Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley: A review

Alan Bradley's eleven-year-old, soon-to-be twelve-year-old, detective, the delightful Flavia de Luce is back in her fifth case and she is just as irrepressible as ever.

The village of Bishop's Lacey is busily preparing to open the tomb of its patron saint, St. Tancred, and no one is more excited about the prospect of peering into the crypt than Flavia. She contrives to be present at the opening but the proceedings are cut short when Flavia discovers the body of the church organist, Mr. Collicutt. The man had been missing for several weeks and obviously has been dead for all that time. Almost as inexplicable as being found dead in a saint's tomb, Collicutt is wearing a gas mask! What does it all mean? Who would want to kill the church organist? And how did the murderer(s) transport him into a closed crypt? Flavia, of course, is determined to find out.

And so we get to follow the young detective around the village as she interviews people without them knowing they are being interviewed and gathers clues for the denouement. We learn quite a lot about the village and about how villages conspire to keep secrets. We also learn that it is very hard to keep secrets from a precocious and curious child.

As Flavia and her bicycle Gladys make their rounds and we are privy to Flavia's thoughts, we begin, perhaps, to get a glimmer of who the culprit might be, but there appear to be no clear clues. Moreover, we are made to wonder about the efficiency of the Bishop's Lacey constabulary when Flavia discovers a major clue that they had totally missed in their searches. Good thing for Inspector Hewitt that she is on the case.

One thing that endeared Flavia to me in this episode of her adventures was her rescue and adoption of a Buff Orpington hen named Esmeralda. As an admirer of that wonderful breed, I fully understood her impulse to save the hen!

Overall, this was another fun read from the pen - or word processor - of Bradley, but there were loose ends that annoyed me. Things like the detective/horticulturist who inexplicably turned up in town and befriended Flavia. What is he doing there? He didn't really seem to have much of a purpose in this story. Perhaps it was only meant to introduce him and he'll play some more significant role in a future book.

And what about the shadow hanging over the de Luce family home and the father's finances? Is he truly broke? Will the estate be sold? Nothing was resolved about this. We were just left hanging. Again, perhaps it is being left for a later book. Still, I do find it irritating not to have some resolution.

Flavia is such a charming creation, and yet she is eleven-years-old. She seems to have an extraordinary amount of freedom for even a precocious child of that age. And she seems to have no friends of her own or a similar age. And does she ever go to school?

Ah, well, fiction does require a suspension of disbelief at times and a willingness to enter into the spirit of the thing. Wandering the byways of Bishop's Lacey and exploring ancient cemeteries at two o'clock in the morning with Flavia de Luce and Gladys when the rest of the village is asleep in bed is really quite a hoot!

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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