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Agatha Christie The Hollow read by Hugh Fraser

.ed — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:51:03 +0000

Have a bit of Christie as social chronicler, as drawing room critic of a leisure class which presents itself as a platform of unemployment. It is 1946 and the Angkatells are gathered togethered, after the murder. Lucy, the mistress of cognitive deviations, Henrietta, clever, independent and detached, Midge, dark, square shaped, and poor, David, a spoiled, sour intellectual, and Edward, the reluctant, bony, undeserving heir.

It is quite obvious that the notion of work is odd, uncertain, and in the cooker. Midge “works” at a dress shop and Edward asks : “Is the woman sympathetic and pleasant to work for?... If you must have a job you must take one where the surroundings are harmonious and where you like the people you are working with.”

But how does one explain the notion of work to an heir?

How to explain to a person like Edward… What did Edward know of the labour market, of jobs, They were all divided from her by an impassible gulf: the gulf that separates the leisured from the working. They had no conception of the difficulties of getting a job. And once you had got it, of keeping it… She had found a job for herself at 4 pounds a week… Midge had no particular illusions about working. She disliked the shop. She disliked Madame Alfredge. She disliked the eternal subservience to ill tempered and impolite customers. She doubted very much whether she could obtain any other job….

The glowering and unresponsive David is visiting from Oxford with a purse full of contempt and theories, and is dispraised sweetly by Lucy:

“I must have a talk with you David and learn all about the new ideas. As far as I can see one must hate everybody but at the same time give free medical attention and a lot of extra education… Poor things all those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses everyday….

Agatha Christie, differently A wagonful of new Agatha Christie audiobooks (“lesser” works?)...
After The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser After the funeral, there is the family and the...

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After The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser

.ed — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:50:25 +0000

After the funeral, there is the family and the village. There is a batty aunt, a hysterical and heirless English lord, his ancient butler, and a smattering of inadequate and weak-willed in-laws, waiting for their share. These are the leftovers of the comfortable class, who married badly and relied on unreliable servants. Unlike Miss Gilchrist, who knew how to cook, and ran a pretty little teashop before the war.

Agatha Christie The Hollow read by Hugh Fraser Have a bit of Christie as social chronicler, as...
Agatha Christie, differently A wagonful of new Agatha Christie audiobooks (“lesser” works?)...

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Agatha Christie, differently

.ed — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:18:59 +0000

A wagonful of new Agatha Christie audiobooks (“lesser” works?) shows us an Agatha knee-deep in Freud, perhaps, indeed, an “English Freud”. Here she experiments with the entire merde ridden hagiography of psychoanalytic terms: pathologies, neuroses, perversions, deviances, persecutions. Sarah has just finished her M.B. and is interested in psychology. She looks on as an old obese mother, an ugly wheelchaired figure wields a regime of psychological oppression over her “nervy” “nervous” unnerved family. The ugly Mrs. Boynton continues to perform her chores as the warden of a women’s prison, although she no longer performs them inside a prison. Instead she institutes prohibitions against the emotions, liberties, impulses, movements, of her step sons and daughters.

Sarah complains of the rudeness of Raymond Boynton, who ignores her in the presence of his mother, despite their earlier conversation. The tradition of English manners comes to Jerusalem not in opposition to rudeness but rather as a prophylactic to madness; madness is the excess of civilization, the bad habit of civilization. As the narrator in An Appointment With Death tells us about the horrific Mrs. Boynton: “In a savage tribe they would have boiled and eaten her up her years ago”.

After The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser After the funeral, there is the family and the...
Agatha Christie The Hollow read by Hugh Fraser Have a bit of Christie as social chronicler, as...

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Dick Francis 1921-2010

.ed — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:38:58 +0000

Dick Francis died in his home on the Cayman Islands. He was 89.

A successful steeplechase jockey, Francis turned to writing after he retired from racing in 1957. He penned 42 novels, many of which featured racing as a theme. His books were translated into more than 20 languages, and in 2000 the Queen – whose mother was among his many readers – honoured Francis by making him a Commander of the British Empire.

For more info: The Globe and Mail

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The Scoop by Fern Michaels read by Natalie Ross

.ed — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:48:17 +0000

A mature, stubborn wealthy widow gathers up a group of brittle, neurotic or lonely girlfriends to help her daughter succeed as a journalist for one of the lesser entertainment magazines. The helpful project helps the girls in turn. A Red Hat Club imitation, without the charm. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.