Postern Of Fate

MissQuin

I was confused reading your post Tommy, do you mean that Endless Night needed a recurring character? or that it was better without one?

Tommy_A_Jones

It really needed a recurring Character, ATTWN, The Sittaford Mystery and Why Didn't They Ask Evans were strong enough without one but not Endless Night.

Tommy_A_Jones

There is no way you could put a recurring Character in And Then There Were None Anyway, you could put Battle, Spence or Narracott, Bundle and Bill and SPOILER! Victoria, Ann and the lead in Destination Unknown and the Men they end up with in Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and you could putt Spence or Battle in Sittaford Mystery but Sittaford Mystery and Why Didn't They Ask Evans are PERFECT so they don't need changing in any way, I think PassngerTo Frankfurt is Unsalavagable and actually so is Endless Night IMHO, ITV should have don the Miss Marple story The Curious Case of The Caretaker (Or whatever it is called) Instead. 

MissQuin

Endless Night is so different in tone in any other crime story she wrote. It's more modern, more sexual, more intense and  it deals with psychology. I hate it when people think that Agatha Christie only ever wrote "cosy crime fiction". She was capable of so much more. Endless Night proves that she could explore more complex emotional and adult relationship issues. 

To add a character from any other book, such as Poirot or Miss Marple or any other work by her,  into Endless night would have been totally wrong. Like adding Mickey Mouse into  Nightmare Before Christmas. Both are Disney films and yet so completely different. 

Zeddie

Totally agree Miss Quin. I thought exactly that when I watched the recent ITV adaptation of Endless Night which included Miss Marple.  It was awful! There was no need for Miss Marple to be included in this story at all and a fantastic story really suffered for it.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

You have found the first little soldier boy!  Well done!

 

Did you know that Soldier Island is inspired in part by Burgh Island?  Burgh Island is a small island off the coast of Devon, on the southwest coast of England, not too far from France.  The real Burgh Island is not quite so isolated and uninhabited as Soldier Island.  It has the Burgh Island Hotel, whose art-deco modern style and colorful ownership over the years inspired Christie’s background for the house on Soldier Island.  Independently-owned homes are also on the island.  Burgh Island played an important role in WWII– injured soldiers were treated there, and it may have been a meeting place for Allied leaders.  Centuries ago, a monastery may have been on the island, but if it did exist, most of the structure has been destroyed.  Christie also used Burgh Island as the inspiration for the setting of Evil Under the Sun.

 

 

Here’s something else.  There’s a word written in pencil on the base of the soldier boy figurine: “Narracott.”  Let’s see what that could mean!

MissQuin

 I've recorded Marple Endless Night and I've not got round to watching it! I think I would struggle with it like you Zeddie. That's why I've put off watching it.  A part of my mind will keep protesting while I'm watching the adaption!I know people compare Miss Marple's The Case Of The Caretaker to Endless night. It's true the plots are the same. 

But in other ways they are so very different. The way Endless night is narrated is such a different tone to Miss Marple. Much more intense, more unnerving and sensual. Mike lives in a different time period (70's), different generation, different background. There isn't someone to "solve" the case, the story isn't about deduction it's more about exploring the feelings characters. I think that some people who want murder mysteries are disappointed by EN because of this.

If Endless Night had been a Mary Westmacott book, I think that people would have a very different view of the book. 

I think that I will struggle to watch the Marple adaption of Endless night. Miss Marple brilliantly explores the lives of gossipy spinsters in their  village with visits to the Church, the village fete, tea parties. Yes, there's dark undercurrents lurking under the surface of this seemingly tranquil life. But it's a world away from the characters lives in Endless night.  

I didn't feel that Miss Marple belonged with Tommy and Tuppence in Pricking Of My Thumbs. I'm not a major fan of the book, but it feels like a re-write. I didn't enjoy reading Postern Of Fate, yet if it was re-written for TV with Miss Marple and had more action, I still wouldn't like it!  It wouldn't be Agatha Christie's work anymore. If she wrote it as slow and meandering it should stay that way. Strange, but it's how I feel! 

Tommy_A_Jones

I was glad ITV put Miss Marple  in it, it helped what is a very dull story, SPOILER It was nice to see Janet Renfrew as the witch but the part should have gone to Sheila Hancock, even with Miss Marple I found it boring, It is a shame ITV didn't do The Curious Case of The Caretaker instead.

lachy.a.w

That adaptation was way too predictable! And Miss Marple doesn't really fit in there.

MissQuin

I watched the Marple adapt of Endless night, but I posted on the Endless Night topic instead

CaptainHastings

With everyone who has read Postern of Fate slating it as the worst of the Tommy and Tuppence books (if not one of the worst Christie) I did not borrow the book on CD from my library with hot anticipation of a thrilling mystery.  But having recently listened to the prior four, as a Christie completist, I felt compelled, nevertheless to finish the series with POF.  Boy, were all of you kind people right! 

SPOILERS ahead:

I went in realizing how close to the end of her life Dame Christie was when she wrote this book, so I think there is some benefit of the doubt due to this famed authoress, but, what a stinker POA was.  It's as though she gave up on writing a mystery.  There was no way for the reader to guess who the murderer was.  The character is introduced in the final pages of the book as a stand-in gardener, immediately after Tommy is explicitly told to avoid any solicitations for temporary garden work except from someone with a specific reference.  Even when, big surprise, this person turns out to be the culprit, Christie does not even tie up her background.  Apparently she's a distant niece of a seemingly benevolent doctor who's a fascist at heart.  This doctor is not mentioned previously in the book.  Tommy and Tuppence really solve nothing, and the contents of the tarpaulin bag they find in a rocking horse for the authorities, is never even revealed.  Talk about a Maguffin.