Christie and Company: Detective Fiction of the Golden Age

[annzeepark914]

5 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Fear not, there are plenty of authors out there writing excellent mysteries.  Some of my favorite authors are Louise Penny, Michael Connelly, Donna Leon, Keigo Higashino, Martin Edwards, Martin Walker, Jo Nesbo, Jane Harper, Denise Mina and Tana French.

Good. We were discussing authors this morning at our neighborhood coffee group. We decided we'll all take our lists of authors whose books we want to read to our mystery book club next week. We did read a Louise Penny book two years ago & we liked it. I'm adding these names to my list. Thanks!! 

[voiceover]

So now it’s Dame Agatha’s work that’s being cleansed “for modern sensibilities”.

Paging George Orwell & Ray Bradbury!  They’re coming for 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 next.

Harper Collins: Get. Fucked.

[sugarbaker design]

13 hours ago, voiceover said:

So now it’s Dame Agatha’s work that’s being cleansed “for modern sensibilities”.

That happened a long time ago with the original title of And Then There Were None.

[Bethany]

29 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

That happened a long time ago with the original title of And Then There Were None.

And it happened twice - or perhaps once in two different countries?  In this particular case I didn't have a problem with the change.  The new title accurately reflects the content and the old titles were pretty offensive (not intentionally on Dame Agatha's part) but in any event I'd rather see the titles changed than the books withdrawn from production.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Elizabeth Anne

[Bethany]

2 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

That happened a long time ago with the original title of And Then There Were None.

Agatha Christie novels reworked to remove potentially offensive language

I don't know how I feel about this.  Mostly I am against it but it would depend how it was handled - most of the negative things I recall were more or less throwaway lines that were not pertinent to the plot so omitting an insulting word, I don't know if that would worry me.  There are certainly allusions in some of her works that have made me wince (particularly the way she describes Jewish people).  But altering too much would be setting a precedent I'm not sure I would want to see.  These books were of their time and perhaps a simple note at the start of a novel along the lines of "hey guys remember this was written in 1934" would suffice.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Elizabeth Anne

[voiceover]

3 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

That happened a long time ago with the original title of And Then There Were None.

Title change versus complete rewriting of passages.  Not. The. Same.

 

[Jalyn]

20 hours ago, voiceover said:

Title change versus complete rewriting of passages.  Not. The. Same.

 

While I agree with your general sentiment on the new changes, this isn't quite true. The central poem of the novel was also changed along with each title changes. It matched the title for the "10 Little" iterations and was changes to "soldiers" for "And then there were None." The name of the island was renamed to match in each case as well. I would suggest that it is different because Christie herself was involved in at least the initial changes. It was never published in the states under the original title. With that, Christie set the expectation that, for that book, this was not central to the novel and she had no issue changing it. 

Changing other pieces of her writing with no indication that she would be ok with the changes is not ok. I think it's notable that at least some of her works are just coming into the public domain. Are they changing only books that are already public or do they hold or have buy in from the copywrite holders? How do changes to the text affect the copywrite? 

[voiceover]

If the writer of the work wants to change the original in any way — hey; you wrote it; self-edit at will.  Depending on the changes I may roll my eyes, but they’re *your pages.  The “yeah but she changed the poem too” is hair-splitting. The og title was the title of the poem used in the book, so of course that was going to change bc otherwise it wouldn’t make sense.  Plus — Dame Agatha agreed to it.

This whole situation angers and terrifies me.  When did this consensus come down, that modern audiences are too stupid or fragile to handle the concept that history is a story of change; of evolution; and it’s one thing to critique the way previous generations thought — fire at will!  To pretend that an author in 1939 used the same words as an author today does??

Let me reach back to the early 80s and quote BJ Hunnicutt: “Some things are wrong, and they’re ALWAYS wrong!” 

[Bethany]

14 minutes ago, voiceover said:

To pretend that an author in 1939 used the same words as an author today does??

Not the same as changing older books to sound more contemporary but this is a big peeve of mine - people writing books set in earlier times but making the characters sound like they are straight out of the 21st century.  If you aren't skilled enough as a writer to strike a balance between writing characters believable to their time but still being relatable to modern readers then don't write books set in earlier times.

[sugarbaker design]

I have a question:  Will the covers of these new editions be labeled as abridged or updated or scrubbed?

[BlackberryJam]

There have been changes to Christie books for…years. This isn’t something new. I noticed it in listening to The Secret of Chimneys. In my print edition, Bundle and Lord Caterham use anti-Semitic slurs to refer to Isaacstein. In the audiobook read by Hugh Fraser, they use mocking terms, but not anti-Semitic ones.

Picking up the print version and seeing the anti-Semitic words …bothered me and took me far out of the story, making me despise Bundle and her father. I felt uncomfortable and didn’t want to read the book.

At the same time, I’m not necessarily pro editing and changing stories based on modern sensibilities.

It’s not an easy question. 

Edited April 1, 2023 by BlackberryJam

[pennybotello7]

On 6/14/2022 at 5:43 AM, Calvada said:

I'm currently doing a re-read of Agatha Christie.  It's been many years (at least 40) since I read these.  I'm reading them in order and I'm surprised that for many of the books, I'd forgotten who the murderer was, so I'm enjoying them for that.  I didn't remember that Miss Marple only appeared in 1 novel and a few short stories in the first 30 to 35 books, although perhaps I didn't read them in publication order 40 years ago.  I was inspired to read the Christies again after a discussion with a friend about our favorite mystery authors when we both lamented that Sue Grafton's death had meant no "Z is for . . ." book and I mentioned that Agatha Christie wrote the final Poirot 30 years before her death and had it in reserve in the event of her death.  (Although I think it was published shortly before Christie's death.)  That made me start thinking about reading all the Christies once again, which I finally started doing so earlier this year.

I really enjoy Sayers.  The first one I ever read was "Murder Must Advertise" so I have a special fondness for it.  My mother bought a grocery bag of paperback books for $1 at a rummage sale and that book was one of them.  Once  I knew there was a series with Peter Wimsey, I read them all in order.  If only Sayers had been as prolific as Christie! Besides all this, I would like to add that I did my writing with the help of https://studydriver.com/the-yellow-wallpaper/ and I understand that in many places there is the phenomenon of The Yellow Wallpaper, this means that women's rights are discouraged, I am not happy about it and I am amazed that in history something like this has been admitted.   I know "The Nine Tailors" was called her finest literary achievement by the New York Times following her death, but all I remember is trying (and mostly failing) to get through reams of technical detail about bell-ringing.  And I really enjoyed the BBC's Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey stories with Harriet Walter and Edward Petherbridge.   

I also love reading this, It's interesting to note that Miss Marple didn't feature as prominently in the earlier books, but eventually became one of Christie's most beloved characters. Dorothy L. Sayers is also a fantastic author, and her Lord Peter Wimsey series is a classic in the mystery genre. "Murder Must Advertise" is a great entry point into the series, and it's always interesting to hear how people discover their favorite books. "The Nine Tailors" is certainly a challenging read due to the technical detail about bell-ringing, but it's also a unique and intricate mystery that rewards careful attention. The BBC adaptations of Sayers' books are also highly regarded, and the performances of Harriet Walter and Edward Petherbridge are a standout. It's great that these adaptations are able to bring these classic stories to life in a new and engaging way.

Edited April 3, 2023 by pennybotello7

[sugarbaker design]

On 4/1/2023 at 5:18 PM, BlackberryJam said:

There have been changes to Christie books for…years. This isn’t something new. I noticed it in listening to The Secret of Chimneys. In my print edition, Bundle and Lord Caterham use anti-Semitic slurs to refer to Isaacstein. In the audiobook read by Hugh Fraser, they use mocking terms, but not anti-Semitic ones.

Publishers have done the same with other authors, a character called The Dago in The Man In The Queue by Josephine Tey became The Levantine in later editions.  The weird thing about the current Christie controversy is the press and hype about the changes before they're actually published.  The publishers could've made the changes and very few people would have noticed.  Which leads a cynical me to believe it's a ploy to make some lucre for the Christie estate, which is always open for new adaptations of Dame Agatha's work.

[Calvada]

Speaking of one’s writing being altered, there’s a sentence in that post of mine quoted above by pennybotello7 that was not originally in my post.  The sentence beginning “Besides all that…” is not mine. 

[Bethany]

4 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Which leads a cynical me to believe it's a ploy to make some lucre for the Christie estate, which is always open for new adaptations of Dame Agatha's work.

I'm all for heirs continuing to be the ones who profit from granny or grandpas work as opposed to some nameless corporation but I've been really surprised by how far the Christie estate has been willing to go.  I get the movies and the TV shows, Dame Agatha allowed that as well.  What I'm less happy about are the "new" books being written using her characters.  Is this commonly done with authors?  Offhand I know they did this with Rex Stout, I read a few and they were actually quite good, but not I guess good enough as I haven't bothered to read more than two or three.

[Jalyn]

10 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

 Which leads a cynical me to believe it's a ploy to make some lucre for the Christie estate, which is always open for new adaptations of Dame Agatha's work.

That's why I was questioning how these changes would affect the works going into the public domain.

5 hours ago, Elizabeth Anne said:

I'm all for heirs continuing to be the ones who profit from granny or grandpas work as opposed to some nameless corporation but I've been really surprised by how far the Christie estate has been willing to go.  I get the movies and the TV shows, Dame Agatha allowed that as well.  What I'm less happy about are the "new" books being written using her characters.  Is this commonly done with authors?  Offhand I know they did this with Rex Stout, I read a few and they were actually quite good, but not I guess good enough as I haven't bothered to read more than two or three.

Well, others will start as soon as they are completely free - see the number of authors using Sherlock these days. The owners of the property might as well get something out of their use? I think I tried one of the new Poirots. If I did it wasn't particularly notable in either a good or bad direction, I guess. 

[BlackberryJam]

14 hours ago, Jalyn said:

That's why I was questioning how these changes would affect the works going into the public domain.

Well, others will start as soon as they are completely free - see the number of authors using Sherlock these days. The owners of the property might as well get something out of their use? I think I tried one of the new Poirots. If I did it wasn't particularly notable in either a good or bad direction, I guess. 

The Sophie Hannah Poirots are horrid. 

[Bethany]

A British Island That Inspired Agatha Christie Is for Sale