Working my way through the boxes (part 3)
Oct. 23rd, 2010 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccStill on the Agatha Christie:
7. Cat among the pigeons
First published 1959
Brief plot set up: After a coup in an un-named middle-easternish country, a series of murders occur at an up-market girls finishing school. One of the girls at the school was in the country visiting her uncle shortly before the coup, and a princess from the un-named country is also now attending the school. Is there a link? The Secret Service (who have a man on the ground - sort of literally) think so. It takes most of the book to get to it though!
People: School staff, including a suspicious French mistress (less fainty than previous ones), a couple of teachers (who will probably end up being more of "a couple" of teachers in the TV adaptation, much to the disgust and anguish of Green Guide letter correspondents), a bluff gym mistress, a wise Headmistress, one flighty and one sensible schoolgirl (both with connections to the un-named country), an Undercover Secret Serviceman, an enthusiastic new teacher (that'll pass), a Loyal Deputy Headmistress, an "Eastern Princess", a competent Secretary, a Prince, a pilot and finally an exceedingly dry lawyer.
Culture Clashes: OK, I'll admit that both Dean and I cracked up when I read the following sentence:
"There was nothing mass produced about the school, but if it was individualistic, it also had discipline. Discipline without regimentation, was Miss Bulstrode's motto. Discipline, she held, was reassuring to the young, it gave them a feeling of security.."
which could well have come from an entirely different sort of literature.
Other than that there's a surprisingly modern feel to the story - the foreigners are still "foreign" but aren't taken as being necessarily inferior to the English (with the possible exception of the French mistress, again.) There's references to sex outside of marriage (!), inter-racial marriage (!!) and the "couple" of teachers are distinctly... coupleish. (I swear there's a lot of lesbian couples in Christie's work.) The biggest clashes for me were the mandatory sleeping with open windows, which I realised a lot later were probably still a hangover from previous TB prevention measures, and the sheer Enid Blyton Mallory Towers feel to the whole boarding school thing. Tennis, anyone?
Overall: The twist was good, the set up was entertaining and there were red herrings galore. Fun.
7. Cat among the pigeons
First published 1959
Brief plot set up: After a coup in an un-named middle-easternish country, a series of murders occur at an up-market girls finishing school. One of the girls at the school was in the country visiting her uncle shortly before the coup, and a princess from the un-named country is also now attending the school. Is there a link? The Secret Service (who have a man on the ground - sort of literally) think so. It takes most of the book to get to it though!
People: School staff, including a suspicious French mistress (less fainty than previous ones), a couple of teachers (who will probably end up being more of "a couple" of teachers in the TV adaptation, much to the disgust and anguish of Green Guide letter correspondents), a bluff gym mistress, a wise Headmistress, one flighty and one sensible schoolgirl (both with connections to the un-named country), an Undercover Secret Serviceman, an enthusiastic new teacher (that'll pass), a Loyal Deputy Headmistress, an "Eastern Princess", a competent Secretary, a Prince, a pilot and finally an exceedingly dry lawyer.
Culture Clashes: OK, I'll admit that both Dean and I cracked up when I read the following sentence:
"There was nothing mass produced about the school, but if it was individualistic, it also had discipline. Discipline without regimentation, was Miss Bulstrode's motto. Discipline, she held, was reassuring to the young, it gave them a feeling of security.."
which could well have come from an entirely different sort of literature.
Other than that there's a surprisingly modern feel to the story - the foreigners are still "foreign" but aren't taken as being necessarily inferior to the English (with the possible exception of the French mistress, again.) There's references to sex outside of marriage (!), inter-racial marriage (!!) and the "couple" of teachers are distinctly... coupleish. (I swear there's a lot of lesbian couples in Christie's work.) The biggest clashes for me were the mandatory sleeping with open windows, which I realised a lot later were probably still a hangover from previous TB prevention measures, and the sheer Enid Blyton Mallory Towers feel to the whole boarding school thing. Tennis, anyone?
Overall: The twist was good, the set up was entertaining and there were red herrings galore. Fun.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 02:24 am (UTC)No, I missed it. Pity, it'd be an interesting one to adapt!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 04:16 am (UTC)