The Spirits of '76

Now it's Reyn time!

"Xenoblade Chronicles" 

Finished End of the Golden Witch and it appears the mystery of the Rokkenjima murders will still continue as usual in the last four episodes, so I added the ideas I got from the events/mysteries shown in that episode to the Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo. 

Everyone who has played Xenoblade Chronicles will instantly recall exactly how the line in the opening quote is read and pronounced.

Reynold Frame and Constance Wilder make their way to the Concord, Massachusetts, a historical town not only known for the eminent literary community of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau that once resided here, but also as one of the stages in the Revolutionary War. Frame and Constance are planning to get married next week, and who better to marry them than Constance' elderly relative Dr. John Annandale: the man is over a hundred years old and as a child, he even was told the story of the 1775 Concord battle by a man who actually fought in the war, but Annandale is still quite sharp. Annandale lives with Constance's aunt Kate and uncle Bowler in Concord, which is also the house Frame and Constance were going to stay, but due to circumstances they're a room short, and Frame has to stay with Tom Satterthwaite, a man down the street who runs a sort of a B&B. Frame learns from Satterthwaite that the previous guest in his room had disappeared six weeks ago without paying his rent, but the circumstances were quite mysterious: the man had suddenly disappeared from his room, though they had heard him moving around his room upstairs earlier, and he had somehow managed to take all his luggage with him and get out of the house without even making a single noise on the staircase. Frame learns there's a ghost story attached to Satterthwaite's house, about a wounded British soldier who was being nursed in this very room during the Concorde battle, but the betty lamp put next to him somehow disappeared after his death. During his first night here however, Frame is first haunted by a betty lamp that appears and disappears, and later during his stay he even hears the ghostly noise of marching soldiers in his room. He's utterly puzzled by these ghostly apparitions, but the discomposed body he later finds in the unused well behind Satterthwaite's house is obviously not a ghost, but Frame is determined to smooth things out so he and Constance can finally get married in Herbert Brean's Hardly a Man is Now Alive (1950).

Herbert Brean is perhaps best known for Wilders Walk Away, but because I never read things in order, I haven't read that one yet: Hardly a Man is Now Alive is the third novel in the same series starring Reynold Frame. I read the Dutch translation by the way, which is titled Het lijk in de waterput, or The Body in the Well, which errr, very clearly describes one of the main events in this novel. Just an extra question: what kind of titles do people usually prefer? These very to-the-point titles like "Something Something Murder Case" or "The Mystery of Something Something" or titles that are less straight and which you usually only understand after reading the story?

So I usually don't plan out my reviews and just write them as I go, though most of the time, I do have a few points ready in my head that I want to address in the post. I have to confess that with Hardly a Man is Now Alive, I find it difficult to really focus on a few clear points to discuss in detail. This is because the novel is really dense in terms of plot: a lot of plot-related events and backstories are thrown at the reader almost from page one on, and this basically doesn't stop until you get to the climax. The result is a novel that at first glance seems very busy and chaotic, with far too many plot threads being introduced one after another that are all somewhat related to each other, but not always in a clear manner (at first sight). As I had never read a Brean before, this only worried me, because after a while, it just seemed like he was trying to pile one mystery after another without really looking back ever again, and even if he would, the resolution of each mystery would probably not be very satisfying.

Fortunately, I have to admit my expectations (fear) were wrong, and that Brean did manage to tie all the various plot threads in Hardly a Man is Now Alive together for the conclusion, making it an overall satisfying read. There's a lot going on: the 'impossible' disappearance of the previous lodger and his luggge, the sighting of a person who's confirmed dead, ghostly sounds and lamps in Frame's room, a suspicious spirit medium who insists on swapping rooms with Frame, the historical mystery of the disappearing lamp of the British soldier in 1775, an important character suddenly disappearing near the end of the novel and more. Most of these mysteries ultimately belong to one of the two major storylines of this novel, and while the connection between these two mysteries is not very strong, they each have their own points of interest to them. The clewing for both storylines is a bit similar, focusing on minor contradictions between testimonies about certain actions/persons of various witnesses, but that does help make Hardly a Man is Now Alive feel like one consistent novel.

An argument can be made that the solutions to the many minor mysteries of the novel do come across as familiar, or simple. The mystery behind the ghostly sound of marching soldiers for example is the least interesting (but doable) solution anyone could think of, as is the mystery of the actual disappearance of the lamp of the British soldier. The reason for the lamp's disappearance is much better and ties in nicely with the historical mystery found within the account of the 1775 Concord battle, which is probably the best idea in terms of mystery plot in this novel, cleverly making use of the contradictions between the stories told by the various characters. The current-day disappearance of the lodger and the truth behind the body in the well again feature tropes that you are likely to have seen before in other mystery stories, but as I said earlier, I do think that Brean does a surprisingly good job at linking everything together, even if the seperate strands do not aim for the stars.

I guess that in a way, Hardly a Man is Now Alive reminds me of the few Norman Berrow novels I've read: packed plots that are entertaining to follow because a lot happens and the authors do manage to tie the many events together at the end, even if the individual plot threads and mysteries might not be very ambitious when it comes to the solution/truth. I should probably try Wilders Walk Away too one day.