not a real fan! There are rules about these things!

Greenwood starting writing Phyrne's stories way back in 1988. I wish I could say that I was a fan from the beginning, but I was only in Grade 4 back then! Instead, I discovered them a few years after I moved to Melbourne when I attended the Sisters in Crime annual convention in St Kilda.

I've always loved crime fiction, particularly detective stories (I wrote my Honours thesis on the rise of the hard-boiled female detective in the 1990s, also known as the colourful 'cock in a frock'). For my PhD, however, I began looking at the origins of detective fiction as a genre way back in the nineteenth century, which is a fascinating period. Phryne Fisher's mysteries, set in 1928, sit at an interesting half-way point for me I suppose. As I also love the 1920s as a historical period (my interest in swing dancing and deco furniture and jewellery come to mind) this pretty much makes Greenwood's novels my favourite novels of all (in the category of popular genre fiction, at least).

I love Kerry Greenwood and her daring Phryne Fisher in equal measure.

I love Kerry because I'm fascinated by her creative practice, her prolific output, her attention to detail, her superb research skills, her fierce wit, and her feminism. She is inspiring to listen to - eloquently spoken with an impeccable knowledge of all the things I love including history, art, literature and antique crockery (!). At the same time, she's really quite unassuming. She doesn't look like a glamourous bestselling author. In fact she looks quite the opposite. She's five-foot-nothing and doesn't seem to care a scrap about her public image. It's really quite refreshing. Kerry is also so friendly and does not begrudge any time standing about talking with ordinary people about her writing or anything else. Last night she and I compared our love for the TV series Castle, which I was thrilled to find out she also loves because it made me feel like we had stuff in COMMON, and this is important in order for a successful stalking relationship to thrive. . .

I love Phryne because...well...who wouldn't?! She's a sassy, sexy sleuth who is fiercely intelligent, unapologetically independent and glamorous to boot. She sashays around town solving murders, taking lovers, making enemies and offending sensibilities. In Susan Geason's (herself an Australian detective fiction writer) words, Phryne is an 'unashamed vamp who has trouble keeping her silk knickers on', and she's 'morally and ethically flexible' - a description I love!

I could go on and on about Phryne but I'd rather throw one of her delightful novels your way and let you find out for yourself. Here is a sample chapter from Phryne's eighteenth adventure Dead Man's Chest. Enjoy!

And here is my pride and joy - my autographed copy of Murder in Montparnasse!

A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

I have just ordered a copy of a book called A Grief Observed, written by C.S. Lewis (under a pseudonym) after the death of his wife in the early 1960s. I related so much to this excerpt I found that I really wanted to read the whole thing. The interesting thing is that Lewis was a committed Christian, but turned from God in his grief, with the view that religion could not provide him consolation, and doubt about its promises of an eternal afterlife. 

Excerpt from A Grief Observed by 
C. S. Lewis 

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don't really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man's life. I was happy before I ever met H. I've plenty of what are called 'resources'. People get over these things. Come, I shan't do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this 'commonsense' vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be - or so it feels - welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so absent a help in time of trouble?