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Back in the long ago day of radio, I once in a while got to listen to The Shadow as a child and it properly scared me.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow (1937-1954)
The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel", composed in 1872). At the end of each episode The Shadow reminded listeners that, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!"
In the case of the Ellis Peter books that I am re-reading after a long time, it is Cadfael who knows. Cadfael had been in the Crusades and was the captain of a ship off the coast for ten years before choosing to become a Benedictine monk near Shrewsbury not far from his beloved Wales.
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His work in the gardens and herbarium produces medicines to help people and sends him out into the world as well. To say Cadfael is wise and clever and shrewd is not enough. He is loving and also has a sense of justice that will not allow a murder to be overlooked. It is how sensible he is about things that is attractive, too. He knows a great deal about people and the world and is not naïve.
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There are many characters in popular stories that work in the shadows and who observe what there is to see and then eventually report on it. Some of them are approached as needed by the main protagonist with the expectation of learning important things without blowing the cover of the observer. Some of these observers are just shy. Some are paid for their work. Some die as a result of knowing too much. Such are detective stories in general. The reader learns to ask, “Who saw, who did not understand what he was seeing, who is in danger because of it?”
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What are your favorite mystery stories? Is there an observer who lives in the shadows?
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POLL http://www.negrospirituals.com/songs/
NOTE: 12 midnight: I am off to bed early again because my left eye is giving me trouble. I will come by tomorrow as always and give recs to the comments that come after this note.
I know you can visit with each other as you do so well.