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Monday, April 29, 2024
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie #HistFic24 #ClassicClub
A strange house A ghost from the past Book blurb As soon as she moves into Hillside, Gwenda knows there's something strange about this house. A sealed room. A hidden door. The apparition of a young woman being strangled. But strang…
As soon as she moves into Hillside, Gwenda knows there's something strange about this house.
A sealed room. A hidden door. The apparition of a young woman being strangled.
But strangest of all – this all seems quite familiar.
As her friend Jane Marple investigates, the answer seems to lie in a crime committed nearly twenty years ago.
The killer may have gotten away with murder. But Miss Marple is never far behind.
Never underestimate Miss Marple.
My thoughts
My first encounters with Agatha Christie's characters was through television and film productions. Poirot's character through the TV series with David Suchet a character he played for nearly 25 years in various TV episodes (1988-2013). Although I enjoyed some of these episodes I was more enamoured with another Christie character Miss Marple. I would watch film and television series with Miss Marple whenever I got the chance. From Margaret Rutherford who played the role of Jane Marple in four films between 1961 and 1964 plus in an uncredited film cameo in The Alphabet Murders (1965) to the various actresses in many series since that have aired on British television.
Many actresses have played Miss Marple including: Gracie Fields* | Margaret Rutherford | Angela Lansbury | Dulcie Gray | Helen Hayes | Ita Ever | Joan Hickson | Geraldine McEwan | June Whitfield | Julia McKenzie | Isabella Parriss (playing young Miss Marple) | Renée Michels | Julie Cox (playing Miss Marple as a young woman). Indeed twenty three actresses are listed as playing Miss Marple in television, film and radio on the AgathaChristieFandom site.
Yes, Gracie Fields* played Miss Marple in a Goodyear Television Playhouse's presentation of Christie's 1950 novel "A Murder is Announced" which apparently aired on December 19th and was repeated on 30th 1956. She has the distinction of being the first actress to portray Miss Marple on the screen. I have never seen this version although there is a copy held in a private collection.
There's a wealth of information on the internet and it's all too easy to go down a rabbit hole. I've noted some below. They are particularly interesting for having screenshots of Gracie Fields as Miss Marple. However, a very reliable and accurate source is the official Agatha Christie website.
I have seen versions of Sleeping Murder on television including the made for TV version with Joan Hickson and so am familiar with the storyline. This is the first time that I have read the book. As I read the story unfolded and I appreciated how I could relate the screen versions to the book and yet they are each different. The book gives fuller descriptions because by their very nature on the screen you can see what needs to be told in the book.
Even though I am a fan of Miss Marple, she is my favourite Christie principal character, when reading the book I liked the fact that she is not at the forefront of the story but that Gwenda is. Indeed Gwenda and Giles do a good deal of the sleuthing but, Miss Marple nevertheless does some investigation and is pivotal in working out what happened.
The story of Gwenda coming to England in order to find a home for her and Giles was familiar to me. She find and buys a house but as I read the tension builds up as Gwenda begins to have flashes of what seems to be inspiration regarding how she should decorate, reconfigure the layout of rooms and the garden. How does she know so well what she wants to do?
She finds out why. This was her family home for a while until tragically her stepmother disappeared and her father sent her to relatives in New Zealand.
Then the flashes of inspiration become flashbacks, bad dreams or are they memories? Whatever, they are very disturbing so when Giles comes to England and joins Gwenda in their new home they both look into the matter. As it becomes less plausible that her stepmother left they find out about Gwenda's father but did he really murder his wife? Gwenda confides her story to her friend Miss Jane Marple.
This is an atmospheric story, the tension is palpable and builds to a suitable conclusion.
I liked the way in which the reveal is dealt with it's more subtle in the book than on screen. The book certainly gives the reasoning behind each hypothesis whilst the screen goes more for a 'big reveal'. I don't think either is better than the other just that each is more suited for its particular medium.
I did enjoy the book and appreciated it even more though I knew the story from the screen it wasn't exactly the same in the book. I loved following Gwenda, Giles and Miss Marple investigating and even though I knew what happened it didn't distract from my reading experience rather I wanted to know how Miss Marple worked it out. Yes, for all their sleuthing, Gwen and Giles needed Miss Marple's guidance and her agile mind to find out what happened and 'whodunnit'.
A thoroughly enjoyable read and I look forward to reading many more Agatha Christie novels - especially those with Miss Marple.
The Classics Club was started on March 7, 2012 by a blogger who wanted to see more people posting about classics literature in the blogosphere. She thought about several ideas but finally settled on inviting people to make a list of (at least 50) classic titles they intend to read and blog about within the next five years.
Marg at theintrepidreader hosts this challenge. You are welcome to join if you have participated before or if it is your first time! Here's my original post which has all the details.
My challenge
Victorian Reader (5 books) – Renaissance Reader (10 books). I thought 10 books would be a good start but will be happy if I read 5 books.
I've passed five books now and so it's a matter of whether I will read four more to become a Renaissance Reader. I'll be very chuffed if I do get to ten books.
Angus McBean Photographs (MS Thr 581). c Harvard Theatre
Author: Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles', written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott and saw her work translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Her enduring success, enhanced by many film and TV adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and the unequalled ingenuity of the plots.
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