Cruelty, Roald Dahl

For modern readers of English literature, Roald Dahl has probably been at one point a favorite author. Adolescent boys and girls almost universally love his stories. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, are just two stories I read as a very young person, and still remember the stories to this day. How many books stick to the brain that effectively? Very, very few I would wager. In any case, so, I saw this title and it piqued my curiosity. Cruelty.

Cruelty was copyrighted in 1986, but it appears that it was only released in 2016. Spoilers abound. So, there's no point in complaining since you've been warned.

Cruelty consists of 10 short stories:

"The Butler"

 Some 'nouveau riche' types have just come into a fortune. They want to buy their way into the good graces of the bourgeois. But of course, it takes a lifetime, I'm sure, to learn how to behave as the bourgeois do. Without much concern for money, they purchase all sorts of expensive things. They invite everyone to dinners. They buy the most expensive wines under the advisement of the expensive butler.

But, the joke is on them! The butler had replaced all the expensive wine with cheap wine. But that does not stop them from bragging to their 'friends' about how expensive this and that wine was, and the vintage, despite it being all the same.

The butler, no longer able to tolerate his employer, confesses that he had replaced the expensive wine with the cheap, and drank it himself.


"The Great Automatic Grammatizator"

This story is a bit of interesting science fiction. A man invents a story and book writing machine. Just pull on a set of levers, and the machine will write a mediocre short story. With an upgrade, it produces novels. Within a short while, it is used to take over the creative industry. How far away from just such a reality in the form of an AI powered writer? 

"Royal Jelly"

 "Royal Jelly" is a bit funny. It's about a man who is born with a natural connection to bees. Later on, he has a baby. The baby is dying. So, he feeds it some royal jelly. At the end, the wife discovers that both her baby and her husband look part bee-part human. It's like a B-grade horror story. 

"Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat"

This is a comedy. A woman gets a parting gift of an expensive mink coat. But she wants to make up a silly story as to how she gets it. She takes it to a pawn shop and gets $50 for it. Then, the husband goes to get it. When he brings it home, it's a cheap mink wrap while his secretary gets the original. I didn't see that coming. I knew something was coming, and I guess that was the most obvious in hind sight.

"The Swan"

Some very bad boys do some bad things to a poor boy.

"Poison"

A funny story about someone who believes he has a venomous snake on his stomach. Eventually, it's discovered that there is no snake. 

"Skin"

I enjoyed this one. A man gets a young boy, destined for greatness, to give him a large tattoo on his back of his wife. The young boy is in love with the wife. Later on, the young boy becomes a famous artist. The man shows off his tattoo at a gallery. A multimillion dollar canvas stuck to his back. One of the men offers to take care of the old man in exchange for his customers to see the great artwork on his back on the beach. Not too long after, the artwork reappears, minus the old man. Pretty cruel.

"The Princess and the Poacher"

This one was a cute story, a fairy tale really. A very ugly boy, but talented and powerful, is shunned by all. He's a great hunter, however, and manages to poach birds and other animals for his family's dinner table.

One day, he decides to take a chance and try to poach around the castle. While he's there, he sees the princess in danger of a boar heading straight for her. Already in love with her, he takes on the giant boar head on, and breaks its neck.

As a reward, the king proclaims that the poacher can rape and ravish any woman he chooses. The poacher chooses not to. Eventually, the princess falls in love with him because he chooses not to ravish the maidens. He is the only one not to chase her and has respect for her.

Certainly, not a story for children. Perhaps a good story for all the incels idiots out there in the world today.

"Genesis and Catastrophe"

A young woman has lost three children. She's afraid to lose the fourth. The reader is invited to worry about her, and hope that she doesn't lose her fourth child. That is, until you realize that her newborn son is Adolph Hitler.

"Claud's Dog"

A big con: a man finds an identical dog. One dog is fast, the other slow. They're both greyhounds. He tries to conjure a great con by running first one, against whom the odds are calculated he cannot win, and then running the much faster dog with the big odds. The con works. Except all the bookies refuse to honour the bets that they made. In the end, they lose out.

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In the end, it was an enjoyable book. "The Princess and the Poacher" tickles the romantic side of me and would have to be my favorite of the lot.

Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie

   Murder on the Links was published at around 1923. At the time, Agatha Christie was an up-and-comer. Wikipedia writes that a review of the time compared Agatha Christie's Poirot to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
   Poirot is asked by Paul Renauld to save him from some kind of plot. But ultimately, it is too late. When he arrives, Renauld is already the victim of a murder. Renauld is a rich man. Surely if he was worried about being murdered, why wouldn't he hire some security? I guess then we wouldn't have a murder mystery novel then, would we?
   Christie creates another detective to act as a kind of foil to Poirot. He is comically illustrated as being arrogant. Sometimes, at the scene of a crime, he is on his hands and knees looking for evidence. While doing so, he discovers an unburnt match and a cigarette butt. They are of South American origin. All of this plays along the idea of some foreign interests being behind Renauld's murder. Meanwhile, he ignores a pipe which Poirot finds to be noteworthy. Poirot mentions that any evidence, big or small, is important. They jostle with each other, but in reality, Detective Geraud is quite dedicated to doing his detective work. Later on, he is discovered disguised as a bush so that he can overhear conversations.
   Ultimately, he identifies Jack Renauld, Paul's son, as the murderer. Certainly, it seems likely. Jack even confesses to the crime. But while all of this is enough for Geraud, it is not enough for Poirot who sees that the confession is false. Jack wants to cover up for the person whom he loves and believes to be responsible for the death.
   Ultimately, it is his other love interest who murders his father in a case of mistaken identity. The intended target was Jack, who was losing interest in the beautiful French girl, Marthe.
   I enjoyed this book.

When Red is Black, Qiu Xiaolong

   This is the third novel in a series about Chief Police Inspector Chen. Chen is on holiday for most of this book, and only marginally involved with it as he's on a holiday. He leaves the case mostly to his sidekick, Sergeant Yu.
   The takeaway for me from this book is the fact that Mao had a way of betraying his most ardent followers. The Red Guard which is created by him becomes politically incorrect. So, all those people that the Red Guard identified as being anti-Mao, or something to that effect, themselves become persecuted.
   Another issue that becomes apparent is that an honest policeman in the 90s quickly got left behind the economic boom which came after the government, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, decided to open up the country to capitalism. He was a victim of that Reagonomics trickle down theory whereby if people are allowed to become very rich, the money that they make will trickle down to the poor and everyone gets richer. I think that's BS now. Clearly that's not what's happening today. But, millions of people were able to live themselves above poverty. But I think that this is the result of opportunity rather than trickle down effects.
   What I really like about Qiu Xiaolong's books is reading a lot of the backstories that build up the present who-dun-nit. The meeting of the murdered woman and a poet in a reeducation facility makes these politically black people into greater astigmatism. For refusing to end the relationship, half of her head is shaved, and she has to wear an old shoe around her neck. While he is forced to wear a tiny chalkboard around his neck.
   Publisher's Weekly writes, "Only a banal solution to the mystery spoils an otherwise engrossing read." I agree that the ending is a bit banal. But I don't think that's a problem. The ending is a bit simplistic and a bit of an oddball, nothing fancy. But I don't think that that's really a problem with my reading of the novel. The more important story is how major historical events which become little more than notes on timelines create an endless tapestry of events which lead to an unfortunate end for an unfortunate victim.
   I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading the next in the series.