His eye was caught by a movie theater sign: Walls of Jericho. It seemed an eminently suitable title. It would be interesting to see if Biblical accuracy had been preserved.
He bought himself a seat and stumbled into the darkness. He enjoyed the film, though it seemed to him to have no relationship to the Biblical story whatsoever. Even Joshua seemed to have been left out. The walls of Jericho seemed to be a symbolical way of referring to a certain lady's marriage vows. When they had tumbled down several times, the beautiful star met the dour and uncouth hero whom she had secretly loved all along and between them they proposed to build up the walls in a way that would stand the test of time better. It was not a film destined particularly to appeal to an elderly clergyman; but Canon Pennyfeather enjoyed it very much. It was not the type of film he often saw and he felt it was enlarging his knowledge of life.
Synopsis: Miss Marple begins to notice strange goings-on at Bertram's Hotel, the ultra-posh luxury throwback to a London long-past and very much missed. At the same time, a girl and her mother have the ultimate dysfunctional relationship, a string of robberies plagues the West Midlands and a member of the clergy accidentally sees a porno and goes missing.
There's also a mysterious race car.
Okay, I read this one last when I was 12, and I remember at the time thinking that it was very posh and exciting and all, but this is one that did not, sadly, stand up to a reread. It's an Agatha Christie, true, so there's a base level of quality (for me, ymmv), which consists largely in word-choice and well-written, rhythmic sentence structure, but overall, I was kind of unimpressed by the whole effort. The crimes aren't very interesting, for a start, and Miss Marple's been relegated to the background by the efforts of a PC Plod who turns out to be brilliant and only need her help to make any progress on the case whatsoever. And the resolution was sort of meh.
Overall, it was 250 pages of Dame Agatha banging on about Kids These Days, which is totally her right, but next time I'm rereading Peril at End House.
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Actually, I kind of like this book, for several reasons. I like it for the look into that almost ideal past Christie has assigned her aging sleuth, and the sensibleness it reveals about Miss M. She may miss the by-gone days, but she never fools herself that they were better in every way.
ReplyDeleteI also like the general sense of disorder and decay, through which Miss Marple sails unruffled, and as sharp eyed as ever. The golden age is fading -- but not her composure or gentility.
Finally, I should hate to have missed Canon Pennyfeather, a man who barely copes with the pace of his life. He surely would never have survived in our times. The amiably befuddled man would have been flattened shortly after leaving kindergarten, I fear. But I'm glad to have seen him fumbling bemusedly through a kinder, slower time.
You're right about the mystery part, of course. Pity, really.
Oh Canon Pennyfeather is a darling; I would have loved to have seen him reappear in additional novels. He is just so clear about what he's doing, even if he has no idea where he is.
ReplyDeleteI did like the look into the golden past that Miss Marple conjures up around her, and that she, eventually, is not even remotely fooled by the show. I didn't, however, get the sense of disorder and decay as much as I got the sense that everything was going fine until Questions Were Asked. I think that had I seen more decay and disorder, I would have felt much more kindly towards the book as a whole. The revelation felt out of place, as if Christie hadn't given the clues that much thought before springing the revelation.
It's just not one of my favorites, sadly. But I have a whole bookshelf full of others...
Thanks so much for commenting!