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Bookclub: "Total Recall"
Presented by Maureen Corrigan
Mystery Reviewer for Book World
Thursday, May 30, 2002; Noon EDT
Welcome to the online meeting of The Washington Post Book Club, a monthly program presented by the editors and writers of Washington Post Book World.
This month Maureen Corrigan, mystery reviewer for Book World, will be leading the discussion on this month's selection, Sara Paretsky's "Total Recall." Read this month's review of "Total Recall."
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Maureen Corrigan: Total Recall is a multi-stranded narrative in the tradition of Sara Paretsky's best mysteries. V.I. Warshawski is called in to investigate an insurance fraud case that ultimately has links to long-buried World War II crimes. Meanwhile, V.I.'s best friend, Dr. Lotty Herschel, begins to be troubled by her own memories of the war--memories that take flesh and blood form in the guise of a stalker who claims to be related to Lotty's extended Viennese family. What distinguishes Total Recall in the Parestsky canon is the interweaving of Lotty's wartime saga with V.I.'s present-time investigation.
Lenexa, Kans.:
Ms. Corrigan,
One of your comments notices how the female PIs--at least those in series--tend to go thru multiple romantic relationships (none seeming to last, e.g., Warshawski, Millhone, Plum--probably all). Is it the robust female grown beyond being submissive? One would think so.
Also of course, as in adding "the past" to the genre, both give ample material to develop and keep the series exciting. Anyway, "Total Recall" is a much better novel because of its literary vigor--its intelligence, its historical setting and themes, its use of controversial issues (memory-planting, sectarian Christianity, etc.) Your thoughts? Thanks much.
Maureen Corrigan: It's true that the overwhelming number of female p.i.'s wrestle with the same problems of "intimacy" and "commitment" that have long bedeviled their male counterparts. I think that this fear of abridging one's autonomy is built into the hard-boiled formula. Remember, the hard-boiled mystery descends from the American western, the Arthurian legends, James Fennimore Cooper's Deerslayer books--in short a whole host of stories and myths that feature a lone warrior whose strength is compromised when he allows himself to "fall" for a woman. The difference in the post-1960s hard boileds--those featuring both men and women detectives--is that the detective is usually surrounded by an alternative family of sorts that cushions his/her loneliness.
Hagerstown, Md.:
How is this book different from other Paretsky novels?
Maureen Corrigan: Total Recall is much more ambitious in its interweaving of present-time mystery (the insurance fraud case that V.I. is investigating) and the chapters of italicized retrospections of Lotty Herschel. Both narratives, however, engage the typical "larger" Warshawski concerns: how to live a moral, autonomous life, how to make peace with one's demons, how to do a man's job in a man's world
Washington, D.C.:
Wasn't Sara Paretsky featured at the Book Club event? Who else was on the panel and what do you think about local mystery writers?
washingtonpost.com:
Transcript: Book Club: "The Millionaires" with Brad Meltzer (Post, May 2)
Maureen Corrigan: Yes, Sara Paretsky was the featured writer at our Book Club special event. Brad Meltzer (whose suspense novels are often set in D.C.) was also there as was John Lescroart, another fine suspense writer. As far as D.C. mystery writers go,George Pelicanos is king.
Fairfax, Va.:
Did you feel that Paretsky delineated her characters well at the beginning of the book? I had a hard time trying to distinguish between Michael, Max, et. al initially. I felt that the characters were not well-introduced and that she should have spent more time developing them.
Maureen Corrigan: Max has appeared in other Paretsky novels, so I had no trouble tracking him. Admittedly, I did sometimes confuse Michael with Max's friend, Carl Tisov. Maybe it was my fault, maybe Paretsky's. Even Homer nods.
Maui, Hawaii:
Hello, Ms. Corrigan,
Thank you for choosing this book for this month's selection. It is one of the most unique mysteries I've ever read: Part history, part suspense, part biblical lesson. But it's not the clever, Holmesian tale. I didn't find it tidy and puzzle-perfect. Paretsky is trying to do something more than entertain and intrigue her readers. Don't you feel a little something of the lecture here? I wonder.
Maureen Corrigan: Paretsky is often criticized for "lecturing" in her mysteries (usually for lecturing about feminism, homelessness, women's health issues). I think, in comparison to her "rival," Sue Grafton (whom I like a lot), Paretsky is much more somber in tone and more ambitious in her attempts to integrate social criticism into her mystery plot. Much as I worship the Holmes stories and other mysteries that cleverly "sew up" unanswered questions at the end, I really love the American hard-boiled tradition with its messy narrative structure. Life is full of ambiguities, nagging questions, puzzles, Big Existential Mysteries etc. and that's what the great American mystery writers, from Hammett to Paretsky and her contemporaries, are constanting telling us in their books.
Arlington, Va.:
Who would you say are the current leading mystery writers?
Maureen Corrigan: Wow. The list is legion.
Here are some of my favorites:
Laurie R King
Ian Rankin
George Pelicanos
Marcia Muller
Sue Grafton
Richard Stevenson
Robert B. Parker
Dennis Lehane
Archer Mayor
Lisa Scottoline (legal thrillers)
Lawrence Block
I'm sure I'll think of a few more before the hour is over.
Rockville, Md.:
I am glad to see that a mystery has been selected for discussion by the Book Club together with the more serious choices. Why did you select this book as representative of the mystery genre? How do you think Paretsky is different from the other detective novels out there, including the growing female detective stories?
Maureen Corrigan: I think mysteries are serious fiction, so I don't buy the value distinction. (There are also lots of junky mysteries, of course, the same as there are lots of junky "literary" novels.) Lots of so-called serious writers, like Paul Auster, have used the mystery form as a vehicle for their dead-serious investigations of the bleaker regions of society and the human heart.
Anyway, I think, as I've said, this Paretsky novel especially deserves attention because of its ambitious narrative structure--one that features two first-person narrators and two time periods. Also, like a lot of recent mysteries Total REcall features a World War II theme. There's a sense of time running out and witnesses perishing that gives urgency to these mysteries. (An Ian Rankin mystery that I'm currently reading, maybe it's The Hanging Garden, also features the WWII "theme.")
SOme readers have told me they think V.I. is happier in this mystery--she's got a nice apt., office, boyfriend,established reputation. I think maybe Paretsky wanted to put more of the spotlight on Lotty here, so perhaps V.I. wasn't allowed as much of her trademark grousing and social criticism.
Total Recall is like other contemporary detective novels featuring female p.i.s in that it engages the global question of a woman's ability to do a "man's job." P.D. James, whose 1970s novel, "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" is often identified as the first of this new wave of mysteries featuring female p.i.s posed the key question in her title. How can a woman be a p.i. and still be "womanly"? THe other aspect of the contemporary hard-boiled mystery that fascinates me is the alternative family that's constructed as a consequence of the detective's work and surrounds him/her throughout the length of the series. Certainly "Total Recall" is obsessed with the life stories and the moral choices of V.I.'s alternative family. Anyway, apart from the theory, I think "Total REcall" also features some of the most thought-provoking and snappy dialogue of the Warshawski series.
Lenexa, Kans.:
I've seen Kathleen Turner as V.I. in the 1991 Jeff Kanew film: V.I. Warshawski--"based on Sara Paretsky's novels." Do you know how she felt about the movie version? Were there any other of her novels filmed? Or plans to? Thanks.
Maureen Corrigan: Judging by what Paretsky said at the Book CLub event, she would rather forget the Kathleen Turner film. (So would I--Kathleen Turner, or the director, turned V.I. into a Honey West-like sex kitten).
Paretsky said at the event that, at the time of that Kathleen Turner movie, she dumbly sold the film rights to Warshawski to, I think, DIsney. She's been trying to get them back, but no dice. I hope if Disney makes any more Warshawski films, they at least get someone like Helen Mirren to play V.I. I loved the "Prime Suspect" series for its depiction of a tired, intelligent, sexy, self-reliant female (police) detective. (By the way,I hear that there is another Prime Suspect film in the works.)
Arlington, Va.:
Does this have anything to do with the Arnold Shwartzenegger film of the same name?
Maureen Corrigan: Nope, not a thing. Perhaps Paretsky thought the film was far enough in the past (and, perhaps, that her readership was sufficiently distinguished from Arnold's fans) that she could take a chance on the title. IN any case, it's a fine, ironic title for her mystery.
Crofton, Md.:
You picked a fine mystery, despite its
convoluted plot. Was Sara Paretsky trying
to show us that anti-Semitism of the Nazi
variety still exists and that Maccobean Jews
Orthodox? Can be anti-Semitic as well?
Maureen Corrigan: I do think that Paretsky was not taking the easy way out in her book (i.e. pointing a finger at the Nazi's for their crimes while turning a blind eye to contemporary anti-Semitism). Instead, I agree that she wanted to show the long reach of the past evils into the present. One think I really like about Paretsky is that she's complicated: if she's going to explore, as she does here, the issue of reparation for victims of the Holocaust, she's also going to complicate the issue by bringing up the related question of reparations for descendants of American slavery. And, in Total Recall, she has Max and Lotty debate the issue of reparations (Lotty is against reparations; she thinks that parading one's pain before the world is unseemly and that the quest for financial compensation will just strengthen the anti-semetic stereotype of Jews as money hungry. Anyway, a lot of questions and moral dilemmas are left hanging here--just as they do in real life.
Somewhere, USA:
Wasn't Total Recall a title of a movie? Did it come from the book?
Maureen Corrigan: "Total Recall" was the title of an Arnold Schwarzenneger (sp?) film. THere's no relation between Paretsky's book and the film. Lots of titles are recycled in literature and film.
Alexandria, Va.:
It is interesting that you wrote a book about a movie. Arnald was great, and the story was fantastic. The scenery too, was magnificent. I can not wait to read all that spendor in your book
Are you going to do more like this? Please consider 'Raw Deal'
Maureen Corrigan: Don't read Paretsky's "Total REcall" if you expect a novelization of the Arnold Scharzenegger (sp?) film. The two are unrelated. Paretsky simply used the same title, a situation that happens often in art.
Lenexa, Kans.:
You've mentioned Grafton a couple times today--I know her work better. That's quite a project, her abcderium. She was recently asked if she was worried about Kinsey running out of ideas, she said "No, but I do worry about her creator."
Wodehouse is a great one at never running out of clever things. One has to admire the Graftons, the Peretskys who can keep a series going.
Maureen Corrigan: Clever reply on Grafton's part.
I think that series fiction is unfairly derided in the academy. A series allows an author to develop a character over time, adjust his/her attitudes and life situations, and make deeper social commentary. One of the pleasures of series fiction (as some critic who's name I've forgotten once said) is watching a writer ring changes on a familiar formula. I think, overall, Grafton (and Paretsky of course) have done an astonishing job of keeping their characters interesting and surprising. I'm eager to see what Paretsky, in particular, will do with the aging theme as V.I. approaches her 50s and beyond.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion. Join us next month at Noon EDT on June 27 for the next Bookclub discussion on "Voyage in the Dark" by Jean Rhys, presented by Zofia Smardz.
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