_postern of fate_ by agatha christie
i mostly don't review books that are on their third reread by me and were published decades ago, but the experience of reading this book was so tedious, that i feel compelled to say something so that i'll remember.
i don't know why i didn't recall this book being this way, from reading it before. third reread might be an exaggeration--maybe i usually skip it when i reread christie? i know i've read it before because i remembered the hiding place of the key information. i had enjoyed rereading all the miss marple books, a while back, rather than rereading all of christie, and i thought a little mini reread of the tommy and tuppence books would be fun. the other four were fun indeed. _postern of fate_ is the last book she ever wrote, though not the last published. (she wrote the final poirot and the final marple books sometime, i think in the 1950s, instructing that they be held back, i guess? i can't verify this since i am writing this in a notepad file, having no access to the internet--my modem at home has died.) all i can say is, she was way off her stride, by this time. there is maybe 50 pages worth of plot (and that is being generous) thinly spread across however many pages in the book. the beginning is all right and then at least three times we get a cycle of one or the other of them meeting up with someone, that person referring back to one of their earlier cases (usually _N or M_) and asking if they are sleuthing in an official capacity and being told no, they are not, and then they are told that the person to whom they are speaking can't help them, really, but some other person might have a bit more information for them but except for the new name, we have learned nothing new at all. and since that new name will lead to this exact same sequence yet again, don't get too excited by it. or they go off with someone to hear old stories and the old stories that they hear are the exact same old stories that they have been hearing since the beginning of the book.
what might be the highlight, when they find some missing information, is sort of wasted--they don't open the packet and we will never learn exactly what was in it. the final scene when everything is to be explained is vague with hinting about the sorts of people who have been implicated but we don't know anything about any of these people specifically. tommmy and tuppence might be satisfied at the end by what they learned, but your faithful reader was just glad that it was the last page--i can't tell you how many books i let interrupt me before i finished this and i think i only did finish it because i didn't remember the payoff--maybe i'll slap a post-it note to myself that there isn't one so that i can skip it, if i'm rereading tommy and tuppence again.
i don't know why i didn't recall this book being this way, from reading it before. third reread might be an exaggeration--maybe i usually skip it when i reread christie? i know i've read it before because i remembered the hiding place of the key information. i had enjoyed rereading all the miss marple books, a while back, rather than rereading all of christie, and i thought a little mini reread of the tommy and tuppence books would be fun. the other four were fun indeed. _postern of fate_ is the last book she ever wrote, though not the last published. (she wrote the final poirot and the final marple books sometime, i think in the 1950s, instructing that they be held back, i guess? i can't verify this since i am writing this in a notepad file, having no access to the internet--my modem at home has died.) all i can say is, she was way off her stride, by this time. there is maybe 50 pages worth of plot (and that is being generous) thinly spread across however many pages in the book. the beginning is all right and then at least three times we get a cycle of one or the other of them meeting up with someone, that person referring back to one of their earlier cases (usually _N or M_) and asking if they are sleuthing in an official capacity and being told no, they are not, and then they are told that the person to whom they are speaking can't help them, really, but some other person might have a bit more information for them but except for the new name, we have learned nothing new at all. and since that new name will lead to this exact same sequence yet again, don't get too excited by it. or they go off with someone to hear old stories and the old stories that they hear are the exact same old stories that they have been hearing since the beginning of the book.
what might be the highlight, when they find some missing information, is sort of wasted--they don't open the packet and we will never learn exactly what was in it. the final scene when everything is to be explained is vague with hinting about the sorts of people who have been implicated but we don't know anything about any of these people specifically. tommmy and tuppence might be satisfied at the end by what they learned, but your faithful reader was just glad that it was the last page--i can't tell you how many books i let interrupt me before i finished this and i think i only did finish it because i didn't remember the payoff--maybe i'll slap a post-it note to myself that there isn't one so that i can skip it, if i'm rereading tommy and tuppence again.