Tribute to Ruth Rendell
In 2004 Ruth Rendell was given the Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement."Rendell builds plots the way the Romans built bridges. They soar high because they are sunk deep, and cost a human life or two." --Marilyn Stasio, New York Times
The number of times I have come across books described laudably as "Rendellesque" should surely mean that the word merits a permanent place in the dictionary. What, though, would the definition be? What does the world actually mean? If a book is "Rendellesque" (or, alternatively "Rendellian," as I often also see), does it have a cast of fascinating, acutely drawn, psychologically perfect, characters? Or does it mean that its plot inhabits a world of frightening reality where our lives are put at risk by the actions of those around us? Does it mean that it is simply a great mystery novel? Does it mean that the book is an atmospheric exploration of the past and its effects, the terrible inescapable grip that it can have on the present and the shattering influence it has on the future? Does it mean that the book is a piercingly accurate slice of social examination, or that nothing within the book's scope is sacred when confronted with her vicious, ironic Austen-esque wit?
In truth, it means all of these things and many more. To be described as Rendellesque is an accolade any writer would be proud of. To be compared to the one of the most respected -- you'd be hard pressed to find a crime writer who doesn't list Rendell as one of their favorites, one of their influences, from Ian Rankin to Patricia Cornwell to Sue Grafton -- crime novelist of this century or the last is very high praise indeed.
"Ruth Rendell is not only the finest crime novelist there is, but one of the finest novelists writing in the English Language." --Gerald Kaufman, Scotsman
Born in 1930, half-Swedish, a daughter of two teachers, Ruth Rendell began the way of so many crime writers: journalism. This intermediary career was short-lived. After reporting on a local tennis club's annual dinner without actually attending, thus missing and failing to write about the death of an after-dinner speaker mid-speech, she resigned before being fired. She wrote three books before her brilliant debut novel, From Doon With Death was accepted by John Long and published in 1964. Ahead of its time in its themes, and building on the mystery conventions already laid down by Christie yet imbuing them with greater depth, it introduced Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, the genial police detective she would continue to write about to this day.
Since then, Rendell has forged a remarkable reputation for herself, and produced an immense body of work showing a depth and range unequalled by any other writer. The number of awards she has to her name is almost certainly the largest of any crime writer, ever. She has won enough CWA Gold and Silver Daggers (five, to be exact: including for A Demon in my View, The Tree of Hands and King Solomon's Carpet) to arm a small country. She has also been awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's Achievement in the field. From the Mystery Writers of America she has won three Edgars (with countless more nominations - in 1986 she had, astoundingly, two books on the shortlist!), and the Grand Master Award. On top of that, she won the Arts Council National Book Award for The Lake of Darkness in 1980, the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990, and the Angel Award for fiction for The House of Stairs. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 was made a life peer, granting her a seat in the House of Lords -- a duty she takes very seriously -- and earning the title of Baroness Rendell of Babergh. She donates ?100,000 a year to charity, still exercises daily at the age of 74 and writes every morning for four hours.
"Ruth Rendell has quite simply transformed the genre of crime writing." --Anthony Clare, Sunday Times
My first taste of Ruth Rendell came 6 years ago, when I was but 12. I had polished off Agatha Christie's entire body of work after a two-year binge and was looking for something new. Raiding my grandmother's extensive network of bookshelves, I picked up a slim volume entitled A Guilty Thing Surprised. It was the title that made me select it more than anything else; after all, they all sounded good, and by that stage I had not acquired my fanaticism for reading series in order. I devoured it in two evenings. The next day, or, if not, very soon after, I went out armed with cash and bought three more to keep me occupied. I didn't fall in love with her books, though (the pared down, sharp prose is an acquired taste), until A Sight for Sore Eyes, a grim, twisted contemporary fairy-tale about two damaged youngsters. That one stole into my mind and robbed me of sleep for an entire night, so fused was I to the book, to the style and to the story. Thus began my obsession. Little did I know that I had stumbled upon the greatest crime writer of all time. And I write that with not a sliver of hyperbole. She is.
If you pick up a book by Rendell, it will be one of three types: an entry in the Inspector Wexford series, a psychological thriller, or a novel written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. (Vine was created when Rendell wrote the Edgar-winning A Dark-Adapted Eye, the best literary portrait of Britain after the war, and knew that it was so different from anything she had written before that issuing it under a pseudonym was necessary.)
My favorite of the three styles, by a whisker, are the disturbing psychological novels written under her own name. These are her masterpieces, variously themed, but all concerned with "odd" characters, often obsessives, the oddities of whom gradually demonstrate horrific consequences. They normally have at least two plotlines running parallel which switch and cut into one another, eventually crashing together in the most unexpected of ways. They are always beautifully twisted, but with a refined, restrained barbarity which so well mirrors the British national psyche. They are about dark, hidden desires; they are eerie; they are disturbing; they are sharp and they are shocking; Concerned with the why and the how, not the who, they are acute portraits of damaged minds existing on the periphery of society, the delusions of which eventually collide with reality. They are inexpressibly good.
Those who read them know this, and I have yet to know a person who, having had her books foisted on them by myself or others, has not loved them. They are chilling and they are gripping in every way, their intricacy and intelligence is shocking in itself. Almost every one of them is a little atmospheric piece of contemporary perfection. Reading one, being led through the twisted minds of her characters, is a shocking experience, but an enlightening one. In short, they are about people who go off the rails, why it happens and what it leads to. She mirrored this notably in Adam And Eve and Pinch Me (in my view her best book), when several of the main events are set in motion by a train crash at Paddingston Station..
"Reminds us that nothing we do is without consequence, nor are those consequences ever within our control." --Val McDermid, Daily Express
Following on closely are the novels published under the Vine name; these always deal in various ways with the shadows of the past coming back to damage the present. Crimes lay hidden, all manner of secrets lie undiscovered, and years later (anything from one or two, to the hundred plus which were the time-frame for The Blood Doctor) they start to itch and shiver beneath the surface of people's lives, and cannot be ignored. These novels deal, like her Rendell novels, with themes of effect and consequence. One can also see similarities in the plain prose style (this plainness has the result that a reader will believe anything Rendell tells them,) the detail of the character portraits, their atmosphere, and sense of time and/or place. The best of the Vines is No Night is Too Long, a chilly, erotic masterpiece. The main character is Tim, a homosexual (maybe) creative writing student, and his stark first-person narration gradually lays bare an affair with his professor, and a cruise they take together to the frozen Alaskan wastelands. It is a remarkable novel of obsession and love and isolation and, inevitably, murder.
"On of the finest practitioners of the craft in the English-speaking world." --Joyce Carol Oates
And then there are the Inspector Wexford books, seemingly traditional police procedural mysteries which investigate both crimes and the changing state of Britain. These are perhaps her most underrated novels, pigeonholed as they are into the "mystery" category. Yes, they are mysteries, but they are far more, too. They're certainly not real police procedural novels -- Rendell herself has said that she has never so much as spoken to a real policeman, except for when her house was burgled -- and, yes, Wexford certainly hasn't really aged. He's still roughly as old in the books as he was in 1964. This just highlights the purpose of the books: through Wexford, she is able to comment upon larger issues, examine society and humanity and dissect the psyche of a nation as she would an individual character. As a protagonist, he is remarkable: gentle, not hard or gritty, likeable, endearing and enduring. He has few flaws, doesn't smoke or drink to excess. He is that fascinating, obscure object: a wise, reflective elder who, in the later books at least, is gradually finding himself adrift. The world has moved on from that of his youth, or even his middle-age, and has become more perplexing.
As well as being excellent puzzles, excellent novels of crime and pictures of society with astounding acuity, these novels have an almost elegiac sense of nostalgia to them. They stand out not because they are harsh and grimy, but because they are polished and fascinating crime stories. Still, they don't shrink from huge issues: Harm Done, for example, a big, luscious multi-plotted book, tackled themes of abuse, everything from child abuse to domestic abuse; Simisola took broad swipes at racism; and Road Rage, environmentalism. With these three books in particular, Rendell stunned people. After the publication of the aforementioned Harm Done, in which a pedophile is practically lynched when his identity is revealed, it happened in reality. And, soon after the release of Road Rage, there was the protracted mess of protests about the planned Newbury Bypass. It is as if she knows society so well, she can predict how it will turn.
"One of the greatest novelists presently at work in our language -- a writer whose work should be read by anyone who either enjoys a brilliant mystery of distinguished literature." --Scott Turow
You may also stumble upon one of her sharp, focused, Edgar-winning short stories. These twisted pieces of sparse prose are every bit as good and just as unfailingly literate as her longer novels. Possibly the best of her collections is The Fever Tree, a stunning piece of work that will have you sweating and shivering with fright.
Rendell was first published in 1964. Since then, she has written 50 novels -- the 51st, Thirteen Steps Down, is to be published in Britain in October 2004, and her first Vine title in 3 years, which is currently being "checked over by an eminent psychologist", will appear in 2005 -- one novella, seven collections of short stories, and two books of non-fiction. An incredible body of work by any standard. She is a remarkable practitioner of her craft. Taking up the baton of Patricia Highsmith, her influences are everywhere in fiction today: from Minette Walters to Ian McEwan, Val McDermid to Peter Robinson; almost every crime writer owes her an immense debt. The world is a far, far richer place for her contribution. No one interested in the state of the human mind, the petty deceptions we all comfort ourselves with, and the state of the world as a whole can afford not to read her books. Plus, she is a delightful, learned lady; but that is largely irrelevant. For all the pleasure she has given, all the wisdom and the learning, I and many others are in her debt.
"Ruth Rendell is unequivocally the most brilliant mystery novelist of our time." --Patricia Cornwell
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