Year: 2005

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Christie, Agatha: Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, The (radio play)

Today’s 90-minute Miss Marple mystery, via the BBC, was The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, which is much more like it. There were clues when and where they were supposed to be, interesting and sympathetic characters, and even a bit of things going less-than-smoothly for Miss Marple.

Miss Marple’s friends sell the house of The Body in the Library to a film star named Marina Gregg and her husband. A raving fan girl is poisoned at an open house for the neighborhood, and it appears that Ms. Gregg was the actual target. Miss Marple isn’t there, because she’d been ill and her off-screen nephew Raymond has saddled her with an appalling nurse, but she hears all about it from various people, including another nephew, an Inspector from Scotland Yard. She solves the mystery with a refreshing lack of reminiscences about other people she’s known, among quite a quantity of red herrings.

As I said, this was quite a satisfactory adaptation; the only problem, which is not limited to this production, is that when British actors attempt to do American accents—well, I’ve yet to hear one that doesn’t make my ears itch. I have a great deal more sympathy, these days, for U.K. natives who complain about the accents of American actors.

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Peters, Ellis: (03) Monk’s Hood (radio play)

While I’ve been getting tired of reading Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels, when some adaptations showed up on BBC7, I figured I’d give them a try. It’s the repetitiveness of the plots that’s been annoying me, not the characters, and an audio format usually gives me a clearer idea of the characters. (It’s true that it also gives me the time to think about the clues that are given or omitted. However, I have no objections to this adaptation on those grounds.)

I recorded three of them, but listened to Monk’s Hood first, as it came earliest in the chronology. This starred Philip Madoc as Cadfael, who has a nice deep strong voice; the recurring secondary characters of Brother Mark and Hugh Beringar were also voiced well and suitably. My only complaint is that the dialogue was occasionally a touch too fast; there were times when I thought a slight pause between speakers would have suited the content, but the responses came disconcertingly fast. Otherwise, this was an enjoyable listen, and I’ll keep the others for commutes when I can’t deal with anything more demanding.

(Weird note of the day: Something about the Welsh accents in this production (maybe the rhythm?) reminds me of—of all things—Indian accents.)

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Christie, Agatha: Body in the Library, The (radio play)

Another 90-minute BBC radio adaptation of a Miss Marple mystery, this time The Body in the Library. As the title indicates, a young woman’s body is found on the library hearth of an old friend of Miss Marple’s. I wasn’t quite enjoying this one as we went along, because some of the characters exhibit class prejudices that really got up my nose (and I am not nearly as sensitive to this stuff as, say, Chad). The adaptation was also disappointing in that it not just failed to give an important clue, but gave me exactly the opposite impression of the relevant fact. Who’s editing these things?

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Roberts, Nora: Blue Smoke

From the library, a new Nora Roberts hardcover, Blue Smoke. This is a single-couple novel, perhaps indicating that two- or three-couple novels are not going to be a permanent trend in her mainstream novels. It takes its sweet time getting the couple together, mind, letting one-sided “love at first sight” at around page 50, and a number of near-misses, suffice until they meet almost half-way in. The romance feels almost secondary to me, which is just fine, because I read the book as Catrina Hale’s story, how and why she became an arson investigator. Despite its crashingly obvious villain, that story is more interesting than fated love at first etc.

As usual, a good way to pass a lunch and a sleepy evening; I don’t ask it to be more than that and it doesn’t try.

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Pratchett, Terry: (20) Hogfather

Before Thanksgiving, I was feeling stressed and overly-sensitive; thus, when I grabbed books to take with me, Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather was a natural choice. It’s seasonal, being about the Discworld’s equivalent of Christmas, and the better Discworld books are always comfort reads for me.

This was the only book I read over Thanksgiving, so it was a good choice. I really like the principal character of this book, Susan (Death’s adopted grand-daughter), and moments like “Hi! I’m the inner babysitter!” make me want to cheer. I also like the commentary on the Christmas season, belief, and childhood.

On re-reading, I do think the plot has one incident too many; or, rather, while the last bit in the snow serves thematic purposes, it feels tacked-on. Pratchett’s plots have improved vastly over the course of the Discworld books (of which this is the 20th), but I do think they’re his weakest area. It’s a minor point, however, and Hogfather remains great comfort reading.

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O’Brian, Patrick: (03) H.M.S. Surprise (audio)

I’ve heard the third of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels, H.M.S. Surprise, cited as the point where the series really comes together. I don’t know that I can speak to that; it seems smoother to me, in that its land-based plot isn’t just a big lump at the beginning, but on the other hand, we no longer need to be introduced to those land-based characters. However, to the extent that these assessments are based on Stephen’s expanded role in the plot, I think it’s fair: it’s necessary for the overall balance of the series that Stephen be more than just the sidekick along for the ride, which is accomplished nicely here.

I remembered basically nothing of this book but the sloth (which Patrick Tull pronounces “slowth”; is it just the animal that’s pronounced that way, or the sin too?). I don’t know how I could have forgotten various events, but that just goes to show that audio is really the best way for me to first experience these.

A spoiler-filled post follows.

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Christie, Agatha: Pocket Full of Rye, A (radio play)

I listened to Agatha Christie’s A Pocket Full of Rye as a 90-minute BBC radio play. It’s a Miss Marple mystery about deaths that appear to fit a nursery rhyme’s pattern. June Whitfield is a perfectly good Miss Marple, and I enjoyed listening to her discussions with the police, but ninety minutes wasn’t long enough for this story. The solution to the mystery rested on character development, which just couldn’t be fit into the time available. However, I’m still recording them when they appear on BBC7, since they’re quick, non-demanding listens when I don’t know what else I feel like hearing.

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Gabaldon, Diana: (106) A Breath of Snow and Ashes

A Breath of Snow and Ashes is the sixth of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, and not, I emphasize, the last. (Gabaldon had previously planned only six books, and I have seen some consternation on message boards about whether the series was ending here. It’s not. [*]) It does somewhat fit Gabaldon’s previously stated plans of having an Old World trilogy and a New World trilogy; this strikes me as the last book in a pre-Revolutionary-War New World trilogy, with an uncertain number of Revolutionary War books to follow. A quite remarkable number of plot threads are wrapped up, and there is a strong sense that the table is being cleared to fully focus on the War.

[*] There’s a continuity error, or perhaps over-cleverness, in the second Epilogue that leads to this confusion.

This is also a more satisfactory novel than the prior, in that it weaves together its new plot threads into a self-contained tale, which moves smoothly through space and time. Consequences appear and are resolved within the space of the volume, which is a refreshing change. (There’s an unnecessary quantity of sex early in the book, which is not.)

It’s hard to say much else about this book. Like all of the Outlander books, the pages are soaked in some addictive substance (in the words of Rachel Brown), but details are either meaningless (if you haven’t read prior books) or spoilers (if you have). I am pleased with it, though; it really seems as though Gabaldon has made a concerted effort to wrestle the series back under control, and I am much more optimistic about the next book(s) after reading it.

Two words about the hardcover as a physical object. It is deceptively slim, being printed on very thin paper; it’s actually 980 pages. And the cover is not a light gray, as the online pictures led me to believe, but a shiny shiny silver—I mean, if you were lost in the desert, you could probably blind passing airline pilots with the reflection off this thing, that’s how shiny it is. Use caution when carrying it around.

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