The Murder of Lucy Worsley
I suppose this post ought to be a piece of pastiche Agatha Christie, which is what Dr Worsley was discussing on last night's episode of her BBC4 programme A Very British Murder, but it's 6.40am and since I was up late last night (watching the last part of The Body in the Library to take the taste out of my mouth, this will be a straightforward rant about
SPOILERS.
The last two programmes have mainly discussed real life murders and the Victorian melodramas they inspired. I can't say that I liked the presentation much; Lucy dressed up in period costume and 'acting' appropriately melodramatically (she was obviously having a whale of a time), which was generally embarrassing and distracted from the much more interesting content.
However, last night she got to the 1930s and the 'Golden Age of Detective Fiction' which opened with her reading from the Murder of Roger Ackroyd and explaining, in words of one syllable, exactly why the book is regarded as (a)'cheating' and (b) a classic twist.
Now I'm not usually bothered about spoilers, particularly for blockbuster films that *everyone* knows the plot of (and yes, I'll get round to the Rush review), but in the case of linear detective fiction (and in particular the Murder of Roger Ackroyd) the point of reading the book is to 'beat' the detective to the solution, so it is unfair to reveal the murderer to those who might wish to read the book for themselves. Yes, even though it was published in 1926, there are new readers coming to it every day and those of us who have read it are careful not to give away the reason why it is regarded as a classic (you note that even in the privacy of my own journal, with a readership who(m?) I can assume have read the book, I'm not actually going to quote Worsley's comments.
At the very least the BBC could have put a spoiler warning on the programme announcement and in Radio Times.
I'm also grateful to callmemadam for pointing out that, although Dr Worsley has a book out to link with the programme, it covers much the same ground as The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders, the same Judith Flanders who is credited as 'consultant' to the BBC4 programme.
But Lucy is as casual about crediting as she is about spoilers - she might have given Colin Watson a mention as the source of the 'snobbery with violence' quote she used (as well as much of his research too).
This entry was originally posted at http://inamac.dreamwidth.org/79114.html. You may comment here or there (or not).
SPOILERS.
The last two programmes have mainly discussed real life murders and the Victorian melodramas they inspired. I can't say that I liked the presentation much; Lucy dressed up in period costume and 'acting' appropriately melodramatically (she was obviously having a whale of a time), which was generally embarrassing and distracted from the much more interesting content.
However, last night she got to the 1930s and the 'Golden Age of Detective Fiction' which opened with her reading from the Murder of Roger Ackroyd and explaining, in words of one syllable, exactly why the book is regarded as (a)'cheating' and (b) a classic twist.
Now I'm not usually bothered about spoilers, particularly for blockbuster films that *everyone* knows the plot of (and yes, I'll get round to the Rush review), but in the case of linear detective fiction (and in particular the Murder of Roger Ackroyd) the point of reading the book is to 'beat' the detective to the solution, so it is unfair to reveal the murderer to those who might wish to read the book for themselves. Yes, even though it was published in 1926, there are new readers coming to it every day and those of us who have read it are careful not to give away the reason why it is regarded as a classic (you note that even in the privacy of my own journal, with a readership who(m?) I can assume have read the book, I'm not actually going to quote Worsley's comments.
At the very least the BBC could have put a spoiler warning on the programme announcement and in Radio Times.
I'm also grateful to callmemadam for pointing out that, although Dr Worsley has a book out to link with the programme, it covers much the same ground as The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders, the same Judith Flanders who is credited as 'consultant' to the BBC4 programme.
But Lucy is as casual about crediting as she is about spoilers - she might have given Colin Watson a mention as the source of the 'snobbery with violence' quote she used (as well as much of his research too).
This entry was originally posted at http://inamac.dreamwidth.org/79114.html. You may comment here or there (or not).