A tragic climax: the horrifc murder of the popular fiction writer Arnold Baffin

The murder of the prolific popular writer, Arnold Baffin, has shocked the nation. ‘Who?’ you may ask but those who knew him and liked his work are intense in their devotion. Among his titles are: The precious Labyrint, Tobias and the Fallen Angel, A Skull on Fire and my personal favourite – Mysticism and Literature.

What made this murder of the ‘wonderful’ writer all the more chilling was that it was committed by an intimate friend. Bradley Pearson, a 58 year old retired tax inspector and a failed writer with a fixation with Hamlet, has been arrested for the murder of his friend, his literary rival and protégé. The police found Arnold Baffin dead in his home, his skull slightly indented by a large fire poker. They found Arnold’s blood and hair on the poker, and Mr Baffin’s blood on Bradley Pearson’s shoes which places him at the scene of the crime.

Rachel Baffin, the unhappy and unfulfilled wife of Arnold, in an interview revealed how Bradley Pearson was a rather dull and rude person, envious of Arnold’s success as writer and constantly critiqued Arnold’s work. This short paragraph from a recent review of Mr Baffin’s work, by his friend and murderer (what an oxymoron!) reveals their different attitude to art:

"Arnold Baffin is a fluent writer. He is a prolific writer. It may well be this facility which is his own worst enemy. It is a quality which can be mistaken for imagination. And if the artist himself so mistakes it he is doomed. The writer who is facile needs, to become a writer of any merit, quality about all; and that is courage: the courage to destroy, the courage to wait."

From the outset the police could not understand why anyone would want to hurt Arnold Baffin, a man who was as ‘harmless as a fly’. Mr Baffin’s wife, Rachel Baffin, provided the police with two motives. She claims that though Mr Pearson was a cold and distant man, he was never violent and that he must have been driven to this horrendous act out of not only envy, but vengeance.

Vengeance for what you may ask.

Bradley Pearson, 58, had a love-affair with Julian Baffin, 20, daughter of the victim. It was Mr Baffin who tore the lovers apart, revealing Mr Pearson’s true age; Mr Pearson had told Julian he was ten years younger.

However, it was not the revelation of his true age which killed their relationship but rather the revelation that Mr Pearson had sex with Julian Baffin – who at the time was dressed as Hamlet, for the first time immediately after he heard about the suicide of his mentally distressed sister, Priscilla Saxe; a death for which Mr Pearson is partly responsible because of neglect. What a piece of work is a man! Naturally the naïve and foolish Julian Baffin fled the very next morning after having refused to leave Bradley Pearson the night before when her father had revealed some home truths. To flaming youth let virtue be a wax.

Did Bradley Pearson truly love Julian? His diaries and his letters – which we were granted an exclusive look at, revealed an intense love for Julian, but how much of this was just simply lust misunderstood? After all, his diary revealed that on their first ‘proper’ date at the restaurant in the Post Office Tower that a sort of giddiness filled him, locating itself primarily in the genitals.

Far more important is the question did Bradley Pearson really the commit murder? A deep throat source has suggested that actually Bradley Pearson had undergone a transformation because of his love for Julian, that is he became a better, a more generous man than he was. This deep throat source has also revealed that Mr Pearson has been framed for the murder and is only keeping silent to protect someone he loves. A final shocking revelation from this deep throat is that our beloved Arnold Baffin was not as ‘harmless as a fly’ but rather a violent man, as his wife’s often bruised face and eyes testified.

Could this be true? Could Bradley Pearson actually be innocent? The mind boggles. Is this a grave miscarriage of justice?

To find out, please read ‘The Black Prince’ by Iris Murdoch, available from Vintage Classics.

Fooled you.

For never was a story of more woe than this of – sorry, wrong play.

Famous Frontal Development ...

The doorbell rings.

A semi –drunk (who could tell the difference?) Phil Mitchell slouches off the couch and looks outside through the window. Like a bad horror movie no one is outside. He assumes it is kids playing tricks.

The doorbell rings again.

Frustrated, he opens the door and shouts ‘I know who you are!’ in a drunken stupor. He wobbles down two steps, ‘I know who you are the next time I see ya, I’m gonna turn ya backside, do ya hear me?’ Half of Walford probably did mate.

He turns his pack and wobbles up the steps and …imitating some sort of 70s spy movie, the head of a gun peaks out of some leaves.

The gun is fired by someone hiding,

Cut to Phil Mitchell leaning against the wall. He touches his chest, his face twists in agony, he rolls down the steps and falls on his face. He convulses a little, raises his head and with blurry eyes looks about him – does he see the killer run off? Is he dead? The sound of a train gets louder before it mingles with the iconic theme tune which to me has always sounded like somebody using the bald head of the Mithchell brothers as drums.

An epic moment in Eastenders? Probably the last decent storyline in it.

Who shot Phil Mitchell? Come on, out with it, which bugger messed it up and didn’t finish the job?

What I can tell you is that it wasn’t Becky Sharp.

WHO?

Because Becky Sharp isn’t the kind of girl who would mess up a job like that, she’d do it properly, she’d blow him to pieces of chunky raw meat in blood gravy and feed it to her spaniel. Atta girl!


Vanity Fair, an epic triple-decker bus length , contains the essential ingredients for a good soap; from morally corrupt characters to ridiculous self-important oafs to murders and plenty of sex. Becky Sharp, regardless of whether Thackeray intended his audience to like her, is perhaps the most memorable character in any medium of fiction – on paper, on screen (as long as she is not played by the cute Witherspoon) and stage. Not provocatively clad in leather, latex and boots but in Victorian style dress, Becky Sharp possess the brains, ambition and ruthlessness that few women are blessed – or plagued, with. And of course add to that combination - her infamous looks – ‘Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development’ (chapter 19). Famous frontal development? With all due respect to her - why did Witherspoon play her I wonder.

It is ‘a novel without a hero’ because almost every character has a ridiculous fault within their nature. Even the insipid and passive but sweet and virtuous Amelia Sedley, who still loves and grieves over her dead and worthless husband. She, however unconsciously, selfishly exploits William Dobbin, the only gentleman in the novel and who has been passionately in love with Amelia Sedley since the moment he sets eyes on her. But he is indeed a true gentleman and never acts on his feelings because Amelia is in love and engaged – and then married through his help, to his close friend George Osborne. But I find that Dobbin has faults too, he is a bad judge of character - he fails to see George Osborne for what he truly is; and then he wastes his affections on Amelia and by the end of the novel realises that he has wasted his entire life pursuing someone who is not worthy. And if I'm completely honest his perpetual self-sacrifical attitude annoyed the hell out of me sometimes. Maybe it's the 'modern' woman in me but he should have been a bit more...'manly'. That's it. He should have declared his feelings much sooner and just generally be a bit more dominant and forceful. Women like that sort of that thing - just read any self-help book.

Amelia is juxtaposed against Becky Sharp throughout the novel, even from the opening chapters. In the first chapter both girls leave Miss Pinkerton’s school for ladies with a very different future ahead of them. Amelia was loved by all and treated as an equal whereas Becky was isolated and disliked because of her social status – the orphaned daughter of an opera singer and a poor artist. The difference? Money of course. Becky herself thinks half way through the novel that with five thousands pounds a year she could be - could be - could be - a good woman.

Rebecca Sharp, the indomitable quintessential anti-heroine, sacrifices all in her path, from husband to friend to son, for her ambition, for money and a place in society. Without a mother to secure her future (as so many mothers found their daughters a rich husband – who must be in want of a wife), Becky Sharp must secure her own future. She almost snares Joseph Sedley, brother of Amelia, early in the novel. Failing that she begins to work a governess to Sir Pitt Crawley’s daughters. His sister, Miss Crawley, is my second favourite character, after Becky, in the novel and one of the few people in Vanity Fair who see through her act. Thackeray out-classes even Dickens in his caricatures. Miss Crawley is a rich old hypochondriac, morally rebellious and has an irrational fear of death – not surprisingly when all her relations are waiting for the moment she keels over so they can have her money. Becky acts as a nurse to her and during that time the old woman becomes attached to her charms and wit and her constant mocking of others. It is during her contact with the Crawleys she meets her future husband – Rawdon Crawley, the son of Pitt Crawley; the heir and favourite of Miss Crawley. He falls in love with Becky Sharp, however, on her part she feels nothing but secretly marries him because his aunt will leave him all her fortune.

However, Miss Crawley is somewhat of a hypocrite. She praises unequal marriages but becomes angry when her nephew makes an unequal match with Becky Sharp. Although she dotes on Becky Sharp and think she is good enough for her brother Sir Pitt Crawley (after Lady Crawley dies), she thinks Becky Sharp is not worthy of her nephew, of her favourite. She becomes outraged when she hears of their clandestine marriage,; that her favourtie should marry a penniless governess and right under her nose too!

Her quasi-rise and success, and her subsequent fall and demise mark Rebecca Sharp as a truly remarkable character. She redeems herself a little at the end of the novel in her only selfless act - towards her old friend Amelia by exposing George for what he truly was. Amelia, under Becky's revelation about her quondam lover, can now let go of the past and stop hero-worshipping her husband; and is able to grasp with both hands her last chance of happiness. Even at the end of the novel the stark differences between the two girls stands. For example, Amelia is younger, and as Gilbert K. Chesterton remarked in 1909:

she has not lost her power of happiness; her stalk is not broken [...] But the energy of Becky is the energy of a dead woman; it is like the rhythmic kicking of some bisected insect [...] The life of the innocent, even the stupidly innocent, is within; [...] Thackeray’s thought is really suggestive; that perhaps even softness is a sort of superiority; it is better to be open to all emotions as they come than to reach the hell of Rebecca; the hell of having all outward forces open, but all receptive organs closed (Bartleby).

Thackeray weaves several plots together like a master craftsman with one common purpose – to expose human folly. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, despite its length, never gets dull and is a must read, not just for the cheap thrills that a soap can provide you but - far more importantly - for the lessons we can deduce from the text. He removes the thin fragile shroud characters use to cover their true motives and nature to expose a selfish and morally corrupt set of people who fail in their aims in the end; who under false labours pursue what they think they want the most - what they THINK they want the most - after all – ‘Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or, having it, is satisfied?’

My magic white chair which holds an ongoing scrumptious pile of books

Contrary to popular belief, I have a very large bedroom. Filled with - what I call valuable treasures, what my dear mother calls clutter. The nerve! I'm always worried that I will go home, up the stairs, open the door and wham! It's tidy and empty. It's very tidy, believe me. Just not her version of tidy. If she had her way I'd be left with minimal furniture and no computer or bookshelf, if she's in a good mood she might leave the bed alone!

Next to my dressing table is a magic chair. Forget magic beans, you want this chair. It's white, rickety (is that a word? Should it be crikety? Someone should let me write the dictionary). Where was I - ah, my magic chair.

This magic chair is really vulnerable which is why it is never in use. When you sit on it you always get the impression that any minute now, really, any second now the legs will give away and scenes from your childhood movies will come alive. But it's a magic chair.

It can take the weight of about twenty books.

But not human weight.

I pile books, a handful I don't own (but not stolen), I want to read sometime soon on this chair. And I work my way through it. The problem is that this pile gets bigger and bigger every week. And still the chair does not give away. They must have a mutal understanding, the books and the chair. Sounds like a Chekhov short story doesn't it? 'The Books and the Chair'.
'You're staring to get too heavy for me.' The chair said one day to the books.'Blame it on Dickens' Plath moaned as she looked down from the top of the pile. Should she jump? It's not a bad way to go. Maybe the guy - what was his name? James something, Henry James - maybe he would catch her. Their paths crossed yesterday. They had a brief conversation about the weather. But when she'd got back to the top she got the impression - like she always did after a conversation with him, that he meant something entirely different. She wished the silly man would just say exactly what he meant.

Here's what the pile looks like on 20th January ('R' means I've read it before but I don't feel like I've 'finished' with them - ever get that feeling?) :

Vanity Fair by W. M. Thackeray (R)
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
The Time of the Angels by Iris Murdoch
The sea, The sea by Iris Murdoch (R)
The sea by John Banville
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
The Driver’s seat by Muriel Spark
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Wings of a dove by Henry James (R)S
aturday by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Espedair Street by Iain Banks
The Bridge by Iain Banks
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A passage to India by E.M. Forster
The world according to Garp by John Irving
The story of Edgar Sawtelle by D. Wroblewski
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Guardian 1000 books everyone should read series

1000 novels everyone must read: Love
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...-love-part-one

1000 novels everyone must read: Crime http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...crime-part-one

1000 novels everyoone must read: Comedy http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...omedy-part-one