strange and random happenstance

In The Woods by Tana French
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: May 17th, 2007
Format: Paperback, 429 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Knocknaree, 1984. A new housing development outside Dublin that strives to be something more. It will be something more shortly as it becomes the scene of a baffling crime. Three kids were playing in the woods that abutted the development. One night they never came home. Only one of the kids, Adam, was found. He has no idea what happened to his two friends. He was found clutching and clawing at a tree with his shirt torn and his shoes full of blood not his own. He couldn't stay in Knocknaree. He couldn't take the endless questions he could never answer. He left to go to boarding school, changed his name, adopted a new accent, and never looked back. Over twenty years later Adam, now going by the name Rob Ryan, is a rising star of Dublin's Murder Squad with his partner Cassie Maddox. They get things done at work and are rumored to get things done in private too. But the past is about to come back to haunt Rob as they are assigned to the murder of a twelve year old girl in Knocknaree. Cassie is one of a few who know's Rob's history and wonders if perhaps they shouldn't take the case because it might compromise the investigation. Rob bulldozes over Cassie's objections but he has some trepidation as he steps back into the woods and looks at the body of Katy Devlin, laid out on a sacrificial stone that is part of an archaeological dig that is about to be shut down because of a proposed motorway. Could Katy's death be related to the disappearances all those years ago? A clue at the crime scene does link them. And what of Katy's family? A wounded older sister, a non-communicative twin, a cipher of a mother, and a father with many enemies as he tries to stop the motorway. Or could her death have to do with the archaeological dig? One thing is clear, the answers won't be easy, and for Rob, they might be hard to accept. He's starting to piece together more of what happened in the past, but will he ever get any closure of his own? At least he can bring closure to the Devlins.

In The Woods was heralded as a new kind of mystery when it was released. It broke the mold and swept all the awards. The thing is, I don't see it. Instead of just having Rob be an unreliable narrator he's an asshole narrator who also happens to be unreliable. This is supposedly groundbreaking? Sometimes I just scratch my head in bafflement. Does no one remember Agatha Christie's Endless Night? Michael Rogers is a total dick first person narrator who is also completely unreliable because he's not just a dick he's a murderer. While Rob isn't a killer maybe it would have made him more interesting if he was? I just don't get how time and time again people who are reviewing or lauding books come across like they are doing so in a bubble. Yes, a book should be take on it's own merits but if you are trying to say that it's doing something that's never been done before, please just look to the precedence and see if this is actually the case. Because this was so not the case here. What annoyed me most about Rob is that he would listen to no one, take no advice, would do stupid things, and his own stupidity led to a killer walking free AND he broke Cassie's heart. Most of that I could forgive because he's a total feckin' eejit, but Cassie!?! I mean really, what was this book supposed to prove? That even if we think we're over the past it can still hurt us? That damage in our youth will continue to damage us if we don't face up to it? When I first picked up this book when I was out shopping with one of my friends she commented on how she really couldn't get into this book. I can see why. But at the same time I am grateful for this book, as strange as that may seem, because I adored the second book in this series, The Likeness. So, if I had to wade through the muck and despair and denial that is Rob Ryan's life to get to sublimity that is Cassie Maddox in The Likeness, I think it was worth it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Asshole Narrator, Awards, Cassie Maddox, Disappearance, Dublin, Dublin Murder Squad, Endless Night, In the Woods, Knocknaree, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Rob Ryan, The Likeness, Unreliable Narrator

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 5th, 1939
Format: Hardcover, 223 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Luke Fitzwilliam has returned to England from police duty in the Mayang Straits. He's been away from England for years and his return is a mixed bag. He won a packet on the Derby but his train left without him when he was checking the results. Catching the next train up to London he meets Lavinia Pinkerton, an elderly lady who reminds him of his Aunt. Luke humors her and listens to her reasons about going up to London. She believes there is a serial killer in her small town who now has their sights set on the nice Dr. Humbleby and she is determined to tell Scotland Yard all about it because the other deaths were nasty people but Dr. Humbleby is a different kettle of fish. Luke thinks she's an old dear who's a little batty, but when he later reads of her sudden death as well as the death of Dr. Humbleby he remembers her talking about how murder is really quite easy and there's a look in the eyes of the killer. He decides it's only right to investigate. With the help of his friend who happens to have a cousin down in Wychwood under Ashe Luke poses as a writer researching a book on witchcraft and superstitious beliefs that still survive in small communities. Luke hopes this will let him talk about the recent deaths in the town, totaling six when he arrives in the village. But will there be more deaths? And is Luke putting himself in danger by investigating in the first place?

I started this year by reading a murder mystery by one of Christie's contemporaries oddly enough published in the same year as Murder is Easy. Going from No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer to Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie the shift is so dramatic it's patently obvious why Christie is the bestselling author of all time and the "Queen of Crime." Instead of waiting hundreds of pages for a crime to actually be committed, Christie starts with a high body count right out of the gate. She builds the suspense while building her characters, instead of focusing on one or the other and therefore sacrificing quality. Heyer spun things out to excruciating lengths and in the end created a book that was unsatisfying more than anything else. If you're going to do a murder mystery, you kind of need both of those elements. My most favorite mysteries are the ones that follow in the vein of Christie; high body counts with quirky characters and a fun enough journey with plenty of red herrings that the narrative is a cohesive whole. Perhaps that's why I love Midsomer Murders so much, if any show followed Christie on body count alone, it would be Midsomer Murders. Also, this isn't to say Christie is infallible... she does trip up and get stuck in her own devices sometimes, Endless Night anyone? But Murder is Easy is thankfully a classic Christie.

Though, for me, there is rarely a book that is flawless. I mean, there are people out there that actually think for something to be perfect there has to be one flaw for them to pick at. I'm not one of those people, though it might occasionally seem so to others. But Murder is Easy did have a big flaw in it's leading man. Yes, let's talk about Luke Fitzwilliam. Luke is... well Luke must not have been very good at his job out east. Or, if he was good at it, it was with a kind of straightforward bluster that can, occasionally, make a decent cop. Why I've come to this conclusion is that he has no natural ability for subterfuge. He's "supposed" to be in Wychwood under Ashe as an author researching a book... does he ever really commit to this cover? No. About five minutes in he's already telling his friend's cousin who is putting him up, Bridget Conway, the real reason he's there. Um, couldn't she be a suspect? Or is she just too pretty? All his questions to the townsfolk are obviously about the recent spat of deaths, he doesn't once really try to talk about superstition and witchcraft. Which is a shame. Because I was kind of looking forward to a witchy element to this book, especially as Christie set the stage with the town's history for supernatural activity, but then she never followed through. The murders took precedent over Luke's cover and, well, I just was annoyed.

But Luke's inability to dissemble isn't nearly as bad as the forced romance between him and Bridget Conway. Christie does seem to have a need to not only solve the crime but to match off a couple by the end of her books. Like catching the criminal isn't enough. For a true happy ending there must be a marriage to boot. It could be a product of her times, this was released in 1939, but still, think of all the romantic partnerships of crime solvers there are... in fact, could we trace this all back to Christie? OK, that's getting off course, but if she's the reason we have everyone from Nick and Nora to Caskett... I think I'll give her a slid. On most. Not on Luke and Bridget. Because seriously, there is NO chemistry between them. None. In a play or a movie you can understand a lack of chemistry, the leads just weren't able to connect. In a book, there's NO reason for this. The author controls everything and there's no moment where you look at Luke and Bridget and go, "yes, they were meant to be." Luke sees a pretty girl and just decides to fall for her. She, for no apparent reason, is willing to give up a comfortable life with a wealthy man just to what? Marry a poor man who is more in love with the idea of her than her? Seriously. They do not a couple make. But Christie needed the supposed connection for the reveal of the killer... so maybe if she had just worked backwards from that a little more convincingly?

Yet it's Christie's ability to throw so many red herrings at us that we feel as if we're at a fish market that makes her books transcend character issues. She is able to believable posit, through Luke's investigation, so many murder suspects that you're never quite sure. Yes, I am one of those people who try to solve the crime as I'm reading, but if it's a good enough ride I can be swept away and buy into the plausibility of any single person being the killer. What I particularly liked was Luke was continually making up lists with reasons why each person was guilty or innocent. Yet his lists often omitted things, or didn't quite convey what I felt was uncovered in interrogations that we got to be privy too. Therefore we are able to see beyond Luke's narrow mind and see that the suspect pool is far bigger. This allows for Christie to go wild with her red herrings. In fact, just simple turns of phrase, assumptions about how people talk, all these play into the eventual reveal. In fact, it wasn't until minutes before the reveal that I had the aha moment. Where I could fully see her intricate web and who was really at the center pulling all the threads. I used to have this wonderful t-shirt that was for Mystery! by Edward Gorey that had a tree with clues, suspects, and the red herrings being the only items in color. I loved that shirt and I think that shirt captures the feeling of reading Murder is Easy. It's all there, it's all perfect, you just have to wait for Christie to pull back the curtain. Because she really is the master at this game.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Benediction, Caskett, Chemistry, Edward Gorey, Endless Night, Georgette Heyer, HEA, Midsomer Murders, Murder is Easy, Mystery, Nick and Nora Charles, No Wind of Blame, Red Herrings, Witchcraft

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: November 9th, 2004
Format: Hardcover, 131 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Sherlock Holmes is retired to the South Downs where he doesn't concern himself with more than his bees and not falling over some detritus in his house and dying ignominiously. But one day he is intrigued when he sees a young boy with a parrot on his shoulder walking down the railway tracks. He observes the boy is about to urinate on the third rail and rushes as fast as his feeble frame will allow him to stop this dangerous pursuit. The boy doesn't answer to his shouts, yet the parrot does, issuing a long string of numbers in German. Curiouser and curiouser. It turns out that the young boy Linus is a Jewish refuge living at the Vicarage, which the Panickers also run as a boarding house. There the parrot has excited some of the residents and his strings of numerals are believed to be more than random. In fact the parrot's abilities are of interest to more people than just those in the South Downs... could the numbers in fact mean something to the war effort? When one of the Panickers's lodgers is brutally murdered and the parrot goes missing with young Reggie Panicker as chief suspect, the local police think perhaps it is time to consult the great detective himself. Holmes agrees to help. Not out of concern for Reggie Panicker or for the war effort or to stop a murderer, his bees are all that he really cares about. He agrees to help to reunite the young boy with his parrot. Because if ever there were two creatures more in need of each other it is this young boy and his bird. If he happens to solve the murder and the mystery of the numbers along the way, well, that's why he was at one time the greatest consulting detective in the world. A world which has now radically changed.

I'm fairly confident that The Final Solution became the "must read" book for me almost ten years ago because of a really good blurb in the Bas Bleu catalog. The problem with the Bas Bleu catalog is that they are masters of writing the perfect precise that makes you not just want to, but need to read the book they are selling. I have had Bas Bleu backlash many a time, most memorably with Agatha Christie's Endless Night. Yet the Endless Night debacle was in my future at this point, and so I excitedly curled up on a summer's day on my side porch to delve into The Final Solution; where I instantly felt I needed to be reading the book with a dictionary constantly open. My initial feelings were that Chabon was a little too self-impressed with his ability to obfuscate his story while simultaneously being a bit of a show-off. For some reason, despite what should be viewed as negatives, because a writer shouldn't try to make his book inaccessible, I was left with this impression that The Final Solution was a masterpiece that I just couldn't fully understand or appreciate. Flash forward almost a decade, with all the expanded knowledge and vocab that time can bring to a voracious reader and I now see the truth. This is a self-indulgent novella that exudes smug self-importance. Just because a book is dense and impenetrable to the point of incomprehensibility doesn't mean it's good and you are the problem in the equation. It means you need to look closer at the book and realize that the dense narrative might be hiding the author's smug self-satisfaction in plain sight. The purposeful use of obscure and highfalutin language combined with the "gimmick" to never actually state outright that this book is about Sherlock Holmes and only deal in allusions and asides makes this book smack of pretension and alienates the reader. A book should service the story NOT the ego of the writer, and hence this book is a failure.

Finally being able to see beyond the veil of academic and writerly gimmickry you see that all it did was mask the problems of the story. The major problem is that this isn't an ode to Conan Doyle but more posturing by Chabon. The LEAST Chabon could have done is capture the essence of Holmes in the slightest. Instead this book seems to intentionally set out to be the exact opposite of all things Holmes and Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle is a writer that is only occasionally melodramatic when writing as Watson, but he is never superfluous. If he is writing as Holmes, as is the case in two of his short stories, the language is terse and to the point. The Final Solution, being in the waning days of Sherlock Holmes, would obviously be written from Holmes's POV, and therefore would necessitate Holmes's narration style. Yet here Chabon luxuriates in description and verbiage. The actual plot could be summed up by Holmes or Watson in a couple of sentences, but it's spun out for 131 pages! This wallowing in the unnecessary and insignificant might be a nice idyl for a writing exercise, but not for a story which suffers under these pretensions. Plus, I don't know if it's just me, but there's a reason Conan Doyle didn't write Holmes into his dotage, aside from being sick of writing him, and that's because no one wants to see the great and mighty struggling to get out of a chair. Yes it might be interesting if handled properly, like the recent film Mr. Holmes, but here it isn't handled properly or reverently like it should be. It's all just Chabon showing off. But what got under my skin more than anything was that while he peppers the book with allusions to Holmes's great works at the end Chabon doesn't understand Holmes. He got him so wrong. "The business of detection has for so many years been caught up with questions of remuneration and reward that although he was by now long beyond such concerns he felt, with surprising vigor, that the boy owed him the payment of a smile." Holmes rarely took any form of payment! I can think of one, maybe two times that entered into it, in ALL of his adventures. All SIXTY of them. As for a reward? He liberally gave all the credit away to different police officers. Gaw! Just SO WRONG!

The Final Problem could have been a sweet little story about a boy and his parrot, but the need to make the story ostensibly about Sherlock Holmes, though remember he's never directly named, derails the tale and drags it out. To make a book of only 131 pages seem overly long is a true talent that Chabon should be congratulated on. Instead of focusing on the relationship of the boy and his bird, we suffer through long reminiscences of what it is to be old and dying. Oh, and not just dying, but to die in an ignominious way. To die sprawled out in an inglorious way that would be very embarrassing for one's reputation, though technically you shouldn't care because, you know, you're dead. The reason I think The Final Solution would have been more successful concentrating on Linus is that you forge a connection with the boy. You never really make a connection to Holmes. Holmes is a character of wonder and magic, and to make him old and feeble, it stripes the character of what connection the reader had. Dwelling on his various daydreams of death doesn't help us connect either. There is only one time you feel a connection to Holmes and the man he was and that's when he journeys back to London in search of Linus's bird. London was the epicenter of Holmes's world. This is a city that bowed down to his greatness and the villains were in constant fear of him. Now London is no longer the place he rules but a place he no longer recognizes. With the onslaught of the Germans he expected to see the city in ashes, and one wonders if perhaps he actually wished this to be true. That London, without the great Sherlock Holmes, had ceased to exist. That it's very lifeblood no longer flowed because of his exodus. Instead there is destruction, but more then that, new buildings, new life, all the new that he doesn't know. He knew this city like the back of his hand, every alley and every bolthole. To see that the city moved on, changed while his knowledge didn't, is the first and only time in the book you feel what it's like to be Holmes, the pinnacle of the previous discarded century.

Going back to Linus and his parrot, I can not express how much a story concentrating only on the two of them would have succeeded. Their relationship is a connection between two souls. When you are young and form a connection to an animal something magical happens. It's not that you're just kindred spirits, you are each others soul mates. Chabon so eloquently describes this connection with the looks exchanged between the two, the way the boy mummers to his parrot and the way the parrot ruffles Linus's hair, that it's almost painful in it's beauty. I had this relationship once with my little cat Spot. We met when I was only eight and we were together for twenty-two years. He was my best friend, my confidant, my better half. He was everything and I see that relationship mirrored in this book. This is the heart and while to an extent it is also the driving force of the narrative, it's too often relegated to the sidelines to actually keep your interest. But to look at their relationship further, I can't help but think about how this bird is truly a service animal. The boy is effectively a mute and is therefore viewed as developmentally disabled by many of the people in the community where he lives. So much study has gone into the aid animals can give to children who are autistic or have learning disabilities, and here we have a story that shows the depth of these connections and how they work yet it is constantly pushed aside. The most interestingly narrated chapter in the book is when the parrot's POV is explored. Here we get more insight into his relationship with Linus, but again this is second fiddle to the importance of the crime committed. Chabon, I am totally calling you out. You set this up so well and had such an opportunity and you wasted it time and time again to indulge yourself and not serve the story or the characters. Get with it already. Edit, rewrite this and get back to me.

Yet the biggest flaw in the book has nothing to do with the story, it has to do with the illustrations. Jay Ryan created a memorable and unique cover, but his interior illustrations leave something to be desired. They feel unfinished and childish, which is the exact opposite of the story whose language is so polished it almost blinds you and is very adult in nature. Seriously, only an adult could have the vocabulary to get through this book not to mention the themes of aging, persecution, espionage, and murder. I am a graphic designer and have done many illustrations. Illustrations are different than regular drawings, they are there to accompany and add insight to the text. They REFLECT the text. Image and words in a symbiotic relationship that is balanced. Here it's not balanced. Stupid childish drawings that you could argue were to capture the childishness of Linus, but I refute that argument. Linus doesn't live in the world of a child and the things he's seen make him unique. Therefore dumbing down the illustrations doesn't enhance his viewpoint, it harms it. While the style of writing and the narrative annoyed me to no end, there is a beauty in the images that Chabon conjures up. There is a lushness in the text that is completely derailed by these technical and awkward images. This isn't how the words make this world appear. If anything these images are 100% the exact opposite of what I see in my mind's eye while reading this book. While most people will probably just flip to the next page ignoring the images, I can't. They are a stumbling block that brings down the book even lower in my estimations. Quite literally you start the book thinking it will be amazing, a five star tour de force. Then Holmes is introduced and mishandled, then the drawings start showing up, then this, then that, and you are left with a book that could have been something magical, but isn't. Not in the least.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bas Bleu, Endless Night, Illustration, Michael Chabon, Mr. Holmes, Novella, Parrots, Pretentious, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, South Downs, Spot, Watson, WWII

Ten Little Aliens by Stephen Cole
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: August 22nd, 2002
Format: Paperback, 305 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Ten soldiers are sent to an asteroid. With their commander Haunt they are to participate in this final training exercise with the hopes of becoming part of the elite squad in humanities war against the Schirr. As soon as they get to their location things start to go wrong and one of their own goes missing. There is weird vegetation throughout the asteroid that has bioluminescence, as well as flea like bugs that are drawn to it. Chambers throughout have odd pillars and carvings with elaborate glass dangling from the center like free standing stained glass windows or chandeliers. When they stumble into what appears to be the nerve center of this odd asteroid they are in for another shock. Besides finding the leaders of the Schirr rebellion, DeCaster and the ten strong, apparently dead, they also come across an odd blue box. The Doctor is there with Ben, having already misplaced Polly. They are locked out of the TARDIS and are now face to face with soldiers who were not expecting to find anyone living out in this remote sector of space dangerously close to the Morphiean Empire.

Catastrophe soon strikes and the asteroid turns out to be a spaceship on course for the center of the Morpheian Empire, which would start a second war if humans were found breaching their boundaries. The asteroid also seems to be turning against the invaders. There are more disappearances, cave-ins, a few of the party start mutating, but most disturbing of all, the Schirr bodies start disappearing. It feels like they are being toyed with and The Doctor just needs to get his mind around what exactly is going on so that he can stop it before they all die or mutate into something entirely different. But The Doctor is an old man, can he keep up until he and his party can retreat to the safety of the TARDIS?

While I did enjoy Ten Little Aliens, there's a part of me, a rather big part, that says, while I enjoyed it, there was almost too much that annoyed me to actually recommend it to anyone. The book has a very Michael Crichton meets Battlestar Galactica vibe that takes awhile to actually get into and then, once you're fully immersed, does some seriously stupid things that alienate you, confuse you, and then just leave you happy the book has ended. The one thing I have to say is that thankfully the title of the book was deliberately a nod to Agatha Christie, which if it hadn't, would have seriously pissed me off and mystified me. But if you read the introduction, I don't quite get how Stephen Cole wrote this to be like a Christie mystery, but in space... just naming your chapters after Christie books and then having the bodies disappear versus pile up in a reverse of And Then There Were None... well, that's not really enough to categorize it as Christie related. And as for the "unreliable narrator," to quote Inigo Montoya "I do not think it means what you think it means." You need a first person narrator who has been concealing something from us, like in Christie's Endless Night, who turns out to be the villain. Someone we thought was good who turns out not to... well, that's just a plot twist used by almost everyone in fiction. If you want to see Doctor Who do Christie right, just watch the 10th's and Donna's episode "The Wasp and the Unicorn" and skip this author's delusions.

As for the worldbuilding... well... yeah, some things really hit the mark and some were so far off the mark there is no chance we even know where it landed. Characters. There are to many. Ten super soldiers, three from the Tardis, another ten Schirr, two killer robots, and countless other creatures... too much to handle, and this from someone who just read Stephen King's Under the Dome. I gave everyone nicknames, like pilot, geek, scary guy, cyborg, and moved on. Also, besides there being too many characters, they were all unlikable, each and every one. But how could I dislike The Doctor? Because he was irrelevant, a non-entity. He was almost unnecessary and old. He didn't need to be in this book at all, which mystified me, because, excuse me, Doctor Who book! As for the politics of this future world of Schirr and Morphieans... I really have no f'ing clue as to what's going on. The war/politics/genocide/creatures without bodies/dead creatures, was so badly explained that I am still a little mystified ever after The Doctor tried to break it down for me at the end. As for the environment of the asteroid, that was spot on, thumbs up. You did a good job of worldbuilding in the sense of the physical world. I could totally believe myself in dark tunnels with creepy plants and bugs, right on. I just wish Stephen Cole had taken this attention to detail with say, everything else in the book. As for the bad guys... well, these Morphieans constructs, whatever that means, basically, the big baby angels, the putti that liked to pull you to pieces... um, they could give the Weeping Angels a run for the money. Seriously scary. But then again, in the end, overshadowed by the book's failings.

But let me get to what destroyed this book, one full star just knocked right off. The "neural net." This is some kind of network that is a band you wear that connects all the soldiers together, to monitor each other and record their experiences for training purposes, or after The Doctor tinkers with it, so that everyone has access to everyone else's brain. The concept is understandable, but the execution is crap. Everyone starts referring to themselves as "we" so you have no real distinction between the vast overly abundant cast, and it makes everyone sound pompous. Though the nail in the coffin is the almost fifty pages wherein, not only are we stuck in the "neural net" of we's, but it's done as a "choose your own adventure!" Say what? You thought, as a writer, it would be fun? Really, justify this to me because it was just HORRID and pissed me off. Not only that, the writing suffered with bad prompts at the end of sections going: "I wonder what the Doctor is doing" or "Go see what Frog is up to" excuse me? I am not a seven year old who lives and breaths by these books. I never liked them then and I don't like them now. I hate that this book resorted to gimmickry and I am glad I'm done with it. Oh, and don't go on and on about the cover to the old edition in your intro, it makes you seem bitter that they gave it a cooler cover. I'm out, I've disconnected myself from the neural net, laters.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, Choose Your Own Adventure, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Book Challenge, Endless Night, Stephen Cole, TARDIS, Ten Little Aliens, The 10th Doctor, The 1st Doctor

How To Be a Good Wife by Emma J. Chapman
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: October 15th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 288 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Marta has lived her married life to her older husband Hector quite literally by the book. She has learned How To Be a Good Wife. Though the book doesn't tell you want to do when your son goes off to college and your life becomes meaningless. Marta starts to unravel. She drinks, she cleans, she takes her meds, she doesn't take her meds, she starts to remember, but are her memories real? She remembers a room under the house and being held captive and brainwashed till she was the wife Hector wanted. She tries to tell her son, Kylan, but he has his own life now. She is unhinged, she is a danger to herself. She is not the Marta that they remember, but did that Marta ever truly exist?  

If you have a book with an unreliable narrator there has to be some kind of revelation, an inside or outside force that is able to give some kind of resolution to the unfolding drama, even if it is a dissatisfying resolution, re Agatha Christie's Endless Night. To be left without any closure makes for a disgruntled reading experience. But then again, being in Marta's brain for even the short amount of time it took to read this book had already alienated me against her and her antics, so what's one more nail in the book's coffin eh? Marta is scatterbrained, obsessive about the weirdest things, her dinner party for her son is such a disaster it makes the Christmas dinner in The Ref look like the best party in the world. She's unstable, unlikable, and, well, selfish. Why did I read this book again? Oh yeah, book club.

The question though remains, did or didn't Hector create this wife? My mind thinks no. Because it's just too outlandish. If he had done it his own mother would have been complicit, something I don't think she'd ever have done. Plus, let's look at it this way. If Hector was making the perfect wife, after all these years of brainwashing why would she crack? Yes, empty nest syndrome, but this is a major psychotic break. And her meds wouldn't make her more compliant, after all this time she'd totally be in the thrall of Stockholm Syndrome, so drugs wouldn't be needed. Whereas if she's just crazy, going off her meds would do something. They'd make her go back to her natural crazy state. But in the end I don't care. No, seriously, I hated each character so much there was no sympathy and well, fuck the lot of them.

With Marta we are given a woman who is neurotic and self-destructive as well as more then a little dumb. Instead of doing anything logical she runs around like a chicken with her head cut off. If she had just sat down and laid out her thoughts and provided proof of her delusion, perhaps someone would have believed her. Instead of making it seem like her illness was responsible for her inability to tell her suspicions Chapman made Marta's failings feel like an idiotic character flaw of the greatest order, total dumb blond syndrome. Perhaps her decision making is completely impaired, but for some reason I just don't think so. I have this feeling that Marta has a very fixed view of the world and her place in it and when things don't go her way she acts out. This seems to be supported by how everyone treats and coddles her. She's a selfish woman who may have issues, but in the end it's her selfishness that defines her. How else would you categorize the fact that she kills herself on the day of her son's wedding? She's making the happiest day of his life all about her.

Chapman is obviously trying to explore the themes of PTSD and what it does to us knowingly or unknowingly, after all if you didn't get it she talks all about it in her afterword. But the problem is we don't know if Marta is suffering from PTSD or is just run of the mill crazy. Either way Marta is not a sympathetic character so whether she was always crazy or became crazy signifies very little to the book itself. But I think if I was a sufferer of PTSD that this would signify very much to me if I was reading this book, which I wouldn't recommend anyone to do. Because How To Be a Good Wife doesn't exactly portray PTSD in a flattering light. In fact the book kind of makes sufferers of PTSD get lumped in with people with severe mental illnesses. Now, while PTSD is a mental illness, well, it's a different kind and to have it lumped in with the psychotics, this is doing the sufferers of this disease an injustice. In fact everything about this book should offend anyone with any kind of mental instability, because Chapman obviously doesn't get it and doesn't have the compassion to render their fight with compassion and honesty.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Book Clubs, Christmas, Emma Chapman, Endless Night, How To Be a Good Wife, Kindle, PTSD, The Ref

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Published by: UK General Books
Publication Date: 1920
Format: Hardcover, 296 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Arthur Hastings has been invalided out from the war. Running into his old friend John Cavendish, he's invited to stay at the family estate Styles, in Essex, where Hastings lands in the middle of a family crisis. Styles is packed with people. John and his wife are in residence, as is John's younger brother, Lawrence. Yet the real trouble lies with John and Lawrence's step-mother. She was a wonderful mother to them but has recently re-married an odd younger man who was her secretary, a Mr. Alfred Inglethorp. Evelyn Howard, Mrs. Emily Inglethorp's friend, who has long lived at Styles, as well as Emily's ward, Cynthia Murdoch, is so upset, that Evelyn leaves quite volubly on Hastings arrival. Though the situation is about to get much worse. Emily is found dead one night. All the doors to her room were locked and, despite the local doctors insisting that her heart just gave out, it turns out to be murder.

With everyone acting suspicious, and a new husband to point the finger at, things get more complicated as multiple wills arise. Hastings wants to help but is at a bit of a lose. Then felicitously, Hasting runs into Hercule Poirot. Hastings knew Poirot back in Belgium when Poirot was a detective of great renown. Poirot has been displaced by the war and placed in Essex. Hastings doesn't take long to ask his old friend for help. With Poirot on the case, soon all the suspects will be rounded up and he will point the finger at the murderer. Because that is what Poirot is best at.

Now this may come as a surprise, but until now I've never read an Agatha Christie novel with Poirot. When I was younger I'd watched the BBC adaptations on Mystery and my friend Sarah used to devour the books at a prodigious rate, I remember her actually picking up an omnibus edition when we were on vacation in LA and I think she had finished it before we arrived home. But for some reason I never felt compelled to pick one up myself. In fact, I haven't actually read that many books by Agatha Christie, I know, for shame. I finally picked up The Body in the Library years ago when there was an outcry that the new Marple adaptation had changed the ending, and I was therefore intrigued to see how they had changed it. I was immediately struck by the ease and apparent simplicity of her writing. Her straight forward prose was able to hide wonderful twists and turns. I have since read a few more of her non-series books, Sparkling Cyanide and Endless Night, but still I hesitated on picking up Poirot.

Thanks to the re-release of the early seasons of Poirot on Blu-Ray, finally in the correct order I might add, I have been re-watching all the old episodes and loving every minute of David Suchet. The episode that I loved far and away more then any other was "The Mysterious Affair at Styles." The "origin story" of Poirot, if you will. What I loved more then anything else was a fussy Poirot trying to get his fellow Belgian exiles in line with his ideas of dress and deportment. Watching Poirot herd mini Poirot wannabes was beyond entertaining to me. Therefore, my desire to finally read Poirot and more Agatha Christie helped inspire this whole "Golden Summer."

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie's first book, and sadly it shows. The books by Christie I had previously read were written 22 years after this book and her ease of writing and narrative flow are sadly a little choppy here. The fact that I have never been a huge Hastings fan and that he narrates this story doesn't help that much. Of course, my "meh" attitude is nothing to my mother's loathing of Hastings, which resulted in me not seeing a lot of the early episodes on TV because of her refusal to watch any episode with him in. I kid you not when I say I have a list of "approved" Poirot watching just for my mom, with the Hastings episodes excised. Though reading this book, I have to say, the show was a little generous to Hastings... he's a little more annoying and a lot more stupid then I have been led to believe. Which makes me wonder... all the books can't be from Hastings POV, can they? I mean he eventually goes off to the Argentine and enter people I really like, like Mrs. Oliver.

Yet, Hastings being even more of an idiot was nothing to the marvel of Poirot. Poirot was perfect from his first line. I remember watching the Agatha Christie Biopic Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures staring Olivia Williams and Anna Massey and how Poirot just "came to her" while working in the World War I dispensary. I wonder if this isn't more truth then fiction, because, there he is, on the page, fully formed first time out. It's rare for an author to have the full and perfect embodiment of their most famous character right away, yet she did it. Poirot was a perfect, fussy, enigmatic detective from day one. It's no wonder he became one of her most popular creations going on to be in 33 novels, 50 short stories and one play. Oh Poirot, I love you, I promise to read all your books and I look forward to the final season of your show with joy and sorrow, I never want it to end.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, David Suchet, Endless Night, Golden Summer, Hastings, Miss Marple, Mrs. Oliver, Murder, Mystery, Poirot, Sparkling Cyanide, The Body in the Library, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie
Published by: HarperCollins
Publication Date: 1945
Format: Hardcover, 160 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
There are six people thinking of Rosemary. Her husband and his secretary, her sister and the man she loves, Rosemary's ex-lover and his wife. A year before they all saw her die in front of their eyes of cyanide poisoning. Ruled a suicide, they where all dining with her around the restaurant table when she took her life. No one had any inkling that her death was anything other than that.  Till her husband George gets an anonymous letter saying that Rosemary was murdered. George becomes obsessed with finding his wife's killer. He concocts a plan to bring everyone back together on the anniversary of his wife's death. He will recreate the circumstances and the killer will be revealed. Only George didn't think that maybe the killer would strike again in the same fashion. The good Colonel Race steps in with Scotland Yard to sort out who among the dinners was the killer. Because if the second death proved anything, it was that Rosemary was murdered.

The greatest advantage Sparkling Cyanide has is that I've never seen an adaptation of it. I will fully admit at the outset I am an Agatha Christie whore. Give me some Poirot with David Suchet, give me some Marple with Geraldine McEwan, who in my mind was the truest Marple, sorry Julia McKenzie, I really liked you in Cranford, but you ain't Marple. It's also surprising that this hasn't been bastardized into an episode of Marple, which is the BBC's newest obsession. What do you do when you run out of Marple stories to tell? Start fiddling with the non-Marple stories but of course, Pale Horse anyone? I heard what you're up to with Endless Night, and there's no way that that will work, it's not a good Christie book, so try something else. Therefore, unlike previous delvings into Christie, I didn't have an inkling who-dun-it. And that's the key to Christie isn't it? At least the first time you read the book. The second time is watching how the puzzle was seamlessly put together and then realizing you had to be an idiot to swallow all those red herrings.

Yet, the murder, while interesting, wasn't what made this book so wonderful for me. The elegance of the time period and the characters are what drew me in. The glamor of Rosemary. Her life of partying and gambling. Her clothes and her carriage. The ritzy restaurant that had a cabaret show and dancing. All the dancing. The details of the couture, the severe lines and emeralds of one dress, the young naivety of another. Ah, to go back then just for the ambiance. I can see it all so clearly. Yet, that is, in essence, window dressing. The people inside the clothes are what matter most. Starting the book with a chapter from each of the different characters POV connects us to them in a way that a normal narrative wouldn't. If one of these characters is the killer, than we have missed the flaw in their thought patterns. One of these people had to have done it. Yet there's nothing that is obvious until the end. This works in a way that the narration of Christie's other novel, Endless Night didn't. By showing us all the suspects, we know that all but one are telling the truth and aren't forced to rely on a single narrator. The police and Race fall rather flat compared to the other characters, mainly because we weren't allowed a peak behind the curtain. This book will leave you hanging till the very end when everything falls into place and is put back on the table.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, David Suchet, Endless Night, Geraldine McEwan, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Pale Horse, Poirot, Poison, Sparkling Cyanide

Enless Night by Agatha Christie
Published by: UK General Books
Publication Date: October 30th, 1967
Format: Hardcover, 224 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and Every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.
-William Blake

Michael Rogers is a Jack the Lad. Drifting from job to job and never staying in one place long. Yet there is one place he keeps coming back to. Gipsy's Acre. The land has always spoken to him, and not in the cursed way the locals say, but what chance does a guy like him have to live there in the house of his dreams. The dream house being designed by the odd and always ailing Santonix, whom Mike met while chauffeuring around the affluent. Despite the fact that the nicer things speak to him, that he would love a nice pair of shoes from the finest shops, or a painting by some famous artist, or the best watch money can buy, doesn't mean he's ever likely to get it. Till he meets Ellie. They meet in the lane approaching Gipsy's Acre and it's love at first sight. Little does Mike know, but Ellie is a very wealthy woman, answering to many trustees and familial leeches. Ellie doesn't confide any of this to Mike till some time after they meet. With the help of her companion Greta, Mike and Ellie run away together, eventually ending their whirlwind romance at their dream home at Gipsy's Acre.

All Mike's dreams have come true. Everything that he could possibly want. Only now things start to go wrong. Dead birds and thrown rocks. Ellie has an accident and despite all advice to the contrary, Greta moves in and slowly starts to take over the happy couples life. How much longer can the happiness last when danger threatens the newlyweds? When death is a constant spectre on the horizon, though they might not see it yet.

I read a little review for this book in Bas Bleu (that snooty book catalog that has great books but you can never afford their prices so you go to Amazon) that made me hunger to read this book immediately. Let me here post their mini review:

"During a dramatic evening at the Gipsy's Acre estate, Michael Rogers meets American heiress Ellie Guteman. The two embark upon a whirlwind romance that culminates in a secret marriage and the purchase of the seaside estate where they met. They hire eccentric architect Rudolf Santonix to construct their mansion, and the couple hopes to begin a fairy-tale life together, but this notion quickly begins to unravel. A rock thrown, an unfortunate encounter with a gypsy, and a dead bird lead the couple to suspect that their dream life may have otherworldly influences. These events are quickly overshadowed by Ellie's grim murder. Do the rumors of a local curse have merit? Said to rank highest among Dame Agatha's personal favorites, this Gothic, psychological thriller is certainly one of her best. "

This little review led me astray. I was expecting something entirely different and was majorly let down. I take issue with this review firstly because they did NOT meet during a dramatic evening at Gipsy's Acre, which is a plot of land, NOT an estate... it was more a grey afternoon in a dirty lane. Also, "quickly overshadowed by Ellie's grim murder!" If almost 200 pages into a book that is only 220 pages constitutes as quick, then I must really have a bad grasp of time and space. But the lack of a speedy murder and the hundreds of pages of how happy the couple are and all the lovely things they buy for their home is nothing to my major problem. Michael Rogers is my problem. This book is a first person narration by easily the most unlikeable narrator I have ever ever ever read. There can't be enough evers I hate Mike so much. Of course, my hatred of him is a cunning twist that Agatha Christie in her wisdom was counting on. When I got to the final pages I was shaking my fist going "damn you Agatha." She didn't fool me, and in fact gave me the ending I wanted, it was just having to endure all that came before that made me dislike this book. Also, for those Christie aficionados out there, when you read the ending, you'll be like, wait, isn't this really similar to Death on the Nile... the answer to that is, yes it is, only Hercule Poirot did it better.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Amazon, Bas Bleu, Death on the Nile, Endless Night, Gipsy's Acre, Poirot, William Blake