Customer Reviews

The Awdrey-Gore Legacy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book in the art gallery. I loved it from the begining. Then we went out for Chinese food. So, in my mind, those two things are conected. D.Awdrey-Gore is based on Agatha Christie, who I'm also a big fan of, so this this book is twice as great.

This book is wonderful and funny - in Gorey's typically macabre style. This little picture book cleverly lampoons the cliches of the mystery genre - leaving any Christie or Sayers fan not only admiring the artwork but convulsed over the stories! My favourite part - one method of murder suggested - labelled "Inexplicable" - a handful of confetti! Think about it... this book is guarnteed to make you do that!

amusing but too short, not really a mystery but an illusion of one. True Gorey in terms of drawings and content, but not a lot of book for the buck.

Edward Gorey is an intriguing cult author-illustrator, as many assume he was an Edwardian Englishman when he was an American prolific during the latter half of the 20th Century. His works are dark, funny, disturbing, and sometimes so strange that you might wonder if the entire thing was an inside joke he failed to let anyone else in on.

The Awdrey-Gore Legacy is incredibly strange. The premise is that an Agatha Christie-like mystery author is found dead years after disappearing (Christie, to whom the book is dedicated, went missing for eleven days, though under very different circumstances), and "that she had been murdered was obvious." The rest of the book is notes of what may be an unfinished mystery novel or clues to her own death. There is a protagonist (a half-Irish, half-Japanese former mercenary who is missing a hand, a leg, and an eye), a cast of characters, possible places where the body is to be found, potential methods of murder, and the layout of a hedge maze. Gorey plays with mystery novel conventions and cliches throughout.

If you read this and become frustrated because you can't solve the mystery, don't worry. There is no solution to this puzzle, just loose pieces and misleading hints. And it should be loved all the more for that.

The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, an entertainment from Edward Gorey, first published in 1972 has been republished in a handsome new edition from Pomegranate of San Francisco. The book is "a Mobius Mystery containing Portents, Fragments and significant Objects..." In fact, because of it's fragmentary nature this new edition could just as easily have been published in a decorative box with cards and lists and various objets trouvés.

The wit and anagrammatic whimsy of Gorey has never been more apparent. The elderly D. Awdrey-Gore, celebrated spinster-author of detective stories has turned up murdered on St. Spasmus Day -- she had previously disappeared on this same saint's day in 1927 . A little confusing, but delicious fun!

Gorey has summoned an impressive cast of characters including Waredo Dyrge, half Irish, half Japanese soldier of fortune and detective of the highest rank who announces his deductions in the form of linked haiku and is portrayed by E.G. in a series of drawings exhibiting progressively more extreme amputations and prosthetics (all in the line of duty I presume!).

The cast of suspects are all those you would expect to meet in an Agatha Christie mystery (to whom the book is dedicated) -- the Vicar, the Baronet, the Amateur Cricketer, the Village Ancient, and many more, including "The authorities: local/Scotland Yard" -- all presented in fine pen and ink as only Edward Gorey could.

Scenes of the crime (crimes?), methods of elimination (blunt, limp, gradual and instantaneous!), and assorted clues and ephemera are all portrayed in progressively more mysterious exposition until the final denouement! Gorey at his best!