Customer Reviews

Beat Not the Bones

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This book is part mystery, part cultural clash, part un-romanticized love story and part sociological thriller all rolled into a lovely, haunting read set in Papua, New Guinea. Although written in the early '50s, it's rather complex and has a very contemporary feel. After reading this book I wanted to find anything else Ms. Jay has written but alas, her other books seem to be unavailable in the U.S. Someone should make a movie out of this great little novel

The title is of course from Act 5, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, in which Armando says "The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed, he was a man." In this case, the buried is David Warwick, an anthropologist in Papua New Guinea, circa 1950, who is nominally in charge of native welfare and protection of indigenous customs. When he dies, apparently by suicide, his young wife comes from Australia to uncover the truth about the husband she barely knew.

Jay (actually a pseudonym of Geraldine Halls) packs plenty of Conradian themes into this brooding slim tale. When Stella arrives from the mainland, she finds that every white person is either lying to her or on the verge of a mental breakdown. Gone from the protective cocoon that has shielded her for her entire life, she finds herself wholly capable and unafraid to journey to the heart of darkness, to the village that holds the secret of her husband's death. It's a very dark examination of the human psyche, with plenty to say about colonialism, racism and sexism. One would be hard-pressed to tell it was written fifty years ago.

This is such a rich mystery, one that loops back on itself. Although one reading satisfies all the criteria for a great mystery, a second reading reveals how sly the author is in conveying what is a very dark vision of human motivations. I won't give any more away. Suffice to say, the atmosphere, the plotting, the insight into the psychological motivations and motives of the characters, and the knowing presentation of the British operations in the Territories gives this an all-too credible feel. On first reading, the horrible secret may seem dated, but on the second reading, with all the plot and character machinations truly revealed, the secret becomes all too appaling. This book was very hard to find in the stores, by the way. Enjoy!

This is such a rich mystery, one that loops back on itself. Although one reading satisfies all the criteria for a great mystery, a second reading reveals how sly the author is in conveying what is a very dark vision of human motivations. I won't give any more away. Suffice to say, the atmosphere, the plotting, the insight into the psychological motivations and motives of the characters, and the knowing presentation of the British operations in the Territories gives this an all-too credible feel. On first reading, the horrible secret may seem dated, but on the second reading, with all the plot and character machinations truly revealed, the secret becomes all too appaling. This book was very hard to find in the stores, by the way. Enjoy!

First Line: It is said of a young man in a popular song that he has the moon in his pocket. Alfred Jobe had two moons in his.

David Warwick is a distinguished anthropologist living in Marapai on New Guinea. He is in charge of protecting the natives from exploitation. His young wife is in Australia taking care of her invalid father. When Stella is told that her husband has committed suicide, she doesn't believe it and travels to Marapai to investigate for herself.

At first, I wanted to slap Stella silly because she's exactly the type of woman who drives me nuts: "She had come here for comfort and peace, to be helped by her husband's friend, to be looked after, to be guided and directed as she had always been." Stella is a young woman who's been convent-educated-- not because her family is Catholic, but because her father believed that this sort of education would make her more biddable and "womanly". Stella fully believes that she will be able to find the answers to her questions simply because she's young and nice and pretty and has always behaved. Pah.

When Stella finally realizes that she's been lied to by just about everyone in Marapai, she finally develops the beginnings of a spine and takes her impromptu investigation to a different level-- even leaving Marapai for a bit:

"Behind them the wharf grew smaller with extraordinary rapidity. With each moment Marapai was more infinitesimal. An hour ago it had been the whole island, now it was almost swallowed up. As they moved towards the long coastline stretching ahead, the land they were seeking reached out to them, hungry and waiting for victims."


Even though I found Stella exasperating for the most part, I did admire her sheer stubbornness. Once she had an idea in her head, she clung to it like a barnacle, and since she was so young and innocent, the men she was trying to deal with went out of their way to avoid scraping her off their keels.

I can see why this book was the winner of the very first Edgar Award for Best Novel. There's an innocent young heroine looking for the truth. There are well-camouflaged bad guys. Several characters have been in the tropics too long, and they've either had nervous breakdowns, or they're right on the verge of them. And they're all in a lush, alien landscape where the weather, the colors-- almost everything around them-- is just more than human senses can take in and protect itself against.

At the beginning, I read this book because it took place in a part of the world I knew very little about. By book's end I knew I'd just finished reading a well-crafted mystery. I'll definitely be looking for Charlotte Jay's other books.