A Murder is a Wish Your Heart Makes Monday

[evelyn_b]

What I've Finished Reading

Unfinished Portrait is the second murder-free novel published by Christie under the pen name Mary Westmacott, and it's much better than Giant's Bread. Maybe it's just that the weaknesses don't show as much, since Unfinished Portrait is the story of a hapless young twentieth-century housewife/aspiring writer rather than that of a hapless young musical genius with amnesia. The melodrama hits closer to home. In fact, all signs point to this being a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Self-Saboteur. The emotional, imaginative Celia throws over a handful of admirers to marry a golf-minded nonentity who gives her a daughter she can't understand; the nonentity leaves her for another woman and gets huffy when she expects him to handle the divorce business himself (at the time, divorce required proof of infidelity, and he was too chivalrous to "put Marjorie through it"). Celia is just about to throw herself off a cliff when she meets The Narrator of this Book, a former portrait painter who can no longer paint (because of The War) but who is so touched by her story that he wrote this book, an unfinished portrait in words. If anyone I didn't already know was Agatha Christie had tried to pull the bit of Significant Imagery she does with the painter's hands, I think I would have cringed hard enough to sprain something, but Christie is cringe-proof and always will be.

What I'm Reading Now

Women Sleuths is a Mount TBR selection, one of the books I took home before the used bookstore shut down and haven't opened since. It's a Reader's Digest anthology of four novellas, beginning with The Toys of Death by notable Golden Age of Murder weirdos Margaret and G. D. H. Cole, a Fabian couple who co-wrote 35 mystery novels. The copyright page of Women Sleuths claims that The Toys of Death was published in 1939; Wikipedia says 1948. I'm interested to read a socialist murder mystery from the Golden Age milieu. So far, there are no very noticeable differences. A house party has been planned, and the Marpleish mother of a well-known detective has just embarrassed the pompous host by accidentally correcting the geography in his fanciful story about Catalonia. Now she's in the garden, making unflattering observations about the guests. What could be better?

What I Plan to Read Next

Next in Christie is Death in the Air, a novel involving both Hercule Poirot and the exciting new world of (getting murdered on) airplanes!

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Oh Celia! I feel bad for her already. Why throw yourself away on a golf-minded nonentity, Celia?

I am curious to know if the socialism shows up in The Toys of Death. How exactly do you write a socialist murder mystery, anyway? The butler did it - to further the cause of class warfare? That actually sounds more like an anti-socialist mystery...

Or maybe someone gets murdered for the inheritance money, and the detectives embroider upon this a stinging critique of an economic system so devoid of opportunity that inheritance is the only way to advance. That might work.

[evelyn_b]

I'm not sure! Martin Edwards said their politics mostly don't come into it, if I'm remembering correctly, but I'm curious to see if I notice anything. It might be too subtle for me.

I don't think the mystery genre is necessarily conservative or anything like that, even if its authors do tend to be keen on lawns and things in practice.

[liadt]

Does a social murder mystery mean the petit bourgeoisie dunnit? Sub-'An Inspector Calls'?

[evelyn_b]

I don't know anything about 'An Inspector Calls'! Should I?

I can't yet speak to the guilt or not of the petit-b., but the victim is an exploiter of the people, of a kind! He's a glib author who cultivates friendships in order to get information about different trades and experiences, then cuts his new friends out without a word once he's got enough material. It's caused some bad feeling in the community!

[liadt]

It's the one, if I've got the title right, where a maid(?) dies and it's basically all the posh people at the big house's snobbery and bad behaviour which leads to her death. The inspector turns up to make them feel guilty about it. I guess it's also a lecture at the (upper class) audience members with the prejudice that if people are poor it's their fault & there's something wrong with them e.g workshy. It reminded me of the TV play 'Cathy Come Home' where a series of small cases of bad luck builds up.

[evelyn_b]

Sounds like something I should read or watch!

[liadt]

I think it's a play, so better to watch. There have been a few adaptations over the years. The beeb did one last year.

[thisbluespirit]

Unfinished Portrait does sound more promising than the other one! That's good.

the Marpleish mother of a well-known detective has just embarrassed the pompous host by accidentally correcting the geography in his fanciful story about Catalonia. Now she's in the garden, making unflattering observations about the guests. What could be better?

LOL, excellent.

[evelyn_b]

Unfinished Portrait is certainly not the greatest book ever written, but I enjoyed it!

Mrs. Warrender won me over instantly with her geographical knowledge. Later she worried about whether she should stay home from the party after all, given how she's embarrassed her host. Luckily she allows herself to be pressured into going anyway, and it's a good thing, because who else is going to solve this murder? Not the police, that's for sure.

[thisbluespirit]

The police are rubbish at solving mysteries, unless they're Inspector Alleyn, who is quite good at it and would be v put out if an amateur detective came in and was flamboyant it him. He would probably be okay with Miss Marple and would-be Miss Marples though.

(PS. An Inspector Calls is a play; one of those generally famous ones over here that you've heard of but never seen unless you studied it for lit. I have only seen the BBC 2015 version but it is very good (and I see there is also a 1982 BBC version with Bernard Hepton as the inspector, which was an exciting thing I found while looking to see if someone had the 2015 version on YT. (They do, but it is either the BBC where you can pay to see it, or a mirror version with speeded up dialogue, which I suppose would be a novel way to do it.) It is the opposite of most detective things, because the big mystery in the end is the Inspector. I should think you would like it very much if you got a chance to see any version of it, live or otherwise.

[evelyn_b]

Inspector Alleyn and Miss Marple would get along like a house on fire. A quiet, polite house on fire. <3

It is the opposite of most detective things, because the big mystery in the end is the Inspector.

Between this and the lecture alluded to above, I am definitely going to have to track this down.

[thisbluespirit]

Inspector Alleyn and Miss Marple would get along like a house on fire. A quiet, polite house on fire.

This must be a thing that happens one day! Because they would. She might like him nearly as much as Inspector Craddock.

Between this and the lecture alluded to above, I am definitely going to have to track this down.

I should think you'd enjoy it. :-)