In one of those weird coincidences, I've just read Margaret Frazer's medieval murder mystery, The Hunter's Tale, one of her Sister/Dame Frevisse series, only a few days after wandering into a fascinating exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York, "Illuminating the Medieval Hunt," which focuses on images from Gaston Phoebus' early 15th century hunting manual, Le Livre de la chasse. I'd actually been there for a bit of research on their limited selection of 18th- and 19th-century dance material, but they tossed me out of the reading room at four and I had an hour to kill before taking a bus down to Maryland, so I decided to see the hunting exhibit. The juxtaposition was serendipitous; after viewing the beautiful illuminated manuscripts describing the care of hounds, the training of huntsmen, the procedures for hunts, and the different beasts that can be hunted (I was especially fond of the reindeer, depicted by the hapless illuminator as sheep with antlers, and the amorous bears experimenting with the missionary position) I was more than equipped to appreciate the details of Frazer's novel. The exhibition is up until August 10th, and if you can't get there in person, the website has an online catalog with fifty images which can be zoomed in on for a fair amount of detail. I hope they leave it up permanently. There was also a good review in The New York Times that gave more detail about the exhibit itself.
Having thus been immersed in hunting, I've also been thinking about the sheer quantity of medieval murder mysteries I've burned through in the last month. I think the total comes to sixteen; three Cadfael books by Ellis Peters along with thirteen Frevisse tales. The two are both monastics (Cadfael is a monk, Frevisse a nun), and hunters in the sense that any sleuth is a sort of hunter, their tales set a few centuries apart but both series essentially medieval. I've been reading the Cadfael books for years but have never really connected with the Frevisse series until now. Why now? Desperation. I read this sort of stuff when I'm stressed out and not up for anything really demanding. That's why I tend to do it in multibook binges. I often read them before going to sleep, the familiarity of the setting and stories helping me relax my mind.
So for years, the Cadfael books have been at the top of my comfort-reading list. I've reread them many times. But now I've discovered that something dreadful has happened: I appear to have over-read them. I don't just remember the murderer at the heart of each mystery, I remember almost all the details of how the crime worked and how it was solved. I'm far too conscious of the similarities of the romantic subplots among the adolescents in each tale (except perhaps Brother Cadfael's Penance, which feels more like part of the author's The Heaven Tree Trilogy
than part of the Cadfael series, and maybe a couple of others.) The very predictability of the reading experience, which used to comfort me, now leaves me restless, even just skimming through them as bedtime reading. I'm desperately sad about this, since I really love these books. I hope that if I give them a rest for a few years I can manage to forget enough to relax into them again.
When I realized this problem a few weeks ago, I started frantically poking through my collection of historical mysteries, looking for a fresh fix, and finally settled on the only Frevisse book I owned at the time, The Novice's Tale. I hadn't thought much of it when I originally bought and read it, feeling it contrasted poorly with the Cadfael series, but I liked it much more the second time around. A little googling showed that the Frevisse series had grown to a very respectable length, easily enough for a couple of weeks of stress relief. I started making a list for my mother (who really enjoys hunting down entire series of used books online) then went off to the library to pick up half a dozen to start me off. There are now twelve sitting on my shelf already read, and I expect mom will come through with the rest in the next month or so. And the series is still continuing; Frazer, unlike Peters, is alive and writing. The mysteries are every bit as complex as the Cadfael ones and considerably less formulaic. They might even be better books, but I have too much sentimental attachment to the Cadfael series to really judge. Both series are richly steeped in history, well-researched, and include appearances (some significant, not just cameos) by real figures from the past; both should satisfy equally in that respect. I recommend both series for anyone who likes the whole medieval-mystery concept.
A few comparisons:
Cadfael: Benedictine monk with a wandering past
Frevisse: Benedictine nun with a wandering past
Cadfael: takes his vows seriously but is always happy to have an excuse to leave the cloister for a bit and has a rather irreverent attitude
Frevisse: takes her vows so seriously she generally has to be ordered out of the cloister and often wishes the Benedictine rule would be enforced more tightly, but is not as prim or annoying as this makes her sound
Cadfael: series set in a tight time frame of about a decade in the 12th century; rich cast of continuing characters
Frevisse: series set in a much longer timeframe of about twenty years (so far) in the 15th century; more scope for characters to grow up, grow old, and die, so the continuing characters vary much more over the course of the series
Cadfael: series takes place while England is torn by the war between Stephen and Matilda
Frevisse: series takes place during the reign of the weak Henry VI and appears to be heading right into the Wars of the Roses
Cadfael: has a stable position as the monastery's herbalist and never changes or rises in the monastic hierarchy
Frevisse: shifts positions repeatedly (per Benedictine rule?) as sacrist, hosteler, etc., and rises in rank within the nunnery from "Sister" to "Dame" and onward during the course of the series
Cadfael: sometimes sneaks back a character from many books back for a cameo or even a major role in the plot
Frevisse: even more of this; minor characters get their very own books in at least three instances
Cadfael: always has a happy ending, usually with a pair of adolescents celebrating a successful love affair while Cadfael neatly wraps up all the loose ends of the murder
Frevisse: much wider range of endings, not all of them happy and most of them not involving romantic adolescents; loose ends often left hanging, sometimes painfully
Because of that last, I don't know if I'll ever find the Frevisse novels quite as relaxing as I have the Cadfaels.
Lists of both series, for easy reference and/or shopping:
Sister/Dame Frevisse books by Margaret Frazer (pseudonym of Mary Monica Pulver and Gail Frazer for the first six books, then just Gail Frazer):
- The Novice's Tale
- The Servant's Tale
- The Outlaw's Tale
- The Bishop's Tale
- The Boy's Tale
- The Murderer's Tale
- The Prioress' Tale
- The Maiden's Tale
- The Reeve's Tale
- The Squire's Tale
- The Clerk's Tale
- The Bastard's Tale
- The Hunter's Tale
- The Widow's Tale
- The Sempster's Tale
- The Traitor's Tale
- The Apostate's Tale
Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters (pseudonym of Edith Pargeter):
Prequel: A Rare Benedictine (three short works)
- A Morbid Taste for Bones
- One Corpse Too Many
- Monk's Hood
- St. Peter's Fair
- Leper of Saint Giles
- Virgin in the Ice
- The Sanctuary Sparrow
- The Devil's Novice
- Dead Man's Ransom
- The Pilgrim of Hate
- An Excellent Mystery
- The Raven in the Foregate
- The Rose Rent
- The Hermit of Eyton Forest
- The Confession of Brother Haluin
- Heretic's Apprentice
- The Potter's Field
- The Summer of the Danes
- The Holy Thief
- Brother Cadfael's Penance
I must confess (hmmm?) to never having read the Cadfael novels. I rather enjoyed the movies that showed up on PBS's "Mystery", but then again they had Cadfaël played by Derek Jacobi, and he is always a pleasure for me to watch. Still, I don't know if the movies fixed the flaws you mentionned about the books.
Posted by: Serge | June 27, 2008 at 12:39 PM
I watched about half of a Cadfael movie on PBS and decided it was not my kind of story. I'm pretty sure the books are similar. I really like space opera.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | June 27, 2008 at 07:17 PM
Hmmm... The premise of Cadfaël is one that could be transfered to a far-future setting. Then again, it probably already has been.
Posted by: Serge | June 28, 2008 at 12:37 AM
I've only seen bits of the TV version of the Cadfael books and don't remember much about them.
But I wouldn't call the books flawed. It's a fairly rare series that can stand up to being reread fifteen or twenty times and not start to feel predictable. That's a pretty amazing run for a mystery series in particular! I've gotten many years of reading pleasure out of them, but I've just overdone it. My own memory is part of the problem. I still recommend them.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 28, 2008 at 05:54 AM
I still recommend them.
Duly noted.
And my apologies for using the word 'flawed'. It's just that I somehow converted your description of it as 'formulaic' into 'flawed'. Which is kind of silly. The Perry Mason TV show was very formulaic, but it wasn't flawed. It certainly was very entertaining.
Posted by: Serge | June 28, 2008 at 07:58 AM
All mystery novels are formulaic in a sense; there isn't much market for mysteries where the mystery doesn't get solved, just as in a romance novel you know you're going to get a happily-ever-after ending. I don't think the Cadfaels are any more formulaic than average for the genre. The genre just can't bear the sheer quantity of rereading I've been giving them.
(I'm not arguing, just amplifying previous comments.)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | June 29, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Heck, formulas are there because they fulfill a need. Perry Mason will remind us that sometimes Justice IS served. (And I don't mean Justice in the strict legalistic sense that the Likes of Cardinal Richelieu gave the word.) That's one of the things I liked about the cop show Cold Case: it might take decades, but in the end, the dead would finally be given peace.
Posted by: Serge | June 29, 2008 at 11:12 AM