.jpg "agatha christie ordeal by innocence")
#AGATHA CHRISTIE ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE FULL#
There’s a lengthy sequence, for example, where Leo Argyle drones on through what appears to be a full psychological assessment of his marriage. Instead, there are endless scenes of reflect and retrospection, reminiscences, and recollections, and absolutely no action. His confrontation with Calgary injects some drama into the events, and you think that it’s all going to pick up from this point – but it doesn’t. After its initial mysterious opening, it quickly falls into dull characterisations and strained conversations, until the arrival of Mickey. Christie set about this book to be a psychological thriller rather than a murder mystery, and for me it simply doesn’t work. And, where those who like the book, criticise its ending for stacking up too much action and artifice, I find the ending (along with, to be fair, the beginning) by far its most readable and enjoyable part.
I found this book very stodgy, very slow, and very disappointing. This is definitely a book that splits her fandom, with many people siding with the contemporary reviews at the time, that it was below par for Christie, and others agreeing with more recent reviews that it’s one of her best. Secondly, in Christie’s own words, this book, along with Crooked House, “satisfied me best” after a period of reflection, she placed it as one of her few personal favourites. Personally, whilst there might be some overlap, primarily in the which of us did it? area, I don’t really see the enormous link between the two – in fact, I think there is a greater link – certainly as regards the motive – with the novel Appointment with Death. Firstly, many commentators believe that the plotline owes a lot to Christie’s short story Sing a Song of Sixpence that was published 24 years earlier in the collection The Listerdale Mystery. Much has been made of two facts regarding this book. The full book was first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club on 3rd November 1958, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in 1959 under the British title.
An abridged version of the novel was also published in the 21 February 1959 issue of the Star Weekly Complete Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement. The book was first published in the UK in two abridged instalments in John Bull magazine in September 1958, and in the US in thirty-six instalments in the Chicago Tribune from February to March 1959, under the title The Innocent. I know that Thou wilt not hold me innocent.” These are two verses taken from the book of Job, chapter 9 verses 20 and 28. That’s none other than William Collins himself, Christie’s publisher since the days of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and whose company would continue to publish her books until her death in 1976 – and indeed beyond (with the unusual exception of The Hound of Death.) The epigraph reads: “If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. The book is dedicated “to Billy Collins, with affection and gratitude”. Whereas Christie’s previous book, 4.50 from Paddington, unusually contains no dedication, Ordeal by Innocence contains both a dedication and an epigraph. As usual, if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, as always, I promise not to reveal whodunit! Calgary takes it on himself to discover the truth. The other household members aren’t happy to discover that it wasn’t Jacko who killed Rachel – as it means one of them must have.
In which Jacko Argyle is found guilty of the murder of his mother Rachel and dies in prison before Dr Arthur Calgary can come forward and gives him a cast-iron alibi for the time the crime was committed.
0 kommentar(er)
