Miss Marple - Already old a hundred years ago, but still not dead

Marple should rest in peace alongside Agatha Christie, just as 007 should have when Ian Fleming died. Classical literary characters are products of their time and the idiosyncrasies of their creators. Modern pastiches are rarely harmonious with this.

Miss Marple - the secret abortionist of St Mary Mead! She didn't just use those knitting needles for making sweaters!

Agreed R1. Trying to reinvent certain classics seems almost disrespectful even.

Why would I want to read a non-Christie Miss Marple?

If I'm in the mood I always can reread and authentic one.

Publishing always has been a rubbish game, but today they don't even try to hide it.

[quote] If I'm in the mood I always can reread an authentic one.

I can't. I've read all Christie books at least twice already and watched the shows. A whodunnit story is hard to entice me after one or two readings when you know who did it.

I am reading 'The Mystery of Three Quarters' right now, almost done, and I am enjoying it. There may be slight differences to Christie's style, but Sophie Hannah stays very true to Poirot's character and his environment. And I admit I find Catchpool as a sidekick a lot more interesting than Hastings (who always annoyed the hell out of me). So I am looking forward to fresh Marple material.

See it this way: Classicism initially copied then heavily sourced from Ancient Greek and Roman art. It's still very much enjoyed and highly regarded where it's done right.

R5 do you think there is a strong implication Cstchpool is gay? He doesn't want Fee or any other lady.

I do like all four "New" Poirots but found all 4 solutions to be disappointing

[quote] Miss Marple - Already old a hundred years ago, but still not dead

So young.

R6, to me it looks like Sophie Hannah deliberately doesn't go there. You could expect some revelations in that regard where Catchpool is the narrator. But even where he complains about his mother's attempts to find him a woman, it's more about her being overbearing than his will to committ to a specific woman. And I never get any homoerotic aspirations from him.

I am not sure how a writer could weave in this topic without straying too much away from Christie. Christie never spelled it out. Gays were usually described as very peculiar individuals that other support characters tried to stay away from. And I don't remember that Poirot or Miss Marple ever voiced an opinion on this topic. Also: Hannah's Poirot seems to be firmly set in 1929, 1930. There doesn't seem to be much room to discuss openly gay characters. And closeted gays (aka in hiding) is not necessarily what I want to read about in a Poirot book. Who knows. Maybe it can be done. Maybe Hannah surprises us all at some point. The TV shows surely tested the waters already.

Btw, don't spoil it for me. I haven't finished 'The Mystery of Three Quarters' yet. Still 40 pages to go.

R8 - The Fourth Quarter did it.

I think she should experience a Merle Norman makeover.

R8 tell us your thoughts when you finish it.

Anyone else got opinions of the Sophie Hannah novels of Poirot?

Ugh, this is so unnecessary. Why don’t people write their won shit.

R11, i read the first one and, as an Agatha Christie fan, was seriously irritated. SH appears now as some sort of trustee of the AC legacy, but that book alone shows that she fails to understand AC’ s major strengths. One of these is simplicity (even if only apparent). A plot involving 3 people murdered in different hotel rooms with cuff links in their mouths is very far away from AC’s territory. There are several other failures and the book is too long. Sorry for the rant (but youasked).

Margaret Rutherford made her over the top in a funny way. Joan Hickson was ideal but later she was old and her acting was not very good anymore. Julia McKenzie is doing fine and should continue to play her.

I agree about SH making the plots too complex, it always leads to a very disappointing and unconvincing solution. I enjoy spending more time with Hercule but her stories aren't that brilliant

"She is not the cozy granny; her view on people is usually not an affectionate one. On the other hand, she always seems to understand and can relate to evil and humanizes the killer."

Christie has an incredibly dark and cynical view of human nature. Her characters all seem to be terribly posh and genteel, but if you pick a group of them at random most of them are one step away from killing each other, and one of them has gone ahead and done it. In most of her books, only one or two characters are ever shown to be decent human beings, and Miss Marple is quite aware of that. Even the darling little town of St. Mary Mead is full of people who behave abominably and abuse each other, which is why Miss Marple is so aware of simmering undercurrents of hatred and anger.

If you dismiss Christie because of the murder reveals that would have fallen apart if anyone had stuck their head out of their room at the wrong moment, you're missing what makes her memorable.

"Ugh, this is so unnecessary. Why don’t people write their won [own?] shit."

Because there's a huge market for "cozy" murder mysteries, and Christie herself is still selling, that's why!

Most actual murders take place between trashy people or dedicated criminals, but for some reason people including me just love reading about murders in respectable middle-class and upper-class settings! I suppose it's a way to look at all the antagonisms simmering under the polished surface of our lives, see them gotten out into the open and resolved, with the bad people punished and good rewarded. Utterly unlike real life, where the nasty undercurrents just keep simmering forever.

As long as the stories end in lesbians I am happy.

I vaguely recall that Christie included a few gay supporting characters here and there, they weren't referred to as such but were lightly coded. If I'm right, they were generally presented as relatives who'd gone to the city because they didn't fit in with horse-and-hounds country life, and were presented without snark or censure, as sympathetic as anyone in a Christie novel ever is.

If anyone has any details please contradictor expand this, because even though I consider Christie to be a bit underrated as a writer, I do find it difficult to remember what happens in which book.

Mr Satterthwaite was as big a Mary as they come and he lead a whole book, which Agatha called her favourite!

I’m a big Poirot and Marple fan and was intrigued enough to pick up Sophie Hannah’s first Poirot novel. However it felt contrived and twee. Anthony Horowitz has taken on a Christie-like novel within a novel twice, and I felt he really hit the mark.

R18, in A Murder is Announced there a two woman who live together and are very obviously a couple. When one of the is murdered, the other’s reaction is very much of the one of a lover.

R20, completly agree, Horowitz, unlike Hannah, captures the Christie spirit very well .

I think A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED would have been better if they didn't kill off Miss Murgatroyd. She could have just been in a coma.

I'd be happy to give these new books a shot, it's not like they'll be set in the 2000s with Miss Marple having a podcast and appearing on her Nepher's Tik Tok

Book is out this week, who's reading?

Contemporary writers.

Must miss!

Anyone has read it? The list of writers is very underwhelming. And includes the horrible Lucy Foley, whose The Guest List made me want to throw a book across the room for sheer irritation.

[quote]Ugh, this is so unnecessary.

From an artistic standpoint, yes.

But there are two motivations for Christie's estate to do it. Firstly, it's quick, easy cash. More importantly, however, the first three Poirot novels have fallen into public domain, and the fourth will be joining them in January. This is a copyright extension exercise.

R27 how does that extension work VOTN?

I have finished the collection and while there was some good writing an a few interesting ideas, a lot of the events were a little far fetched for me, as well as the shoehorning of a 21st century viewpoint on Miss Marple which obviously wasn't present in the originals.

I did appreciate all the references to previous works by Christie though. All in all, they are worth a read (or listen) if you want a pleasant read or live some Jane Marple.

And isn't Raymond West the most generous nephew ever?!

So, the actual text of the stories is public domain, so I could print an edition tomorrow and they couldn't do anything about it.

The characters, however, aren't. While Marple and Poirot aren't in danger of becoming public domain because there were stories about them being published up until the 70s. But this will extend that, because in relative terms, assuming we don't blow ourselves up, they would become public domain by the middle of this century.

The first test cases of this are going to be Mickey Mouse and Superman. The earliest depictions of both (meaning the actual art) will be public domain soon. Which is why Disney redid the art style they use for Mickey a few years ago.

Ah I see, thanks R29, that's something I know little about and didn't consider.

I know you're a great Agatha enthusiast, have you sampled the "new" Marples yet?

I've gotten the audiobook, but I have a few things in the hopper first. The stories are read by, among others, Alex Kingston, Adjoa Andoh, and Miriam Margolyes.

Adjoa Andoh is reading? I guess she is reading a high brow story...

The way I understand public domain in regard to book series, everybody can now use elements from the books that are in PD. So whatever happened in the books that are no longer copyrighted you can use for your own novel, TV show, movie or game. But you cannot use any characters or character facets or plot details that are still copyrighted because they were added later. So if you see Poirot having five major character traits, but only two have been mentioned in the novels that are in PD now, only those can be incorporated. Characters or character traits that appeared later must be omitted.

I imagine this being quite a challenge for somebody writing a Poirot story. You cannot use all character traits, only some. And in order to still keep the character recognizable you need to try not to contradict your Poirot to the one everybody knows.

What I don't understand is how Sophie Hannah's Poirot supports a copyright extension. In fact, inventing Catchpool felt to me like she tried to find ways to circumvent copyright - which isn't really the case, since her work is authorized. So, I'm still confused.

Edward Catchpool is clearly a homosexual, indulging his desires on the down-low. I wonder if he ever wanks over Poirot?

Who's queer in Christie's books.

I gotta say, her portrayals of gays and lesbians wasn't very open minded by today's standards, but not too superficial either. Her center of contempt was certainly the majors of the military. Was there one major she didn't describe in purely negative ways? Even her most prominent captain, Hastings, wasn't exactly a highly rated role model.

She had lots of heroic military types in her work