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[lesbiassparrow]

Have you ever read or watched something with a section that made you go 'What? WHAT???? I can't believe they are saying/doing/advocating that!' And then you trundle off to look at what people said in their reviews but can't find a single person mentioning it at all. And you wonder why they wouldn't mention because surely it can't just be you alone who had this reaction.

Something someone said recently about P.D. James made me remember that this was my experience reading Original Sin. I like P.D, James and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is one of my favourite detective novels, but this book, well, it was just bizarre. There's a part of the story that revolves around a disgraced Anglican priest who was disgraced for interfering with young boys. It's not rape, but there seems to have certainly been touching and inappropriate behaviour. However, the story and the characters within it see it as a shocking and dreadful thing that he should have lost his parish because some lower class boys were encouraged to beef up their stories by well-meaning and obtrusive people when everyone knows those sort of boys would say anything and nothing too terrible happened. No, honestly, that was pretty much the gist of it, especially the bit about the lower class boys. I read that bit several times because I thought I must have been misreading it. But when I went to look not a single reviewer even mentioned that bit; the closest I came was a comment in The Guardian about James' tory (small t) politics and view of England.

Comments

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

I must have missed that one... The books were always conservative but in a sort of Agatha Christie way that I could deal with and which usually worked in her universe. But this one...well, it's hard to really deal with someone who clearly thinks that in the good old days people wouldn't have complained about a vicar being too familiar with underage boys. It's a pity, too, as I think she's one of the better detective writers and does take care with her books rather than just churn them out.

[lycomingst.livejournal.com]

I know. It IS a shame. I still have my copy of Uunsuitable Job for a Woman, what a treat that was when it first came out.