Stories from the Stacks

The Monthly Liaison: May 2023

Version en español

"...not knowing was an invitation to wonder and joy."

I Don't Know

“I am an ignoramus.”


I sat on a folding chair in a billowy black robe with a pack of playing cards in my hand, surrounded by the flat-black-hatted heads of my college peers. All around us, the grass was green; the air was warm and softly stirring; the sky was blue with possibility.


It was graduation day, and I was prepared for a few hours of boredom before launching into the world and whatever it was holding for me. I was set to play a game of solitaire or even “go fish” with my seatmates to pass the time until our names were called, but this white-bearded fellow at the podium snagged my attention.


His big voice was jovial even as it was firm. His charge to us, as we set off with our college diplomas, was to start each day by looking in the mirror and saying, “I am an ignoramus.”


It was not just these four words that struck me; it was the tone with which he delivered them: full of delight and good humor, like not knowing was an invitation to wonder and joy.


I had spent the last four years crying over chemistry assignments and fretting over compositions. I had been afraid of not having the right answers on exams.


His four words reminded me that, even with a diploma in my hand, there would be so many answers I would not know, that the world would always be bigger than I could fully comprehend. His buoyant tone told me that this was not cause for fear, but for exhilaration. We have so much more to learn.


Inspector Gamache of the Louise Penny mysteries offers this advice to the novice police cadets he mentors:


“There are four things that lead to wisdom. . . . They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean: I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”


I don’t know. It is the simple statement that propels any great mystery novel, and it can be a promising way to start each day.

Jenny Emery Davidson, Ph.D.

Executive Director

WHODUNIT?

The Magic of a Great Mystery Series


By Cathy Butterfield

Collections Manager


“My big novel is the mosaic of all my small novels.” George Simenon, in an interview with Carvel Collins, the Paris Review #9, 1955.


Georges Simenon wrote over 400 books in his storied career, allotting himself eleven days per novel. While his literary output is legendary, he is by far best known for his Inspector Maigret mysteries. Ann Cleeves named him ‘the father of contemporary European detective fiction.’


While we do not have all 400 of his books in the Community Library, we do have a sound sampling of his vintage work still circulating in the stacks (and one of the Maigret DVD TV adaptations has been binged 85 times and counting).

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Simenon tried to wrap up the Maigret saga with a farewell early in his career. And like Doyle, he was pestered by fans to resurrect his avatar of justice.


What draws readers back to a mystery series? Is it 

the comeuppance of crime? Vicarious violence?


The occasional primrose path of dalliance tread with a femme (or fellow) fatale? (I am looking at you rocking the boat, Travis McGee.) Armchair tourism spiced with locally sourced mayhem adds that extra zing when you add The Turquoise Lament to Fodor’s Florida.

Serial fiction has been around since Homer started entertaining the troops in the shenanigans at upstart Troy. More likely longer, but writing was a relatively recent invention. Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens had followers worldwide waiting on docks for the newest adventures of D’artagnan and David Copperfield to arrive.


As George Simenon says, his truly big novel is the mosaic of his small novels, creating a larger zeitgeist than our own. “I would like to make a man so that everybody, looking at him, would find his own problems in this man.”


Travis McGee, Spencer, Sherlock, Joe Ide, Adam Dalgleish,

all mosaics far larger than the sum of their novels.



Familiar characters tackling dangerous problems create a paradox, a comfortable pocket realm insulated from a world that grows more chaotic, unpredictable, incalculable. The magic of a great mystery series is to hold up the keys of character and action to solve the insoluble, to calculate the incalculable. The outré becomes familiar, understandable, even relatable. The ‘other’ becomes 'us' as foreign settings grow more familiar with each tale, and the iconic hero becomes more dear with each telling. 

The trappings of xenophobia can be stripped away as we visit Dr. Siri Paiboun in war-torn Laos, or Arkady Renko in the Russian Federation, Shan Tao Yun in Tibet, or Inspector Gamache in Montreal.


All fight corruption and crime on their own exotic turf, while we watch and learn about humans being human, for good and ill. To see justice served, even in fiction, is to see our own problems, and perceive beyond the probable to the possible...


...to honor just choices in everyday life, even against dark odds. 

Herald from the Hemingway House

"The Hemingway House residency was a dream. I hacked my way through the hairy middle act of a novel, steeped myself in Hemingway’s work after

a long time away (and was oddly moved and refreshed by it), and

explored the winter beauty of the Wood River Valley.


"I was so impressed by the vibrancy of the Ketchum community that I

dare say I fell in love. I’d love to come back to write more in that magical place, though I’m not sure how much writing I’ll do now that I’ve found

my true calling as a cross-country skier."

~Peter Mann

Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House

Watch Peter's program, The Torqued Man, on Vimeo here.

Recommended Mystery Titles

Ah! To unravel a mysteryto sort through clues, reveal secrets, see justice donewe all love a good mystery. In this spirit, The Community Library celebrates National Mystery Month. Here are a few titles we like in print, digital, and film, in English and Spanish (all free with your Library card).

Find these and more recommendations, across genres, here.

by Dana Stabenow

in MAIN Mystery

MYSTERY Stabenow

by Collin Cotterill

in MAIN Mystery

MYSTERY Cotterill

by Naomi Hirahara

in MAIN Mystery

MYSTERY Hirahara

Recommended Digital Titles

by Nita Prose

in eBook, eAudiobook,

and print

by Ruth Are

in eBook, eAudiobook,

CD, and print


from BBC Studios

in video

Streaming on Kanopy

Children's/YA Titles

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

in Children's New

J FIC BUN 1

by Serena Blasco

in YA Graphic Novel

YA G FIC BLA 2

by Emily Inouye Huey

in YA Fiction

YA FIC HUE

Spanish Titles

by Kate Pankhurst

in Juv Fiction Spanish

CJ FIC SPA PAN

by Juan Gómez-Jurado

in MAIN Display

SPA FIC GOM

by Leonardo Padura

in MAIN DISPLAY

FICTION Padura

THANK YOU to Our April Donors

Donors

Kirsten K. Coughlin

Jean and Pete De Luca

The Estate of Patricia Crandall Lane

Mary Pat and Joseph Gunderson

Ellen F. James

Patrick J. McMahon II

Cheryl and James Rice

Leslie and Tim Silva

Barbie and Jeff Steen

Judith Teller Kaye and David Kaye

Penny and Ted Thomas


Page Turner Society

Robyn and Todd Achilles

Big Wood Landscape

Daphne Coble and Patrick Murphy

Kathleen Diepenbrock and Kelley Weston

Claudia and John D. Gaeddert

Diana Hewett

Kevin Lavelle

Kyla Merwin

Elaine Phillips

Narda Pitkethly

Gay Weake

Anita Weissberg


In-Kind Gift

Carlyn Ring

Did You Know You Can Also Give

Out of Your Investments?

The Community Library is supported by people who believe in the free flow of news, entertainment, and information.

 

The Library gladly accepts stock donations. Also, you might look at the benefits of making a gift from your IRA (also known as IRA Charitable Rollover Gifts). Money can be transferred directly from your IRA to a 501(c)(3) charity, such as The Library, TAX-FREE! Donors must be 70½ years of age, and a gift from an IRA helps you meet your Required Minimum Distributions.


Strategize now to save on next year’s taxes. Director of Philanthropy, Carter Hedberg, is here to assist you. 

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