Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBook 5: Solitude, Friendship, Society
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2013
Book 5: Solitude, Friendship, Society
I skipped over The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny's fifth Chief Inspector Gamache Book, due to some readers' reviews that described it as brutal in destroying their illusions about Three Pines. I read it after the next three novels in Penny's series--but, having read it, I disagree that this book made Three Pines and its residents less attractive. From the very first novel in this series, Still Life, Penny depicted the Three Pines residents as quirky and flawed. In The Brutal Telling, their moral struggles come to the forefront. Peter struggles with what to advise Clara and Clara with whether to defend a friend if doing so means risking her dreams. Ruth's impulse to make a wild animal even tamer goes to ridiculous lengths, which she seems not to recognize in spite of her poetic insights into other characters' struggles. Characters, including the Gilberts who are new to Three Pines, are called on profitting at others' expense. Olivier's greed and lies are the central moral issues in this novel, and the tale of the Mountain King is a powerful allegory about greed and trust. At crucial points, characters reflect on what they need to be happy, which must be a major issue for Penny as she brought many of these characters to Three Pines after less happy lives elsewhere.
In fact--although this is a police procedural in terms of tracking down the clues and arresting a suspect--this book could be considered a Louise Penny treatise on solitude, friendship, and society (or withdrawal from society). Three Pines is not on any map and is described in many of these mysteries as being found by only those who need it, and they often need it in order to escape the rat race or troubled relationships. In most of Penny's mysteries, we learn a backstory that explains a character's flaws (perhaps ironic for an author who has one character, Myrna, abandon her career as a psychologist as unfulfilling) and also explains why Three Pines is a refuge for that person. For her most important Three Pines characters, Three Pines is like an intentional community set apart from the outside world. Penny explores intentional community more explicitly in The Beautiful Mystery; but here, in addition to Three Pines, she has Gamache visit a remote Haida community on Queen Charlotte Islands; she describes the greed that almost destroyed that society, as well greed as a destructive force in Three Pines and for the villagers in the allegorical Mountain King tale. Thoreau's quote about three chairs from Walden, "One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society." is included five times in The Brutal Telling. Besides The Hermit, at least three other characters are described as choosing a solitary or removed existence over family and friends. Gamache says he only needs a second chair for friendship, for his wife Reine-Marie, in order to be happy; but I think he is wrong--he has a talent for society, for fitting into and appreciating each of the set-aside groups that Penny has created in her mysteries as locales for his detective skills. The only group in which he cannot fit is the corrupt upper echelon of the Surete, where "society" already has been destroyed by greed and lies. Fortunately, that looming specter is absent from this particular novel.
Louise Penny not only develops characters who become real and develop from book to book, she carries their stories over from one book to later books. I do not know whether she has planned what will happen over several books; but, looking back (easier with the Kindle versions), she has usually dropped hints earlier of developments to come. As with the surprises that change the meaning of Clara's paintings, many of these hints go against what we think we know about the characters but, when understood, change our perception permanently. For example, in Still Life, four books previously, Penny describes Olivier very positively but also mentions, "The greedy antique dealer in him, which composed a larger part of his make-up than he'd ever admit..." and "beside himself with lust after Jane's home. He'd kill to see beyond her kitchen door." It is not giving away anything to state that the backstory in The Brutal Telling is Olivier's history, which accounts for his lies and secretiveness, which ultimately threaten the community. There are many lessons to be learned from this book, as well as some light-hearted moments (a duck in a raincoat?) despite the serious issues.
Along the way, The Brutal Telling also arouses readers' social conscience (mistreatment of native peoples, prejudice against gays) and educates us about literature (Thoreau), art (Emily Carr), and music (Martinu). Very worthwhile.
