{"id":5959,"date":"2024-09-14T06:32:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T13:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5959"},"modified":"2024-09-14T06:32:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T13:32:50","slug":"alan-bradley-what-time-the-sextons-spade-doth-rust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/alan-bradley-what-time-the-sextons-spade-doth-rust\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Bradley: What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flavia DeLuce #11<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you haven\u2019t read this series, and I must admit that I have not, you are missing a treat. Flavia is the world\u2019s most precocious 11-year-old chemist and poison expert. A British orphan with very adult British attitudes in 1950s England, Flavia nonchalantly deals with post-war rationing, dead bodies, poisons, spies, kidnapping, and murder \u2013 along with a couple of surprises I won\u2019t spoil.<\/p>\n

The plot revolves around the death of a neighbor, Major Greyleigh, who apparently died from eating poison mushrooms cooked by Flavia\u2019s housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet. Surely she wouldn\u2019t murder someone, even accidentally! Major Greyleigh was once a hangman. Could he have been murdered by a family member of someone he killed in the line of duty? Investigating the murder leads Flavia to a nearby American airbase with unexpected and surprising complications.<\/p>\n

The fun part of the story is watching the intellectual Flavia deal with other characters including devoted servant Dogger, her annoying cousin Undine, and the intellectually inferior police. Flavia\u2019s ego is hilariously over the top: \u201cI have to admit that I\u2019d been praying for ages to God, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints for a jolly good old-fashioned mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift of science\u2014of chemistry, to be precise\u2014such as mine without giving her the opportunity to use it?\u201d<\/p>\n

I found Flavia\u2019s narration amusing but also sometimes found it hard to suspend my disbelief. Could an 11-ish child really have such an adult understanding of the world, the ability to outthink everyone around her, and the confidence to stand up to adult authorities whom she must confront? If this were a children\u2019s book, I\u2019d expect this, but in a book clearly written for an adult audience, it\u2019s harder to accept. It could be that I\u2019m taking the book too seriously or that not reading the previous books has put me at a disadvantage. I suspect long-time fans adore this outing with their old friend Flavia.<\/p>\n

One aspect softened my attitude towards Flavia. It’s now 1953 and she is feeling the first hints of adolescence which conflict with her intellectual personality. She is puzzled by feelings that sometimes confuse her and distract her thinking. By the end of the books she thinks she has come to terms with the idea of these changes, in her own not-so-humble way: \u201cI realized fully, for the first time ever, who I am. I am a new person. I am the Phoenix reborn. I am Flavia de Luce: a living and vital mushroom growing out of the dead wood of the de Luce family. It is going to be quite a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed! I can hardly wait for the next book. Until then, I have the rest of the series to read, starting with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I must admit that the title puzzled me until I found the quote on the Scottish Poetry Library web site:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the End\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrew Dodds<\/a><\/p>\n

When my last song is finished,<\/em>
\nAnd my heart has lost its fire,<\/em>
\nWhen passion is diminished,<\/em>
\nAnd dead is all desire,<\/em>
\nI pray with Death there\u2019s no belating,<\/em>
\nTo keep the undertaker waiting.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have no dread of dying,<\/em>
\nBut, O, I fear to think<\/em>
\nThat long I\u2019ll be kept lying<\/em>
\nWorn out upon the brink,<\/em>
\nWhat time the sexton\u2019s spade doth rust,<\/em>
\nAnd he must drink his ale on trust.<\/em><\/p>\n

I suspect British readers will recognize the quote and understand the context without having to look it up like I did!\u00a0 —\u00a0Cathy Akers-Jordan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flavia DeLuce #11 If you haven\u2019t read this series, and I must admit that I have not, you are missing a treat. Flavia is the world\u2019s most precocious 11-year-old chemist and poison expert. A British orphan with very adult British attitudes in 1950s England, Flavia nonchalantly deals with post-war rationing, dead bodies, poisons, spies, kidnapping, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1839,1837,919,78,1838,10,742,1840],"class_list":["post-5959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1950s-england","tag-alan-bradley","tag-bantam","tag-cathy-akers-jordan","tag-flavia-deluce","tag-historical","tag-poison","tag-what-time-the-sextons-spade-doth-rust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5959"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5963,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5959\/revisions\/5963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}