Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Firefly Gadroon



# 6 Firefly Gadroon (©1982)

Genre: Mystery

Location: England


Firefly Gadroon (1982) begins with Lovejoy trying to master one of the lost arts of silver craft--the reverse gadroon--and ends with him on his way to jail but with agreements already made to exploit his mastery of that art. In between he is consulted about a firefly cage carved in coal and a carving that holds the secret to a giant slab of chrysoberyl, a metamorphic rock of incredible value. As a result, his friend and teacher (the gadroon master) is killed, and Lovejoy goes after the murderers, a gang of thieves with their stash of portable antiques in an old sea fort. There is an exciting chase sequence that begins in the depths of the fort and leads to the nearby reeds and tidal flats. Lovejoy turns his stolen boat into a fire ship and explodes the ship of those responsible for his friend's death: a blackened, blistered hand reaches from the oily water; one of the villains, his legs blown off, drowns in a foot of seawater. In this novel and throughout the series, Gash captures through Lovejoy the fanaticism of the true fan, the self-destructive commitment to a single goal that can lead to honor and prestige but also to ruinous, almost pathological single-mindedness. Gash suggests that the line between genius and eccentricity is a thin one: one man's drive toward excellence is another's lunatic compulsion. Lovejoy's lifestyle is eccentric, but his instincts for true antiques are unerring. Time and again he sets up a scam or perpetrates a forgery to earn enough to pay expenses while trying to outwit and undo those who have done him or his wrong, but once the funds are in his hands he cannot rest until they are spent on acquiring more antiques: "I felt on top of the world--money in my pocket, antiques nearby and vengeance at hand," he says in The Firefly Gadroon. "Of course I should have first [fulfilled my duties]. . . . Instead I finished up an hour later with the stumpwork box . . . the collection of old theatre playbills . . . a carved beechwood chair of the Great Civil War period." He defends such actions as not all self-indulgence since his buying and selling also involves collecting useful gossip, in this case about "thirty-one antiques nicked in the past three months."
As a consequence of his compulsions, his thatched cottage is a rat's nest of disorder and filth--grime and dust and bits and pieces of antiques everywhere, heating nonexistent, and cupboards bare, except perhaps for a forgotten pastry, his main source of nourishment. His divan folds into his only bed. However, despite his perpetual need of funds, he feels superior to snobbish aristocrats who have sold their heritage, replaced valuable antiques with modern reproductions, and lack his good taste, appreciation, skill, and expertise. He is the ultimate snob about true value and takes pleasure in berating the limited visions and pedestrian tastes of aristocrats with no understanding of the deep sacrifices made by impoverished craftsmen to create beauty of form and function. Lovejoy argues that he normally hates "tricks with antiques" and calls such activities "evil" and "sin," but then concludes that the practice is "so common nowadays" and that "antique dealers--and even real people--think it's perfectly proper," so his occasional trickery in a good cause is perfectly acceptable. Lovejoy is capable of justifying anything in the name of expediency or rogue's justice. He constantly points out, "A couple dozen of these forgeries will keep you in idle affluence a year or so--if you're unscrupulous, that is." Even if you end up destitute on the streets, says Lovejoy, "you'll be one of the few owners of . . . Greenwich . . . armour."
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 276: British Mystery and Thriller Writers Since 1960. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Gina Macdonald, Nicholls State University. Gale Group, 2003. pp. 160-174.

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