Re-reading Project 2012: Three Novels By Agatha Christie

In mid-February, I spent a few days at my parents' house in Brisbane. While there, I dug out some of the things I'd stored in their ceiling space when I left, including a pile of old Agatha Christie novels. Throughout my teenage years, I worked my way through her bibliography - I think I may've read everything she published under her own name (she also wrote some romance novels under a pseudonym, but I've never bothered with those). Yet I haven't re-read many of them at all in the last decade or so, and I thought it would be interesting this month to re-read three of them and see how I react many years after my first - or indeed any subsequent - reading of them. I decided to pick one Hercule Poirot, one Miss Marple and one non-series book to sample the range of Christie's books.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Arguably one of her most famous books, along with Murder on the Orient Express and maybe a couple of others, this is a relatively early book and apparently caused a big sensation at the time of its original publication because of its (unprecedented?) twist ending (which I won't spoil here).

Briefly, the story is narrated by Dr Shepherd, the GP in a small-ish English village. It begins immediately after the death of Mrs Ferrars, a local woman, but that is merely prelude to the titular murder of prominent local - and Shepherd's friend - Roger Ackroyd. As it turns out, the mysterious new neighbour next door to Shepherd and his sister is none other than famous, newly retired, detective Hercule Poirot, who gets pressed into helping solve the case. For much of the book, it's almost like an Agatha Christie by numbers routine - Poirot decides to help out, the local police think he's a little strange but nonetheless are glad for the help (so long as they still get credit), and Poirot works in his own inimitable way to root out secrets from everyone who could possibly be a suspect. This last ends up being one of my main gripes against Christie's books - none of them are long, but almost all of them occasionally get bogged down in frustrating red herrings. If someone dies at a country house (which is what happens in a decent proportion of them), it will emerge that
a) almost everyone else in the house - along with a few neighbours etc - will have a secret, many of which are at least potentially grounds for a motive,
b) several tedious chapters will be spent sorting out exactly who was where when the murder or other significant events occured (at least a few of the characters will lie about this),
c) almost none of a) or b) will matter to Poirot in solving the crime.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a pretty good example of these tendencies, but is of course redeemed by the ending. Yes, it's silly and less plausible than many of her novels, but it is a damn good twist (even if it has been quite cleverly skewed by Pierre Bayard in Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?, which argues that Poirot was wrong in his deductions). Indeed, Christie thought it such a good ending that she later reused it in another book (which I won't name, for obvious reasons). But throughout Ackroyd, we see Poirot at his best - he was always served well by having a narrator/assistant, which is why the Hastings books are amongst the best Poirots - and many of the characteristics for which Christie was famous: the misdirects, the quickly but effectively drawn cast, the unspectacular but utilitarian prose, the gentle humour. She would grow to hate Poirot - in much the same way Arthur Conan Doyle did with his most-famous creation - but in this early novel he's still on show as one of fiction's most interesting detectives.

A Murder is Announced

Christie never, so far as I know, disliked Miss Marple as much as she did Poirot, but many of her Marple books feature the elderly detective as a marginal character, whereas Poirot was always centre stage. That was by design, given the two characters' styles, but it does mean that there are some Marple books where she barely appears. A Murder is Announced is not the extreme end of that, but it's a good example of how the Marple books as a whole work. Unlike The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, A Murder is Announced is one book I barely remembered, so reading it this time meant that I was in some ways reading it for the first time.

Unfortunately, A Murder is Announced is not Christie at her prime. The set-up is intriguing: the local paper carries a small notice to the effect that there will be a murder that evening at the house of Miss Blacklock and all her friends are invited to be there. A group from the small village turn up on time, to see an attempted robbery where the culprit ends up shooting himself. Miss Marple gets involved, a couple more murders take place and the ultimate villain is caught by falling into Miss Marple's trap. Yet the story, even by the standards of the genre, is just completely implausible: not one, but two sets of siblings whose identities and relationships are secret; multiple people going by someone else's name; a fantastically complicated plot wherein what should have been a simple murder committed by one person against another becomes a whole big routine; and Miss Marple stumbles onto the truth of what happened after a cat knocks over a vase.

It is frustrating because, as I said, it's an excellent set-up. But one of the worst faults of Christie's plots was her tendency to create fantastically complicated plans for the murderer to carry out. Implausibility within certain limits is part of this type of detective story, and one cannot really criticise her books on those grounds, but A Murder is Announced takes this altogether too far. It also features one of my least-favourite devices in her novels: a scene where we witness a murder taking place, but with the identity of the murdered withheld in an incredibly clunky manner ('she heard someone approaching'... followed by a conversation between the two in which the 'someone' is never named - particularly irritating in this book because the 'she' in question had just begun to suspect another character. That other character is the 'someone' who walks up to her and chats for a moment before killing her).

Miss Marple was always inferior to Poirot, but this book is far from either character or author at their best.


Ten Little [Racial Slurs]

Well. We must begin with the title, which was of course from a different time (1939: 'before racism was bad, as David Brent might argue). Nonetheless, its impossible for modern eyes to get past it, especially since it drawn from a poem frequently referred to in the book, and all the action takes place on and island named after the same word. (Publishers later renamed it Ten Little Indians, apparently believing that to be better, before its modern re-naming as And Then There Were None, which was a better title from the start anyway, even aside from the racial dimension.)


Anyway, all of that is unfortunate, not least because this book is actually one of Christie's best. Closer in some ways to a thriller than to a conventional detective story (my copy, pictured here, describes it as a 'detective story without a detective'), Ten Little N-Words inspired, directly or not, many of the tropes of contemporary thriller books/movies. Ten strangers are each summoned in different ways (offers of jobs, free holidays, chance to catch up with old friends) to an island off the coast of Devon. We learn early that several of them have things on their consciences, but after they all arrive - to find their host absent - they are all charged with committing murders for which they were never found out. They soon begin dying, one by one, following the descriptions in the titular poem, and begin to suspect each other. Christie does a fine job of creating a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere with her ten characters on a small island and with no way of leaving. (Against that, characterisation here is pretty weak - perhaps no surprise, given that it's one of her shortest books, clocking in at only 190 pages. Thankfully, the first to die is the worst-drawn character - Christie always had trouble with Modern Young People, usually making them sound like nothing on earth. In this case, the Thoughtless Young Man, responding to someone else's criticism of fast driving, shrugs and says, 'Speed's here to stay', as if anyone in the history of the English language would ever say that.)

And, remarkably, the ending works. It's overly elaborate, like so many of her plots (including the other two here), but in this case it's effective. The method of conveying it is perhaps a little clunky, but there was really no way around that. In some ways, the book's brevity (not that any of her others were much longer) helps create the propulsive and tense atmosphere which pervades.

So, what did I think of these three books after this re-read? Well, two of them I quite enjoyed, one I was mostly bored - with bouts of frustration - by. They all have the virtue of being quick, escapist reads - so long as you can keep all the characters in your mind, that's all the reader need bring to the read. The parts of Christie's writing which annoy me will not come as a surprise to anyone who's read any of her books - the over-reliance on stock characters, the occasionally dreadful dialogue, the tedium of working through chapters describing the irrelevant movements of characters and the addiction to murders (even quick, unplanned ones) happening in overly complicated ways - make it hard to love these stories uncritically. But they're still fun and, occasionally, quite brilliant. Agatha Christie wrote during a period in which light authors such as herself were expected to publish a least one thing a year, and I do wonder how her books would've been if she'd had more time to spend on each. Rather than writing nearly 80 books of varying quality, she could have done half as many but increased the average quality of each, perhaps. (For another instance of an author who churned out too many books with similar plots when they might've been better served by writing fewer but better things, see Wodehouse, P.G.) But that was the way things worked through the mid-20th century, and so we can't blame her for that.

Gizmo Jones and the Great Train Robbery 1

[I've long intended to write a series of books called 'Gizmo Jones, Boy Detective'. Well, tonight after dinner I started! Here's the first chapter of the first one, made up as I've been typing for the last hour or so. I have no idea where it's going, so tune in later for subsequent chapters!]

Gizmo Jones and the Great Train Robbery 

Chapter One. A New Case

Gizmo Jones, Boy Detective, stared at his computer screen in amazement. 'It can't be!', he muttered with restrained excitement. He was reading an email from 'Sirens' O'Reilly, officially known as the newest detective on the Metro Police Force, but also Gizmo's closest friend and best source.

Gizmo- You'd better come down here as soon as you can.
I think I've got something for you.

O'R.

There was no doubt in Gizmo's mind as to what Sirens wanted him for. There was only one story in the city that morning. He'd been reading about it as Sirens' email arrived. That morning the busiest commuter train had disappeared, full of passengers, between one station and the next. It had arrived at Downtown Station at 8.11am as scheduled - itself a small mystery - but had simply not turned up at Central Station three minutes later. An hour and a half later, it was still unaccounted for. Calls to passengers known to be on the train rang out. Satellite photos revealed nothing. Subsequent trains ran as per usual - they didn't disappear, they didn't see anything out of the ordinary, they didn't collide with a suddenly reappeared train.

Gizmo, like most of his fellow Metro citizens, was baffled more than scared. Unlike most of them, however, his mind quickly turned to the question of how he could work his way onto the case. For that's how he saw it: a case. Not a supernatural mystery or a reason to lock himself in his house and hope for the best, as he knew some people were already doing. No, this was a riddle, a puzzle and a challenge, and if Gizmo couldn't help solve it the official way, helping the police force, he'd work it out alone. Officially was better, though. Easier and less tiresome if someone else was doing the boring grunt work, leaving Gizmo to handle the case his own way. So he was especially glad to receive Sirens' email, and he hummed a happy tune to himself as he put on some shoes, grabbed his bag and went out to the garage to his bicycle. His parents were both out, so he left a note for whichever one came home first, since he suspected he'd be gone longer than either of them, and started cycling towards the police station. There was another reason why he was happy this morning. 'At last - something to do!', he thought. He'd been bored since the Case of the Vulnerable Gymnast - only three weeks ago, he had to remind himself - and this looked like a particularly interesting problem to solve.

**********************

Detective Peter O'Reilly had met Gizmo Jones in most embarrassing circumstances. At that time a new recruit to the force, O'Reilly had suffered the humiliation of having his grandmother's home, which he was temporarily living in, burgled. Fearing that his new colleagues would never let him forget it, he tried to solve the case himself - starting by interviewing the young boy across the road. As it turned out, that ended up being the only thing he had to do. More accurately, O'Reilly didn't interview Gizmo so much as the boy had walked across the street and solved the case for him. The boy introduced himself as Gizmo, said he was nine years old, and that he could help. O'Reilly, despite his distress, humoured the boy by following him into his bedroom. Confusion, suspicion and relief intermingled as this strange boy showed him photos on his computer of the thieves in the act of leaving the house, and then handed him a piece of paper with an address written in an immature but clear script. 'Here's where they are', Gizmo said, 'but you should hurry. I don't think they'll stay there much longer'.

Without O'Reilly's really noticing it, Gizmo invited himself along, but O'Reilly had recovered enough by the time they got to the address, only a few blocks away, to tell him to stay in the car. Two men came out of the house just as O'Reilly pulled up, and obviously recognising him, elected to toss the bags they were carrying - which were full of O'Reilly's grandma's jewelry in the hope that he would call it even. He didn't, and chased them in a short and not-particularly-dramatic burst of excitement. He was thus able to show his new colleagues at the station his crime-solving chops, and thus started his rise through the ranks. Gizmo had been part of, but not the only reason for, this success. O'Reilly was an instinctive detective, more at home tracking important cases than with the less-glamorous aspects of modern policing. He had, of course, asked his new friend how he solved the case, and the answer was stunning in its simplicity but spoke volumes of this nine year old's courage and detective skills. He saw two men enter the house, so while they were inside he attached one of his latest toys - a powerful tracking device - to the bottom of their car. When they exited, he took photos with his parents' camera and then returned to his bedroom to track their movements on his computer. He saw the car stop and stay in one position, and wrote down that address. 'Why didn't you call the police?' O'Reilly had asked. 'I knew you were a policeman', Gizmo said, 'and I thought if I helped you catch them, you might let me help you again'. And thus had begun one of the most successful - if unofficial - detective partnerships in Metro's history.

**********************

Thinking back to that day as he waited for the Gizmo to arrive, O'Reilly couldn't help but wish that his young friend had possessed the foresight to have attached one of his helpful tracking devices to the train this morning. He'd never been this utterly confused by a case before, and he had no idea how it could be solved. At this point, he reflected ruefully, their best hope was that the train would just reappear as suddenly and inexplicably as it had disappeared. And O'Reilly knew that hoping for that was a sign of a case that was going to cause him trouble. The chief and their mayor had already held some long meetings with their young star detective - not the sort of meetings he had occasionally had with his bosses, where they either berated him for his lack of progress or congratulated him on solving a high-profile case. No, this time, they both seemed scared. Both expressed the wish that someone else would jump in and take control of the whole thing. As it turned out, they were going to get that wish fulfilled. But not in the way they might have imagined. Neither of them realised that the case was about to be in the hands of one Gizmo Jones, Boy Detective.

TV Shows I Have Invented But Which, To Date, Nobody Has Actually Made: The Sequel

Well, two years after my initial publicising of some long-held dreams of mine (see previous post), my tv-show-development ship has still not come in.  So here are some ALL NEW! ideas for shows.  If you're an important tv-type person, get in touch to buy these ideas off me while you still can!


Random Number Generator

Most of us have, at some point, turned on the television late at night/very early in the morning in the hopes for something to lull us to sleep.  Something mindless, thoroughly unlikely to engage us, yet to distract us sufficiently from whatever irritating thoughts can't be gotten rid of.  Until now, the default choice for such television has been home shopping programmes, but there's a problem with them: they're just too ridiculous, and while the prospect of a 45-minute infomercial for a revolutionary type of sponge might seem like just the thing to put one to sleep, the reality is that there's something compulsively viewable about that sort of broadcasting.

So here's my solution: random numbers (in white) appear against a black background, stay there for 15 seconds (which is longer than you think - it's longer than most story arcs on Glee, for instance) before being replaced by another random number.  (Whole integers only, thank you.)  A computer-generated voice reads out the number (once), but otherwise the show is silent.  I anticipate that this would become a hypnotic and addictive programme, enjoyed equally by the tired and the inebriated.  It's like Keno, only without the distracting gambling stuff.


Fun & Games With Existentialism

In this show, my overt attempt at critical praise and awards, drama and the blackest comedy freely intertwine.  Four friends are dying, all in different ways.  One has cancer, one has a mysterious and undiagnosed illness, one from a heart that is steadily declining and the final is dying, through some temporal trickery, after a violent attack by some random thugs.  (Each episode covers a couple of days for each of the first three, but only a minute or two for the last.)

Conscious of their own respective mortality, each of the four friends tries to deal with their looming death in their own way.  One draws on their deep religious faith, seeking solace in those beliefs ingrained since childhood.  The second is comforted by their unshakeable conviction that death is no more meaningful than life and that therefore dying cannot really be said to actually matter.  The third goes into deep denial, believing in nothing other than that by refusing to accept the reality of their imminent demise, they can stave it off indefinitely.  And the last panics, flicking week by week between different beliefs, philosophies and religions, seeking something they can believe in as they face the idea of their own death with horror.

Reflecting on life, death, faith, philosophy and friendship, Fun & Games With Existentialism combines heart-wrenching drama with pitch-black comedy.  Sure to be a hit with critics and discriminating viewers!


Play Home-School

Drawing on the recent trend towards parents removing their children from schools in favour of educating them at home, Play Home-School is based on the long-running and much-loved ABC children's programme, but with a 21st-century twist.  The presenters are endearingly ill-prepared and awkward in front of the cameras.  The show rarely starts on time and is regularly bolstered by transparent filler.  Arcane and discredited ideas are presented as irrefutable truths and some subjects are skipped over entirely.  Simple stories illustrate ever-relevant morals like the dangers of friendship or social skills of any kind and the importance of trusting in everything your parents tell you.  History is explained through ancedotes about great-great-uncles and their experiences and science experiments revolve around sand, water and salt.

Play Home-School may not teach your child everything, but it will teach them everything they really need to know!

TV Shows I Have Invented But Which, To Date, Nobody Has Actually Made

[This post was originally published as a couple of notes on Facebook in February 2010.]

So, most of what's currently - or has ever been - on television is pretty awful, I think we can all agree. But it doesn't have to be. Television, the form, is fine; it's the content itself that's the problem. With that in mind, here are a few ideas for shows that I think would be really good, if only someone would pay me lots of money to actually make them.

Police Cops

Ahh, the cop show - repository of more cliches than you can point a stick at. But for years, I've dreamed of another kind of cop show - one in which our heroes, the detectives and officers of some city police station, are simple, happy people who take their job seriously, but who are essentially mid-level bureaucrats. They are committed to their job, yes, but in the same way that you & I are (assuming that you & I have a job, and that we're reasonably committed to it). They punch in at 8am, and out at 6pm (or whatever). They're all happily married/dating, or single by choice. Those who are married have a couple of children whom they see often and get on well with. Two officers in our station are indeed dating, but they're both rookies, and the department's HR section is aware of the relationship, since they lodged the appropriate paperwork once it became clear to them both that this was a serious relationship.

The captain in charge of the station is well-respected by both his/her subordinates, and by the big brass at police HQ (or whatever it's called). This is because s/he has neither been a political appointment, nor an unruly headkicker. They just get the job done effectively, a task made easier by the mature and professional approach of everyone else in the station. None of the cops has a drinking problem - although several of them get together on Friday nights for drinks & dinner at a nice but casual restaurant nearby. (Spouses/partners often attend too.)

Watch throughout the thrilling first season as the young rookie detective is accepted well into the unit! He humbly learns from those who've been doing the job since he was in short pants, and in turn also helps them take advantage of recent advances in computer technology! Follow the on-going story of the cynical older detective, who falls for an entirely stable new girlfriend of approximately his own age, and be swept off your feet as he proposes in the season finale! Watch as the detectives solve cases calmly, methodically and without getting personally invested! Look how none of them ends up investigating a crime apparently committed by their ex, or long-lost school friend!

[Yes, the title needs work, since it's currently a Simpsons reference. Other than that, though, doesn't this show sound like a breath of fresh air?]


So You Think You Can Paint

Lots of people, statistics show, sing in the shower/while driving/when cooking, and they're well catered for in the modern television environment. Plenty of people also dance like nobody is watching, but also sorta wish someone was, and most of the tv schedule is about these people. Ditto for cooking - once something people did because otherwise they'd starve, now an almost-entirely competitive activity. (According to a confidential source, 10% of all meals prepared in Australia this week will be done for the camera.)

So what other popular hobby enjoyed by the masses can be made into a television game show, I asked myself. And then I answered myself, The Visual Arts. But 'So You Think You Can Visual Art' makes for a title too clumsy and grammatically troublesome even for commercial television, so we're going to generalise to just Paint. All the visual arts will be represented, though - painters, sculptors, origami-makers, installationists, quilters, photographers, film-makers, graffiti artists, and those people who make things out of twine.

The great diversity of contestants is what makes SYTYCP so exciting! Rather than forcing contestants to try things outside of their chosen field, each week everyone is set a theme for the next round. (Note: might need to spread the show out in production, to allow everyone to actually do their thing for each round. Show it weekly once it's finished, though.) Thus, one week the theme might be Childhood, the next week it could be Red, and so on. Expert judges - along with a popular celebrity more recognisable than the average art critic, but not a sportsman or former model - will offers comments each round, before it goes to a popular vote as per in those other shows on which this one is loosely based.

Finally, a television show for all those who can't sing, dance or cook, but who still want to prove to the country how talented they are!


The Law Is An Ass!
(Unlike the first two, both of which were the product of much thought over an extended period, this idea is fresh & new. Which is code for: not-entirely-thought-out.)

It's Wallace & Gromit meets Mr Ed meets... The Practice.

In this animated show, we follow the trials (pun intended) and tribulations of a small but determined law firm staffed entirely by horses. (Their opponents, as well as judges, juries etc, are all human; clients are both animals and humans.) Combining heartfelt drama, exciting plot twists, good-natured humour and the occasional office dalliance, The Law Is An Ass! combines everything you've always loved about legal dramas with the noblest of all beasts - the talking, anthropomorphic horse.

Throughout the first season, the scrappy law firm of Caufield & Sons struggles to gain acceptance from the human-dominated legal community. Young firebrand attorney Star fights to have the courthouse modified for improved equine access, while older associate Misty deals with trying to establish herself in the profession while also raising two foals. The firm's head partner, Abercrombie, faces the toughest decision of his life when asked to represent local farmer Mr Jones, accused of selling beef which is, in fact, horsemeat. Whatever the case, Caufield & Sons act with dignity, honesty, and plain old horse-sense, and become the most sought-after legal representation in town.

Yes, the show exists only because of its name... but then, that's true of most television.

Re-reading Project 2012: Emma

The second entry in my re-reading project for this year is Jane Austen's Emma.  Like A Suitable Boy, I've read Emma multiple times before (twice, I think, compared to the half-dozen of ASB), but not for a few years.  In this review, I will be a little bit spoiler-y, so proceed with caution if you've not read it but don't want to know what happens.

Pride & Prejudice is probably most people's default choice for their Favourite Austen Novel, helped of course by the excellent (& faithful) BBC mini-series a decade or so ago and the actually-pretty-good movie a few years later. And certainly it's a hard one to argue against, but personally I've always had a bit of a preference for Emma, for the following reasons:

1) The title character.  Austen apparently set out to create a less-likeable central character*, and certainly Emma can be a little unpleasant, especially to modern eyes. Her early obsession with taking on the socially unfortunate Harriet and setting her up with a respectable young man at the expense of Harriet's (returned) feelings for Robert Martin comes across as hopelessly patronising, assuming she knows better than Harriet whom she should marry.  (Of course, by the standards of their society, she's right - Mr Elton or Mr Churchill or Mr Knightley would all be very advantageous marriages for Harriet. And two of them also would have made pretty decent husbands too, had they shown any interest in her.)  Yet what makes Emma an appealing character is that she learns from her mistakes - after the awkwardness resulting from her efforts to matchmake Harriet with Mr Elton, she takes a much more passive role in hoping for the best for Harriet.  Emma also does have a genuine affection for Harriet, as well for quite a few other people in her life.  She's sometimes thoughtless - both in her matchmaking and in a particularly cutting remark she makes to Miss Bates late in the novel - but she also feels bad about these and recognises without hesitation when she has erred.

2) All the other characters. For a novel named after a single character, Emma does a remarkable job of filling out its world.  There's an extensive cast of well-drawn characters in Emma's life - her family, her friends & associates, and even some people she doesn't like.  Admittedly all we ever know about Robert Martin is that he is an excellent young man who loves Harriet, but that is actually probably fairly accurate in some ways.  There's no reason Emma would ever know him as anything beyond that - she knows him exclusively from reports from Harriet and Mr Knightley, and they both like him.  But elsewhere Austen provides some wonderful characters, including the twin comic pieces of Mr Woodhouse (permanently worried about the health of everyone, including being shocked that someone might even consider opening a window at night) and Miss Bates, surely one of the most annoying but accurate characters in English literature, with her never-ending run-on sentences, starting on one topic but diverting herself constantly before any theme is fully expressed.  Frank Churchill is an appealing male lead for most of the story, appearing (to draw a Pride & Prejudice comparison) like the best characteristics of Bingley and Wickham combined.  Better still is Jane Fairfax, who allows Austen to hit a beautiful but rarely-expressed character note: most of us know someone we feel like we should like, but we just cannot, without even perhaps being able to say why.  That's exactly how Emma feels about Jane, and it's a neat point for Austen to make (and one, incidentally, which helps us identify with and like Emma).

The only false move here is Mrs Elton, a one-note, thoroughly unlikeable and unsympathetic character.  Insincere, snobby, with a massively inflated sense of her own worth, Mrs Elton is far too broadly drawn - especially since she plays such a prominent part in the novel - to be believable.  For story purposes she had to be objectionable to Emma, but I think Austen overplays this point here.  Against that, I will note that her awfulness does allow for my favourite throwaway line in the book:

'Mr Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs Elton's beginning to talk to him'.**

3) The subtle reveal of the romance.  Again, to refer to Pride & Prejudice, this is a point in Emma's favour - from the start of the former novel, it's clear that Mr Darcy is the male lead and therefore the ultimate partner of the female lead Lizzie.  Emma does a much better job of providing some plausible alternatives for its main character - including the unlikely but oft-expressed option that she will not marry at all.  But for most of the novel, Mr Churchill is seen as a possibility for Emma, even if she seems to go off him after their initial (seeming) mutual infatuation.  On this re-read, I was quite surprised at how little a role Mr Knightley plays in the first half of the story, and how suddenly their romance seems to bloom (or, more accurately, how late in the novel each realise that's how they feel).  The result of this is that it's quite possible to read most of Emma without trying to pick who - and how - Emma will end up with, which makes the late reveal much more satisfying.  (A minor quibble here which will make sense only to those who know the story very well: I can't help but feel that she should have received the letter from Mr Churchill before Knightley's declaration.  Austen could have made something of Emma reading that Churchill felt free to flirt with Emma because he could tell she didn't care, perhaps making her stop & realise that soon she really would be the only unmarried person in her circle, and that maybe Knightley woudn't return her recently discovered feelings because he too saw her as someone without any romantic feeling at all.  But that's just a thought I had, and clearly Austen had other things in mind with Churchill's letter and Emma/Knightley's responses to it.)  There's also a neat way here in which, in more subtle terms that Pride & Prejudice, Emma and Knightley will be good for each other - he can provide for her the grounding she sometimes needs, and she can help him see the better side of people than he probably would otherwise.  It's no coincidence, although Austen doesn't slap us in the face with this, that each of them are seen to be better people - nicer to those around them, more tolerant of people they previously hadn't liked - because of the other.  Knightley is not just an improving influence on Emma; she does the same for him.


On top of those, of course, are all the other reasons why people still read Austen the best part of two centuries after she wrote - the wonderful writing, the way in which a social world was depicted (and, honestly, who cares if it's not accurate or representative? that's such a facile reason for disliking a work of fiction - like arguing that you don't like the Sherlock Holmes stories because some of the crimes were a bit far-fetched), and the endlessly entertaining characters and their romances.  Austen is not for everyone - a characteristic her writing has in common with every writer in every language - but to avoid her because you struggled through the first quarter of one of her novels in high school is to do a grave disservice to both yourself and one of the great writers.



* She would eventually succeed, intentionally or otherwise, with Mansfield Park and the detestable Fanny Price, English literature's least interesting lead character.

** I'm also very fond of 'There was not a dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs Perry drank tea with Mrs and Miss Bates, or when Mrs and Miss Bates returned the visit'.  Austen could be slyly hilarious, and I sometimes think of her like a grandma, outwardly pleasant, cheery and polite, but not fooled for a minute by those around her, and capable of making the odd cutting remark.

Tea review: Twinings Australian Afternoon Tea

Tea flavour: Australian Afternoon
Tea type: Leaf (infused)
Drunk: Black, no sugar
Blurb: "Full-bodied black tea designed for Australia".
Website description because the above is deliberately vague: a blend of "the slightly smoky Russian Caravan with the full bodied Irish Breakfast and then added the light Ceylon Orange Pekoe".

Twinings ran a competition last year, which I sadly didn't get to vote in despite being Australia's Most Trusted Tea Reviewer*, to choose a new tea based on blends created by five Australian celebrities of various types and degrees of worthiness. The winning one, as reviewed here, was created by Kevin Rudd.  (Details of the other four are here.  Most of them sound disgusting or laughably bland**.  Having tasted only one, the right winner was chosen.)

Rudd's name appears nowhere on the box for Twinings' Australian Afternoon Tea, commercially released in January 2012.  One can assume that this was deliberate, to keep politics out of the much more important business of tea-drinking, but it's a little odd that they ran a big promotional campaign to choose which celebrity's blend would be chosen, only to then leave said celebrity's name off the box.  (Or, alternatively, it could just be that there is in fact a law in this country which forbids the use of Kevin Rudd's name without speculating on his imminent challenge to return to the prime ministership and Twinings just wanted to stay out of that.  If so, well played, Twinings.  My respect for you continues to increase.)

Anyway, to the tea at hand.  As advertised, this Australian Afternoon Tea is certainly a full-flavour strength tea.  The Irish Breakfast predominates, but the after-taste shows the smokiness of Russian Caravan (which has grown on me still further since my review last year - I now drink have a tin of the loose-leaf version at work & often make myself a small pot of it mid-morning).  Between those two flavours, the Ceylon Orange Pekoe gets a little lost (as it is wont to do even when it's the only flavour in the tea).  It actually all works together quite well - the Russian Caravan is distinct enough to temper the Irish Breakfast while still allowing the latter's strength to be the tea's distinguishing flavour.  It's a warm-ish afternoon as I drink my cup & type this, and I can vouch that it suits the setting well.

Its slightly fuller taste stands it well against some of Twinings' smoother flavours (like the Prince of Wales or the Pekoe itself), but the inclusion of the Russian Caravan does give it a bit of softness compared to an unadulterated Irish or English Breakfast.  It also has a bit more of an obvious flavour when compared to something like their Traditional Afternoon Tea, which I sometimes feel just tastes like Strong Tea without any more notable flavour than that.


All that said, I suspect there will not be a huge public outcry should Twinings remove the Australian Afternoon Tea from the market (the box indicates it's a 'Limited Edition').  While it's quite an enjoyable drink, I doubt it is memorable enough to become anyone's new favourite blend.  I'll certainly drink the rest of my packet with pleasure - and probably buy some more when it's done - but, after a few cups over a couple of days, it hasn't really made an impression stronger than 'oh, that's quite nice' on me yet.  Nonetheless, the Australian Afternoon Tea is certainly worth a try if you enjoy full-flavoured black teas or drinks that make you feel vaguely nationalistic.




* I assume.
** Note to Kerri-Anne & John Kennerley: you don't need to put Earl Grey & Lady Grey into the same blend.  Note to John Williamson: if you put Lapsang Souchong into a tea blend, you should also remember to include toothpaste to get the taste out again.  And Layne Beachley: really? Why bother putting three light teas together and then adding Irish Breakfast? That's all anyone will be able to taste.  You may as well just have your 'special blend' include Irish Breakfast and water.

Re-reading Project 2012: A Suitable Boy

After I finished my F. Scott Fitzgerald reading/blogging project in December, I cast around for ideas for my next series.  I couldn't think of another author whose bibliography I wanted to work my way through - and nobody else suggested anyone - so I decided that this year I will re-read a bunch of my favourite novels and blog about them.  In some cases, I might find I like the book less than I thought I did, or I might appreciate different things to what struck me the first time around, and those would be interesting (for me, at least) to think about.

Re-reading is something I have a great theoretical appreciation for.  I think that the sign of a good book is one that you want to return to, and that you like more, or in different ways, to how you did when you first read it.  I also think that a lot of books - like a lot of movies and tv shows - actually improve the second time around. You can focus less on the Who-What-Where-When of the story and appreciate the telling more, notice details that you may have missed the first time around, and see how knowing the ending affects your reading (/viewing) of the beginning.

Against that, however, I have a huge pile of books I've not read at all, ready access to many more, a mental list of many books or authors I'd like to read and an account with the Book Depository.  So, in practice, I re-read much less than I would like to.

The first book in my 2012 re-reading project is in fact one I've read multiple times in the past (about four or five times, I'd guess).  I first read Vikram Seth's novel over a decade ago, when I was an undergrad, and I re-read it for the first time less than six months later - which fact is made more interesting because A Suitable Boy runs to 1474 pages in the paperback and took me about two weeks of solid reading to finish.  I don't really believe in allocating things as my all-time favourites, but A Suitable Boy is my standard answer when someone asks what my favourite book is.  Yet I haven't actually read it for a few years, so earlier this year I felt a desire to read it again.

A Suitable Boy, despite its daunting length, is a fairly straightforward novel.  Its main character is Lata, a 19 year-old girl in 1951 India. Her older sister has just gotten married, and now her mother thinks it's time to find a suitable boy for her youngest child.  But that's not it - A Suitable Boy has a huge cast of characters, and while Lata's story is the centre of the novel, almost as much time is spent with her new brother-in-law's brother, Maan, a warm-hearted but impulsive young man.  There are also separate but related stories about other members of each of Lata & Maan's families and their various friends and associates.  Along the way, A Suitable Boy touches on university politics, actual politics, literature and poetry, shoe manufacturing, families, rural life, religious tensions, cricket and India's national identity in the immediate post-colonial period.

That wide range of stories and characters is what makes A Suitable Boy more than a simple Pride & Prejudice re-hash in a different context (fun though that could've been).  Seth juggles all his elements perfectly, writing all his characters - even the unlikeable ones - which such warmth and empathy that we can spend consecutive chapters barely touching on Lata and her story without feeling like we're off the point.  All the stories and scenes are connected to Lata & her family, or Maan & his, even if neither of them actually appear there and even if the story has nothing to do with the ultimate question of whom Lata will marry.  As we move through this enormous book, meeting more & more characters (some central characters don't appear for the first time until 400 pages in!), Lata's choice for a husband narrow down to three boys.  Not everyone will be happy with her decision, but my most recent reading made me realise more clearly than ever before that it probably was the right one.

Returning to A Suitable Boy after a few years was like returning to a world I now know well.  Like the best long-running tv shows, A Suitable Boy's massive scope allows Seth to build an entire world and populate it with three-dimensional characters.  Parts of the novel are set in Calcutta and other real-life cities, but the bulk of A Suitable Boy is set in the fictional town of Brahmpur, which by the end of the book you feel to be entirely real.  Similarly, while some real-life Indian politicians appear, the fictional ones are so well-drawn that scenes between real and fictional characters seem completely plausible.  This is the rare novel which can be both heart-breakingly tragic and laughter-inducing hilarious.  We feel characters' joy, despair, indecision, anger, ambitions and friendship.

The warmth of Seth's writing, the scope of his stories and the wonderful characters will keep me returning to A Suitable Boy.