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Every farthing of the cost
Jun. 12th, 2009 23:24I've just finished reading Farthing by Jo Walton (aka ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky). It is an utterly brilliant, and brilliantly chilling, little book--though it's a quick read, it packs a great deal of wallop into a very unassuming structure, that of the English country-house mystery. In point of fact, I'm reminded more than a little of Robert Altman's movie "Gosford Park," though of course "Gosford Park" doesn't have the naissance of British fascism, in an alternate 1949 in which Britain sued for peace with the Reich in May 1941, hanging in the balance.
Lucy Khan, the renegade daughter of the leaders of the so-called Farthing Set, the faction within the Tories that made peace with Hitler, and her Jewish husband David Khan are prevailed upon by Lucy's mother to come down for the weekend, and when another member of the Set is found dead in his room with a Jewish star skewered to his chest, suspicion inevitably rests heavily on David, though Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is too smart not to do his own thinking (and indeed, perhaps too smart for his own good). ( Confound their politics,/Frustrate their knavish tricks! )
On an unrelated, happier note, Hallmark sells same-sex couple wedding cards (though the ones I saw were either for male couples or generic. as usual, the lesbians are invisible). If that's not progress, I don't know what is.
papersky). It is an utterly brilliant, and brilliantly chilling, little book--though it's a quick read, it packs a great deal of wallop into a very unassuming structure, that of the English country-house mystery. In point of fact, I'm reminded more than a little of Robert Altman's movie "Gosford Park," though of course "Gosford Park" doesn't have the naissance of British fascism, in an alternate 1949 in which Britain sued for peace with the Reich in May 1941, hanging in the balance.Lucy Khan, the renegade daughter of the leaders of the so-called Farthing Set, the faction within the Tories that made peace with Hitler, and her Jewish husband David Khan are prevailed upon by Lucy's mother to come down for the weekend, and when another member of the Set is found dead in his room with a Jewish star skewered to his chest, suspicion inevitably rests heavily on David, though Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is too smart not to do his own thinking (and indeed, perhaps too smart for his own good). ( Confound their politics,/Frustrate their knavish tricks! )
On an unrelated, happier note, Hallmark sells same-sex couple wedding cards (though the ones I saw were either for male couples or generic. as usual, the lesbians are invisible). If that's not progress, I don't know what is.