The Madness of Crowds
I found this book in a used bookstore here in Duluth. I had heard a couple people talking about the Inspector Gamache series by the author, Louise Penny, and I wanted to check it out. The bookstore had a few titles from the series, and a quick Google search told me they could be read out of order; that while there may be some details from the broader storyline that would not be appreciated, each story stands on it’s own. That same Google search brought me to a blog post someone had written about which titles from the series to read for sure and which ones could be skipped. “The Madness of Crowds” fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
The Summary (No Spoilers)
“The Madness of Crowds” is set in a post-pandemic world in a small village in Quebec called Three Pines. I suspect, based on context, that this village is the setting for all of the Inspector Gamache series. As you might expect, Chief Inspector Gamache is the leading character, the head of the homicide division in the local law enforcement, and apparently a highly credentialed and highly admired officer of the law. Together with side-kicks Inspector Isabelle Lacoste and his son-in-law Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir (it’s Quebec, there’s a lot of French influence), Gamache finds himself having to solve a murder surrounding the arrival of a very controversial scientist who has just arrived in town.
Touchstones
Because this story revolved around a scientist who had made some controversial, society-altering conclusions with her data, there was much reflection on the free exchange of speech and ideas throughout this book.
“The goal of any healthy society was to keep people safe to express sometimes unpopular views.”
“If we only ever allow lectures on topics we’re ‘okay’ with, the University wouldn’t be much of a place of learning, now would it? We’d never explore new ideas. Radical ideas. Even what might be considered dangerous ideas. We’d just keep going around and around saying and hearing the same old thing. The echo chamber.”
As our US media environment has grown more and more fractured, privatized, fed to us by the algorithm, the echo chamber has gotten more echo-y. Rather than a single nightly news broadcast to which we all tune in, we have podcasts, newsletters, social media accounts, pundits that we like to listen to and from whom we get our information. The problems lie not with ideas themselves, but with our ability to process them, or perhaps who we allow to process them for us. This, I believe, is one of the important roles of higher education - to expose people to information and ideas, yes, but more importantly to teach people how to think critically, read critically, balance ideas with experience, weigh both sides of an argument, consider the evidence. It is important that we do not just swirl around in what we believe to be correct. It is important for us to hear from people who do not agree with us, and to honestly consider those ideas as well. Sometimes evidence and critical review will bring us to the conclusion that we were correct all along, and sometimes, if we allow it, we may find our minds and our beliefs changed. It is healthy to say “I hadn’t thought of that”, “I think you might be right about that”, “I don’t know the answer”, “I don’t have enough information to make a good decision”, “It’s complicated”, “I think you’re wrong but I’m listening.” A robust debate of ideas is good for all of us. An argument to the death serves no one.
“Correct and right were two different things. As were facts and truth. … No real scientist talks about the truth.”
This one got me thinking a bit. The first part, about “correct and right” has “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” and “legal doesn’t mean moral/ethical” vibes. And I agree. The “facts and truth” part feels fuzzier to me, like I’m not quite sure about it. Are facts and truth two different things? It must be so, because the idea that “no real scientist talks about the truth” makes sense to me, as someone who both conducts and consumes scientific inquiry. In fact, I read that as I was also preparing a presentation on my own research, and it prompted me to tweak the way that I presented my final thoughts, I believe for the better.
Finally, separately, I liked this quote that comes originally from the Les Fables de La Fontaine, The Animals Sick of the Plague:
“Thus human courts acquit the strong, and doom the weak, as therefore wrong.”
My Review
I have to admit I did not love this book. It felt quite dragged out to me. The whole thing felt like a Hallmark movie, but with a murder mystery. I’m sure the small town, Canadian winter setting contributed to that vibe, but it was more than that. Everything about it felt candy-coated. The characters seemed two dimensional, and everyone learned the lesson you hoped they’d learn, all wrapped up in a neat, if boring, bow. In fact, the author didn’t even give me enough time or tension to hope they’d learn a lesson, or to feel much about the characters at all. Likely, reading more in the series would give some dimension to the characters but I’m not likely to open another one soon. The second half in particular felt like the editor was asleep at the wheel - so many repetitive trains of thought, so much unnecessary “following of threads”. I have to give “The Madness of Crowds” 2 stars.