THE SNAKE, THE CROCODILE, AND THE READER

by Rob Lopresti

I believe I may truthfully claim that I have never been daunted by danger or drudgery.

That’s the first sentence of a novel, and not a great first sentence in my opinion (although I like the lilting alliteration). But it leads into a remarkable opening chapter, and one that’s worth discussing.

The book is The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters (1992). It is part of her remarkable Amelia Peabody series.

In case you aren’t familiar with these books I should explain that Peters is a pseudonym for Barbara Mertz, who is a distinguished Egyptologist. Her heroine is a distinguished Victorian Egyptologist, which means Mertz keeps two separate book collections on Egyptian archaeology at her home: her own up-to-date library, and the material Amelia Peabody would have had access to.

Starting the dig

Like all the books in the series this one is fun but I want to discuss the remarkable first chapter, which shows a master at work on many different tasks at once. The chapter is sixteen pages long and has four very different sections.

Let’s get back to that first sentence. Peabody goes on to add that of danger and drudgery “I much prefer the former.” And that is the key point because this book is about being careful what you wish for. Peabody, in middle age, finds herself missing the wilder times of her early courtship with husband Radcliffe Emerson. Before the book is over she gets to relive her courtship in a way she doesn’t enjoy at all, and which could leave her longing for a more boring existence.

For the rest of the first two pages Peabody briefly explains her life so far: a boring childhood, a trip to Egypt where she met her future husband and started her adventures. “What mad pursuits! What struggles to escape! What wild ecstasy!”

Thus ends the first section. The second begins: “I am informed by a certain person of the publishing persuasion that I have not set about this in the right way. She maintains that if an author wishes to capture the attention of her readers she must begin with a scene of violence and/or passion.”

Clearly Peters is making fun of the current trend that says there should be a dead body in the first chapter, preferably on the first page. (“‘What we want is blood,’ [the publisher] continued, with mounting enthusiasm.”)

After mocking the idea that drama is needed in the first chapter, Peters then in the third section, gives us a heap of it. Peabody reports that “some of the worst moments of my life occurred last winter when I crawled on all fours through indescribable refuse toward the place where I hoped, and feared, to find the individual dearer to me than life itself.”

After spending a page describing these horrific events Peters/Peabody retreats to prim reserve: “Yes, indeed, if I were to resort to contemptible devices of the sort the young person suggested, I could a tale unfold…I refuse to insult the intelligence of my (as yet) hypothetical reader by doing so, however. I now resume my ordered narrative.”

And the fourth section brings us to the true beginning of the story, as Peabody and Emerson deal with the aftermath of their previous adventure and prepare for the current one.

The whole chapter is a true tour de force in which Peters both has her cake and eats it with relish, poking fun of the “dramatic first chapter” motif while demonstrating that she can do it as well as anyone.

This self-referential, gently mocking tone is a trademark of the Peabody books. (For example, in the course of this book Peters paraphrases Rebecca and “Silver Blaze.”) It’s a treat to see a Grand Master with such control of her material. And when she’s having so much fun, it’s hard for the reader to fail to do the same.