May book club discussion thread

[aurora]

I think we're starting these on the 25th of each month now, right?  If so, today is the day to start discussing And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie! 

That is, if anyone is around on this holiday weekend.   (We might get more input on Tuesday.)

[aurora]

Unfortunately, I haven't managed to finish yet but I'm really enjoying it so far! I'll check back soon when I have finished with more comments and to see if others have started to discuss.

[Pippin]

I personally didn't really care for this book but I don't care for mysteries in general. I didn't really find the killer to be all that much of a surprise as I picked up on the red herring clue right away from the poem before even starting and I just figured it could only be ether the judge or the ex cop because why else would someone be interested in rounding up probable killers who escaped the law and have absolutely nothing in common.

I did end up giving the book 3 stars though because I do appreciate that this is the first of this kind of story and I did enjoy picking up on elements that inspired other books/movies that I enjoy.

[dorothyinAus]

I agree with Pippin.

It was all a bit predictable for me, especially after I picked up on the poem. I hadn't read the book before, nor had I seen any of the movies made based upon the book, but I had seen many other adaptations and in a way that was to my detriment. It really was a clever device the way the poem was woven into the murders. But having seen it done before, I was clued into what was going to happen. I knew there was a red herring, but wasn't sure just which of the murders was the red herring, so that part was pretty surprising, but that was really the only unknown in the book for me.

I really enjoy reading mysteries, and I haven't read nearly enough of the "classics" so it was good to tick another Christie off the list. I have decided, however, that I prefer her Poirot or Miss Marple stories better than the non-series ones. It was definitely worth reading, if only to have finally read the "original."

[charlatti]

This was a re-read for me, but when I read it the first time I was totally blown away. I had not read a lot of mysteries at the time (and really, I'm still usually terrible at picking up clues, though I've become much better at it) and didn't see it coming at all. On a re-read, I still appreciate how cleverly plotted it is, but I'd agree that some of her other mysteries are better. (Poirot books are my favorites of hers.)

[hopecounts]

I was also rereading this but thee first time I read it I was surprised.
I think largely because I hadn't read many mysteries so didn't pick up on the poem clue for the red herring.
I enjoyed rereading it.
I do prefer her Poirot books to her stand alones.

[labbie]

I am really happy that I read this book. It's my first Christie novel, and like others that have posted, I did find it a tad predictable. One thing that really impressed me was the timelessness of the writing. Had I not known, I never would have guessed this was written in the 1930s. It was an easier read than I'd expected, and a quick one, which was much appreciated since I'd just finished a 700+ pager prior to picking this up!
I will definitely check out some of her other works.

[charlatti]

So what diid everyone think about the crimes the assembled group had committed? He says in the letter that the deaths were ordered so the worst crimes suffered the longest -- did you agree with his assessment of which ones were the worst?

[MrsAxilla]

I'll admit that I over-thunk it. I though each character was sinister enough that any could have been the killer. I guessed an elaborate plot where they all took some action that caused the death of another. I'll bet that's a plot of another novel.

charlatti - I do think letting that little boy drown was the worst crime - she certainly felt the most guilt. I don't really have an opinion on the others.

[dorothyinAus]

May 26, 2014 23:33:18 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

charlatti - I do think letting that little boy drown was the worst crime - she certainly felt the most guilt. I don't really have an opinion on the others.

I think it was not only that she allowed him to drown, but that she almost planned it.

I do not believe any of the characters on the island were ever truly innocent.  They merely escaped justice under the system as it exists.  I do not necessarily believe that means any one should take matters into his own hands, but all were guilty of causing, or at the very least failing to prevent, the death of another person.

I thought it was an interesting plot device, and certainly the one point of the book that I had not seen repeated in any of the adaptations or pastiches I have seen/read.

[msmerymac]

May 26, 2014 16:35:00 GMT -5 charlatti said:

So what diid everyone think about the crimes the assembled group had committed? He says in the letter that the deaths were ordered so the worst crimes suffered the longest -- did you agree with his assessment of which ones were the worst?

Only in a way. I thought, "Really? The guy who mowed down two kids with his car died first?" Also, I found some of the "responsibility" for the deaths questionable - I'm not sure about how guilty Miss Brent was. She fired her maid for being pregnant (which, yeah, shitty thing to do) and then the maid killed herself. Very rarely is another person REALLY responsible for someone else's suicide, you know?


As the story went on, though, I did find Vera to be the craziest and probably most horrifying of all of the back stories. She obviously was not convicted of any wrong doing after Cyril's death, but it became apparent that she was not only responsible for it, but that her boyfriend/lover totally knew about it and also that she was fairly unhinged. So I agree with that murder placement.



This was my first Agatha Christie and I did enjoy it. Knowing about her popularity and the fact that she writes mysteries, her work has never really been something I was drawn to, since I didn't think I'd enjoy it. But the story was fairly well written, and I admire the fact that she became such a celebrated writer at that time in history - and really a writer of popular fiction, meaning a successful writer. I've more often seen this type of plot used in horror films and whatnot, but I really didn't feel like that aspect was there in this book - it really did read like a mystery, though at times I could have believed, had I been on the island, that there was a supernatural element at work.

I'll seek out more of her work in the future when I'm in search of a quick read. Since everyone is suggesting the Poirot novels, I'll probably try them. 

[msmerymac]

Interesting fact - this book has gone by 4 different titles:

Ten Little N_____s ( )
Ten Little Indians
Ten Little Soldiers
And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None was used in the US when the book was first published, I believe, because the original title was seen as offensive even in 1939/1940 here (but apparently not in the UK). So it's the most popular title used now.

[Pippin]

I think the order of worst crimes was off a bit. The one who fired the maid I don't think she should have been seen as a murderer at all and the guy running over the kids was way worse in that he had no remorse about it what so ever. I do agree with Vera's being the worst crime though and I don't think she regretted the actual crime but rather she regretted that the father didn't end up with her anyway.

[hopecounts]

May 27, 2014 11:43:03 GMT -5 Pippin said:

I think the order of worst crimes was off a bit. The one who fired the maid I don't think she should have been seen as a murderer at all and the guy running over the kids was way worse in that he had no remorse about it what so ever. I do agree with Vera's being the worst crime though and I don't think she regretted the actual crime but rather she regretted that the father didn't end up with her anyway.

I think it is important to view this situation through the context of the time.
An unmarried pregnant maid was unemployable, essentially leaving the maid 3 choices assuming the father couldn't/wouldn't marry her
-keep the baby and most likely end up a prostitute on the street
-have the baby and place it for adoption
(needs some type of support in the interim, where's it coming from? See the Magdalene GIrls scandal for what happened to far too many of these girls)
- kill herself
So in the time yes she is responsible because she knew well that the maid would have almost no options and the few she had were all awful.

[dorothyinAus]

May 27, 2014 9:18:56 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Interesting fact - this book has gone by 4 different titles:

Ten Little N_____s ( )
Ten Little Indians
Ten Little Soldiers
And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None was used in the US when the book was first published, I believe, because the original title was seen as offensive even in 1939/1940 here (but apparently not in the UK). So it's the most popular title used now.

I always knew this book as Ten Little Indians. I knew it had multiple titles due to the offensive word in the original title, but I had only ever seen it on shelves (in stores and libraries) as Ten Little Indians.  It's really only been in the past few years that I have seen it universally titled as And Then There Were None.

What was tangentially connected to my reading of the book is that as I was reading the note in the book about the title, a "news" report on the Top Gear/Jeremy Clarkson scandal was breaking.  I had known this book used the N-word in the title, but I had never known the eenie-meenie-miney-moe chant used the N-word.  It was just a random-but-interconnected-world kind of thing.

[MrsAxilla]

Today I learned that Agatha Christie has sold more books than any other author in the history of ever EXCEPT Shakespeare, who is number one. They've sold billions each.

[christy082]

So I'd never read anything by Agatha Christie before. I really didn't even know anything about her or her books. So I decided to google her. While I was reading the wikipedia page about her, I opened the page about And Then There Were None- not thinking there would be spoilers to the book. I thought it would help me to keep the characters straight if I read their summaries. Well, after reading a few I realized there were spoilers. So as I was scrolling past them, I inadvertently read the first sentence about Wargrave, which stated he is later revealed to be the killer. I was so pissed, I spoiled the book for myself! lol

At least I didn't spoil the "how" and "why" of the book, just the "who". But it still made it hard to get into the book as much as I otherwise would have.

I did enjoy it. I've never heard of a red herring, so that reference was lost on me and didn't give away that plot point to me. One thing in the book that annoyed me was the way women were often referenced to- as silly or hysterical. It's par for the course of the time, but it still annoyed me since Christie is female (and I didn't expect that of a female author). Then again, I think it goes to show the timelessness of the writing, as I had to remind myself it was written so long ago. I definitely found it interesting that this is the fourth title of the book and also how popular her books have been throughout time.

Something else interesting that I learned in my googling was that Christie later married a second time, to an archeologist. Apparently she'd always had an interest in archeology and met this future husband, Max Mallowan, on a trip to an excavation site at Ur in 1930.

I read this book while vacationing in Philadelphia this past weekend. While there, I visited the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. There was a large exhibit on Ur, and it even talked about Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie. It was funny to have the book I was reading collide with my trip.

[Wallflower]

I really liked the book. This is my first Christie, although my mother is a big fan (doesn't like Poirot much, but loves Marple). I really felt the build-up of suspense, and I didn't figure out who was the murderer.

On thing I liked is that this is device used frequently (isolate characters and then start killing them off one at a time), but I think the first time was this book. And I liked this more than any other version I can think of, maybe because we were reading a book rather than watching a movie and could get into the characters heads, hear their thoughts as the suspense built.

(It made me think of A Christmas Carol, because that's another unique device that had never been used before, but now is overused and almost cheapened.)

[mrspez07]

My comments w/o reading other comments first:
I listened to an audio version of this, and once I got familiar with who the characters were, I really enjoyed it and the person doing the reading. 
I may have read this and compared it to the movie, Clue in high school. If it wasn't this one, it was a similar one by AC. Though I didn't remember who dunnit.

Her writing style and level of suspense is awesome. I was also finding the simple explanations of the deaths to be as disturbing as a current-day murder mystery. 
I think, based on when this was written, there may be some symbolism to the modern house. It was mentioned more than once, almost reminding the reader that we're in a modern structure and not a old, dusty, haunted place. I think if you wanted to read into the setting, etc. it could be said that the modern house stood for the significant uptick in modernization around 1939 and the fact that just because it's modern, it doesn't make it a happy, perfect thing or place to be. I also was wondering what she was visualizing as "modern" in 1939, versus what we would perceive as modern is very different today (more like 50s-60s era). 

Comments for after reading others:
I think the man who killed the kids w/ his car and had little remorse should have suffered longer. Maybe the newness of the automobile at the time this was written made that type of crime seem less significant (kind of how turning out the maid was more significant). Even though I may have read this one before, I found myself trying to puzzle through things and wondered if there was someone hiding in the house, etc. Even though I understand a red herring, I didn't pick up on the significance of it in the book. Another item I found interesting is the way the killer put the others into suspense which was a serious mind game. Can you  imagine wondering who and if you would be next?! I thought that some of the deaths could have been from guilt/self-doubt etc. and/or maybe some of them resigned themselves (other than the Colonel) to die and accepted what was coming to them. It seemed almost that each one seemed to have some level of acceptance for their actions right before they were killed.  

[aurora]

It's embarrassing since I started the poll to see who is participating, but I've only just finished the book and come into this thread.

I have to admit that I missed the "red herring" clue.  I blame being distracted by all the work that kept me from finishing the book in a reasonable time, as well as being very unskilled at reading mysteries.  So, I didn't figure out who was the murderer until the very end. 

labbie, I felt very much like you did about the accessibility of the writing and timelessness of the book. 

charlatti, about the order of the deaths, I thought some of them were selected oddly.  We don't know that much about the Rogers' employer's death, so where they should rank depends heavily on whether they actually did it or not.  But I did think it was strange to say for sure that Mrs. Rogers would have been only following her husband's lead when clearly writing Vera to be someone quite capable of premeditated murder.

I also feel like Dr. Armstrong's accidental killing while operating drunk would be more frowned upon today than it was in the 1930s; I mean, even drunk driving used to be considered an excuse that would get you out of punishment.  Similar to the mowing down of people in your car without remorse; I'm actually a bit surprised Marston didn't get jail time for that even then, but I think it would be taken more seriously now.  

[aurora]

May 28, 2014 7:52:32 GMT -5 christy082 said:

...One thing in the book that annoyed me was the way women were often referenced to- as silly or hysterical. It's par for the course of the time, but it still annoyed me since Christie is female (and I didn't expect that of a female author). Then again, I think it goes to show the timelessness of the writing, as I had to remind myself it was written so long ago. I definitely found it interesting that this is the fourth title of the book and also how popular her books have been throughout time. ...

I read a lot of historical books in general and unfortunately it was extremely common, so even though I dislike it I can't hold it against Christie.  Although, I do have to say that women are often our own worst detractors.  I mean, Christie wrote the woman to be the worst murderer.  Brent was the one who "killed" her maid to stick up for a patriarchal standard about chastity.

I was also thinking the other day while reading The Boleyn Inheritance that oftentimes women may have felt like they had to feign silliness or weakness to get their own ends.  I mean, they usually weren't allowed to make their own decisions, so to get out of doing something a man wanted them to do they had to pretend to be sick.  It may have served them well to pretend to stupidity when making suggestions, since they couldn't be seen to be challenging the men who were in charge of them. 

[aurora]

May 27, 2014 22:58:58 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Today I learned that Agatha Christie has sold more books than any other author in the history of ever EXCEPT Shakespeare, who is number one. They've sold billions each.

I think the note at the back of my copy also said she has written more books than any other author, although 2 min of Google sleuthing fails to prove that true or false.

Wiki says And Then There Were None is her best-selling book, with over 100 million copies sold.  That's probably a lot more impressive for back in the day that mass media publishing and e-books weren't so extensive.

[aurora]

May 29, 2014 23:40:08 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

...
I think, based on when this was written, there may be some symbolism to the modern house. It was mentioned more than once, almost reminding the reader that we're in a modern structure and not a old, dusty, haunted place. I think if you wanted to read into the setting, etc. it could be said that the modern house stood for the significant uptick in modernization around 1939 and the fact that just because it's modern, it doesn't make it a happy, perfect thing or place to be. I also was wondering what she was visualizing as "modern" in 1939, versus what we would perceive as modern is very different today (more like 50s-60s era). ...

This is an interesting thought. I think you're probably on to something, since the fact that it was so modern was mentioned so many times. Although, the psychological punishment might have been worse if it had been a dusty old haunted house!

[aprilsails]

I read this book during high school as Ten Little Indians and was a little confused on the re-read as And Then There Were None.

I love Christie novels, although I don't think this was her best work. I think this one had the most unique mystery component and it really stood out at the time. If anyone enjoyed this or would like to get into more Christie novels, I would suggest Sad Cypress. I really loved that one.

I remembered who was the killer from reading the book before so the red herring stood out for me. The house being modern could have implied that it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar to the people who were staying there. New and strange to pull them out of their comfort zone. It's also a signal for a new kind of killer.

[dorothyinAus]

Jun 1, 2014 19:29:56 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

The house being modern could have implied that it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar to the people who were staying there. New and strange to pull them out of their comfort zone. It's also a signal for a new kind of killer.

That's an interesting thought.  I didn't really think of the book as "new and different" because I had read/seen so many other things that "borrow" liberally from the plot, but thinking of it in terms of something completely new and different puts an interesting spin on it.  Though I have to admit I completely missed nearly every reference to the fact that the house was new and modern, so even reading it as fresh book, I may have missed any significance.