Hi, @Griselda! I understand your point. And sometimes, I think the same as you. But I think that this impression can be because you live in different times. Maybe for someone who lived in this time, it wasn't unbelievable. It could have happened. I think it can be just a matter of time, things were different, you had differents values and views. Something that was extremely important in that time nowdays is completely irrelevant and in the same way, something that is believable nowadays is navie. So, I give a chance.
I guess you are right. Also, the war had just ended. Such dramatic events had happened that everyone would be thinking differently about what they were capable of.
I am re-reading the book now, and giving it a second chance to work its magic. I just need Lyn to come to life for me.
All Christie's mysteries/plots are a little far fetched if you think about it. For that matter most of the mysteries from this time period are, including mysteries by Sayers, Marsh, Allingham etc. Arden's death in Taken at the Flood makes perfect sense in the context that this is a work of fiction with a primary focus on the plot/puzzle elements. In which case sometimes you have to sacrifice certain elements including characterization and believability i.e. probably wouldn't happen in real life, just to name two, to the plot. Now this being said, I'm in no way disparaging Christie or any other mystery writer from this time period. I enjoy them as much as the next fellow, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking they are one thing when clearly they are not.
As far as these vague values and views you speak of. People today feel the same way about murder as they did in 1948. The only difference between then and now is we have 24/7 global news coverage. Bad things happened in 1948 just as they do today, the only thing is you didn't have technology such as the Internet back then. Our attitude or view towards heinous crimes hasn't changed in the least in the past 50 odd years. Unless of course you would like to be a little more specific in what values you are speaking of....
And even today someone with a comfortable pension with a lovely cottage in Sussex and a westie named Bob might be willing to do some really bad things if a large enough amount of money was involved. Greed is still greed. We had it in 1000 BCE, 1948 and today - 2015.
SPOILER ALERT: In terms of the sheer violence of what is done to Arden following the accidental injury, I found it unbelievable coming from a character who has been presented as normal and conventional. However, in view of the fact that war had just ended, there would be in the imagination of males a very different understanding of the connotations of bloodiness and willingness to kill. It would have been figured as something that they must be prepared to do. Then again, Rowley is a farmer, so used to blood and guts. Arguably for Rowley, who felt emasculated by his failure to go to war, there might be an unconscious feeling that it was right and manly to be capable of being sudden, ruthless and unsqueamish. In the hypothetical instances you speak about, the man in Sussex who wants a lot of money, there will have been premeditation and planning. What I found unbelievable was the spontaneously violent nature of what Rowley does - and why he doesn't just exit quickly.
However, I do suspect that Christie was inspired to write her novels after encountering one notable character in her acquaintance, and starting to think what makes that person tick. In Death on the Nile, it was Linnet, in this novel it is Lyn I believe, who fascinates her; a character who always wants the thing which she hasn't got; craves adventure and is scared of it; is used to the security of having a wealthy relative to depend on. My feeling is that Rowley probably didn't evolve organically as a character, and that Christie had a sterotype in her mind.
I very much like the scheming of the murderer. AC describes this type of character, sociopathic - often with Irish blood - extremely well.SPOILER ALERT (Lawrence Redding, Patrick Redfern, Doyle - in Death on the Nile) I find it entirely believable that he would have seized on an opportunity as he did, and his relationship to Rosaleen, and her description are very well-done. I didn't see what was going on there between them, but I should have done: there were lots of little clues. I think that the pace of the novel and the denouement loses a little bit of suspense in this novel. We could have done with more chapters where we read about the murderer doing A,B and C to throw light on his character, and less focus on the dead end leads, put in place to deceive us until the end.
Although plots are unbelievable, I think Christies' characters often are very believable and I think AC is usually spot on with her human psychology.
I think with all Agatha Christie books there is a bit of unbelievability to help the Stories move on, there has to be coincidences like someone said in a different thread, also, If you want to keep your Comfortable Lifestyle in Sussex and your Westie and maybe Subscription to the Golf Club or Bowls Club or Bridge Club and want to Carry on going to Restaurants and Theatres and The Opera and Ballet and all this means a lot to you perhaps you just might stoop to anything to avoid going back to the times when you didn't have all that
I think all the Characters in Taken At The Flood were very real..
Novelists are hampered by the fact that their characters should be psychologically reasonable, where as people seldom are in real-life. Anyway, "Beware the fury of the gentle man," is an old adage. The notion is that anger will build up within a person, like steam in a pressure cooker. If that anger is released on a regular basis, in acceptable ways, then well and good. If not, then the pressure cooker will explode, with violent results. A gentle person who has never given vent to anger / rage before will not know how to moderate this sudden release. So, Rowley's behaviour is quite in tune with psychology. What concerns me more about Taken at the Flood is <Spoiler?> is the way Lynn accepts the violence that Rowley shows toward her at the end of the book as reasonable. After he practically strangles her, she gladly accepts him as her husband. Is it off-topic (1) to suggest that AC seems to feel that violence toward / domination of women by men is not only acceptable, but desirable: At the end of Evil Under the Sun, the newly created widower orders his new wife-to-be to give up her business, and she happily acquiesces. In another book (don't recall which one), HP tells a man that it is better to hurl a dish at a woman than it is to agree with her. I do so agree with what has been said above: all the plots are unbelieveable. The stories are just entertainments, designed to pass a few idle hours, and I enjoy them immensely on that score. One thing I like about AC is that all her characters talk the way real people do talk. Is it off-topic (2) to quote the extremely non-PC Lord Byron, "There is a tide in the affairs of women, which taken at the flood, leads God knows where." <smiley emoticon to denote that I don't seriously believe that, but still find it funny.>
The violence inflicted was 1) to cover up the fact it was an accidental death and 2) to frame David for the murder. I don't think the character, Rowley that Christie created was what you would call a warm and gentle person. He had a violent temper and I believe at one point he did try to strangle Lynn? before Poirot stopped him. So no I don't find anything strange in his actions or behavior. It's possible the war did contribute to his behavior. Or he just happened to have been a somewhat disagreeable person with a violent streak. We have that today, for example, with the recent tragic and senseless shooting in South Carolina in the U.S.
Christie was a great storyteller. When you read her stories you really do get into the story and characters, but once you are finished you realize that for the her characters lack depth (many of which are stereotypes), except for Endless Night. In that one book Christie really did create a character with some depth and indivuality. A character that you can have empathy or sympathy for and a character you probably will remember once you put the book down. Now I'm not faulting Christie for this because it just so happens to be the nature of this type of plot/puzzle centered story. Any psychology found in Christie's mysteries is purely superficial and simplified to the extreme. In real life things including human beings are complex and rarely is life or people simple. Now there were contemporary writers of Christie's including Anthony Berkeley Cox writing under the name Francis Iles who did write crime novels, as opposed to puzzle mysteries that focused on the psychological aspect of a story. But I like Christie's mysteries because they are fun light hearted entertainment. She makes her characters human enough to keep our interest while we are reading the story, yet doesn't way them down too much with pyschological baggage. You don't have characters like Hannibal Lecter with his fava beans and chianti, which is a good thing because the whole point of reading Christie's
mysteries is the puzzle.
As far as the hypothetical....why does there need to be planning? The person from Sussex might just have a quick and violent temper who sees an opportunity and takes advantage of it. Similar to Rowley and David for that matter in Taken at the Flood.
Christie was very much of her time with regard to the traditional roles of men and women. This was a time when men still pretty much dominated/controlled the world and the women in their lives, from their wives to their daughters and to a certain degree even their sisters. Unfortunately, even today this still happens in certain parts of the world and certain societies, especially ones where a conservative religion holds power. If you (and I'm talking more about women here) are fortunate to live in countries like the US, Britain, and Europe and are part of the secular society you probably have much more freedom and equality than you would have in Christie's time. Even after an unhappy first marriage Christie still felt the need to marry again. Fortunately for her she found a soulmate who may not have been perfect, but in all likelyhood loved and cared about her deeply. She was lucky in that she found happeness and personal fulfillment after such a rough patch with Archie Christie. I got the impression she always considered herself more of the Mrs. Max Mallowan type than the Ms. Agatha Christie, the professional career woman. Granted her writing brought her money and security, but down deep she probably felt more happeness by simply being the wife/helpmate of Sir Max Mallowan, the noted archeologist.
Yes, quite true about the pressure cooker, and the gentle man losing it. There was a short story in one of the collections SPOILER ALERT about a male secretary who did just that. There was a tower on the corner of the house, a study up a flight of stairs, and a curtain behind which somebody was concealed.
What I sense in Taken At The Flood is Christie's profound irritation with the Lyn character. (Possibly too a mild contempt for the dependent relative type - she may have had some herself) She probably enjoyed showing Lyn to be a bit facile, and falling back in lust with her fiance because he has shown a domineering streak. As for Christie's attitude generally towards other females, I do detect in Christie novels an element which is a little Jane Austenish (one of our fellow posters has discerned points of similarity in other ways) and that is a disdain for the pretty woman who has only her looks to fall back on. Christie doesn't suffer fools gladly, and is often to be poking fun at female foibles. Although Lyn is more than a pretty face, I feel that Christie finds something to parody in her character. From a plot point of view, I feel in my bones very certain that the Rowley nonesense was devised to be a red herring to throw all of us off the track.
For me, Christie's writing shows rather a male mind, and a very powerful one at that. I must admit that I am looking to see great depths in her writing, because I see an element of genius there, and I am very willing to learn from her insights into human nature and to believe there is a higher truth in Miss Marple's comments about their being a finite number of psychological types.
I think what I mean about AC and her attitude towards her own sex is that she would probably have agreed with Byron. By the way, it is nice to be able to learn for the first time about the writings of other great authors and poets. What a delight forums can be, and how wonderful to be able to go on learning and encountering new material !!
About AC's attitude to gender roles: one thing that really disturbed me in her autobiography was her attitude towards herself in the wake of her divorce. She had just lost her mother after a devastating illness, she had to go down to her mother's house for several weeks to sort out and pack the posessions of several generations, Her husband not only did not accompany her (well, he had a job in London) but also refused to come down for the weekends because that would make him miss his golf games! And then he fell in love with his "younger model" golf partner, And insisted that he had to be happy, and could only be happy with his new love. And what is AC's summing up? That she blames herself, she should have worked harder at making him happy! This is very much in accordance with the old model, where the husband brings home the bacon, and the wife makes the home and takes care of him - and it is reflected in the books as well. SPOILER!! It is especially frightening at the end of "Towards Zero" - a study of a psychopathic killer, who entangles his former wife as a murder suspect. When she is finally proved innocent, and choses to go with the man who saved her, the new man warns her that he will never let her go - and she happily accepts. To me that sounded like a red flag of a possibly controlling/abusive husband, and it was especially disturbing that a woman who had experienced a controlling, "gaslighting" relationship would so lightheartedly enter another controlling marriage. But for AC and her time, it seems that that kind of statement from a man was attractive rather than threatening.
It is very difficult to know how to take the kind of forceful, masterful declaration of ownership which the men are seen to be making in the novels by AC set in the 30s and 40s. Is it a kind of romantic window dressing - something,as you say that appeals to the woman as attractive perhaps because it suggests evidence both of virility and also emotional engagement. In The Moving Finger, the doctor is forceful and brutish when Joanna backs out of helping with delivering a baby and she goes weak at the knees, and realises she loves him. Is this isolated outburst of manly pride, supposed to be read as 's-x' rearing its head, the primitive primordial forces (as the writer in Death on the Nile would say) but not supposed to be suggestive of a destructive relationship? I can imagine Joanna, would SPOILER ALERT once she married the doctor, have satisfied expression of her need to dominate and show off by ladying it over the, in some cases,'inbred' locals (such as they were described) and lower middle classes.
Would these women have gone back to their pursuits and interests later on as the first honeymoon flush died down into steady companionship? Would 'Rose Mond' in Evil Under The Sun have continued posh dressmaking from her happy country house home? What I detect is that in county society in those times, in England, spheres of influence for men and women were very clearly-defined to give each a satisfying and important role in the community distinct from their domestic arrangements with their partner. Bossing around an entire village would have given most women a satiating sense of superiority and potency, and each would have soaked up the deference of the lower orders, chiding and helping at the same time. From that point of view, there was less opportunity to clash with your partner over who was more important, because what you did was different. I think that husband and wife often occupied their separate parts of the house - Arlena and her husband had separate rooms on holiday in Evil Under The Sun - and probably didn't get under one another's feet and find themselves in a bullied/bullying situation. (Unless the man was like Colonel Protheroe in Murder At The Vicarage.)
I do believe that often strong women (such as I believe AC to be) like the idea of the masculine controlling male because it sounds protective and emotionally engaged, but only as an idea, and the reality of how they lead their life is very different.All I can think is that AC didn't give up her career just as Rosemary Darnley ?? did SPOILER ALERT at the end of Evil Under the Sun. AC's career made her such a household name that to the public (for all that mattered) her husband might even have been thought of as Mr Agatha Christie.
AC has all kinds of marriages portrayed, and in more than one novel, has a character saying that two people 'enjoyed their marriage' and that that was a good thing. Certainly a pleasure of reading AC novels is the sense of people being contented and happy in their married state. Among the partnerships portrayed are plenty which feature strong women characters who have picked out their future husband and it is the woman who holds the purse strings; Theresa in Dumb Witness who adores her husband but has the financial power, the sister in Pocket Full Of Rye, and one of the women in After The Funeral who has a weak husband. AC might have enjoyed penning lines like 'Megan was my women' to put in Jerry's mouth in the Moving Finger, because it sounds romantic, but I doubt that she would have approved of submission.
People shouldn't rush into marriage. Neither should society force people who don't really know each well enough to make a commitment that might last a lifetime. Women should also have easy access to birth control and contraceptives. Nor should they be forced into having children before they are ready. So many people have children for all the wrong reasons. And 9 times out of 10 it is the child who suffers the most. There's nothing morally wrong with two people living together. And there's nothing wrong with waiting to have children until you are sure you can provide a solid, stable home for them. I wish more young people would realize this. However, I'm glad as a society (at least in some parts of the world) we have moved on from Christie's day when two people livng together was not only considered shocking, but society did its very best to ostracize these unconventional couples.
I've always had a lot of empathy for Christie and all she went through. It is fortunate she didn't live in a Catholic country like Spain or Italy where divorce would probably have been nearly impossible at this time. Archie married Teresa Neale (I think that was her name) and lived quite happily until her death. I believe Christie was even gracious enough to send him a condolence card when she died. And Christie herself went on to marry Max who she would spend the rest of her life with. In the end it turned out well for them both.
Since the conversation has veered away from the original subject heading, I hope the following random thoughts on this issue won't be considered off-topic.
• Quite agree with the points above.
• In England in the 1930s, divorce was legal but very difficult until the 1970s.
• A very successful male, Irish matchmaker said recently in the New York Times that matchmaking has become harder. In the 1970s, all the woman wanted was a man with a house. Now the woman wants to like the man as well.
True, the laws at the time made getting divorce cumbersome, but it was still possible/permissible by both the state and the Anglican Church. However, this was not the case with the Cathloic Church. Even if a divorce or annulment (you'r basically are forced to pay the church "x" amount to say the marriage never happened....quite ludicrous when you think about) was granted, your kids (if you had any) would have been born out of wedlock. Christie had a daughter so I'm not sure she would have wanted to put her daughter through this. It was bad enough, Christie being a divorcee that she wasn't allowed to present her daughter at court. But like you said by the 1970s getting a divorce in England was much easier. And the stigma of attached to living together has pretty much gone away, at least in mainstream society.
I think that A Carribbean Mystery is a good one for showing Agatha Christie coming to terms with modern changes in relationships. There are quite a few portrayed - including a philandering husband - although SPOILER ALERT, the marriage gets back on track in that one. This is one of the novels in which Miss Marple seems to be speaking for Christie, perhaps. There is a wryness about her comments on relationships, a clever knowingness, which was not quite their in the more measured and careful Miss Marple of earlier novels. Her internal monologues in this one are more discursive. In other later novels such as Third Girl, AC seems to be approaching the issue of changing relations between parents and their young adult offspring, but not really having a feel for what is going on.
The holiday novels are generally well-observed because, I think, AC has been on a similar holiday, and has had time to sit back and study the various couples and families staying at her hotel, and really watch their mannerisms from a deckchair. Death on the Nile is another very shrewdly-observed study, with a tangible atmosphere of the boat on the Nile, and the sights, sounds and smells of Egypt.
I think The Mirror Crack'd and Nemesis are both good for showing changing times and Attitudes SPOILERS The Mirror Crack'd has "The Development" and Nemesis has the Young Couples Attitude towards The Lady they Deceive.
Everyone goes through developments in life, learning and adepting as they go along. As must have AC. THe AC who wrote The Mysterious Affairs at Styles was not the same AC who wrote The Big Four or the Blue Train or whatever later work. I think to correctly assess characters and plots of novels by the author one has to observe carefully at what point of her life AC wrote the story, in what phase of her life she was, what was happening around her in the world, how things were perceived at that time. LIke @Griselda nd @ S_Sigerson do in their posts in this tread.
That's why I think you have to hold her Autobiography and all other information about AC personally in chronological order in your head when analyzing just about anything about her work. It's wrong to go about it armed with knowledge about stuff that happened later or with vieuws developed later in society. Hope I make a clear point.
It also comes in handy to have read her Westmacott novels she published alongside her mystery novels.
I have read A daughter"s a daughter, I think AC for some reason thought that her only child and daughter liked her father more. And I also suspect that AC relationship with Rosalind had some bumps and difficult phases, Reason why she thought it necessary to write about it. It will be exiciting to see what mystery novel she was working on during the time she wrote about this and if any of it spilled over in it or in any other mystery novel of hers.
Her Westmacott novels are probably more revealing since she was writing under a mom de plume. When writing under her own name she would be more guarded in expressing/showing her personal or intimate feelings. She was an extremely private person and I believe quite shy in public so it would be much easier to be more open about her deeper feelings writing under a pen name. In which case you probably get a better sense who Christie was (at least at the time she wrote them) reading the Westmacott books
I'm not sure AC really felt that after courtship and marriage a woman could come into her own and not be subservient. Certainly in her own first marriage it didn't work that way - she built a career and a reputation, and her husband left - seemingly he couldn't stand to have his wife not be "the little woman". On the other hand, her second marriage certainly proved differently - in Max Mallowan's Memoirs, he tells about her with affection and admiration, and you can feel the companionship and love through the words.
Grizelda - about "The moving finger" - the dominant male (the doctor) in this book is not dominating his woman as his woman - that is, he is not pressurizing her to be his. On the contrary, he has no time for her feminine vapours, and insists on her pulling herself together and helping him as a person (with a difficult delivery). What makes her fall in love with him is not that he "captures" her but rather his professionalism and humanity - and, of course pique at the fact that he ignores her attractiveness!
"However, this was not the case with the Cathloic Church. Even if a divorce or annulment (you'r basically are forced to pay the church "x" amount to say the marriage never happened....quite ludicrous when you think about) was granted, your kids (if you had any) would have been born out of wedlock."
This is not true. It has always been possible for Catholics to get a divorce, people were doing it in my grandmother's day and she was born in 1899, and it most definitely does not make your children "born out of wedlock". I can't imagine where you got hold of such a ridiculous idea, common sense should tell you that children born within a marriage can't suddenly become born out of marriage if their parents divorce. The thing a divorced Catholic can't do is remarry while their ex-spouse is still living.
You can get an annulment if two church tribunals determine that the marriage was void at inception, i.e. that it never existed. There are several reasons why this might happen, eg. one partner might conceal the fact that he/she was already married at the time (i.e. is committing bigamy), or might conceal the fact that he had taken holy orders (i.e. he is a priest), or if one partner has murdered their existing spouse in order to marry again. In such cases the innocent spouse can get an annulment. If there are children, the church affirms their legitimacy, because the innocent spouse entered into the marriage in good faith. If a marriage is annulled a Catholic is free to marry again.
There is nothing ludicrous about it, and you are not "forced to pay the church" for anything. If the respondent wants to defend the marriage against annulment he/she needs an advocate and will have to pay the advocate, just as you are forced to do in any civil divorce.
As far as I know, A catholic can get a divorce and remarry by the civil authorities. However, his/her divorce and remarriage will not be acknowledged by the catholic church, and he/she will not be allowed to take part in certain catholic religious rituals (e.g. communion).
Yes, you are correct. I should have said that a divorced Catholic can't remarry in the Catholic Church while their ex-spouse is still living. One can still attend Mass but can't receive the Sacraments, so technically one is no longer a Catholic.
Re The Moving Finger, I'm not sure I totally agree with your take on the farm incident with Joanna and Dr Griffiths. I think there are other little nuances alongside the nobler themes.
What I was aiming to say was that it is Jerry who says that Megan is 'his woman'. That sounded a bit old-fashioned. I don't think the doctor character said as much about Joanna. Actually, Joanna said the Jerry that it was 'her business' when the doctor was in trouble - quite an assertive and role-reversal statement, which says a lot about her character. I was just trying to postulate that such rather old-fashioned statements by the man about a woman being "his" were viewed, it seems, in those days, as old-fashioned, but quite romantic utterances. I'm not sure that Joanna wasn't won over by the doctor's rather boorish, domineering attitude, as well as his professionalism. Of course, he was assertive in the heat of the moment, when, SPOILER ALERT, a woman in labour was in danger of death, but Joanna does say: "he was awful. He turned on me."
It seems to me that whether you perceive someone's behaviour as rude or bullying depends on what you are used to. For Joanna, being berated and humiliated, called a "useless ornamental nit-wit" would have been an affront, and might have left some women of her social set quite shaken or in tears. After all, a lot of people coming in to a farm to buy a glass of milk would be a bit non plussed at being asked to help out with a birth where there is trauma and distress - and you haven't had children of your own. Lots of men, even with plenty of prior notice, don't feel able to be in the birthing suite, and they are not berated as useless. Yes Dr Griffiths was speaking truths but he was doing it in an authoritarian, over-bearing way. He could have said "I know this is new to you, but d'you think you possibly could hold some instruments for me."
I'm sure that AC wants to have a little joke at Joanna's expense and that of all of her ilk - the London smart set - the women who are like, too, Theresa, in Dumb Witness - a bit frivolous and superficial. I think AC is thinking that it is an inconvenient but amusing truth that women of her time liked a bit of the 'cave man'. However, I'd have to read a wider range of novels by other authors from the 1940s to really be sure of what stereotypes were, and whether such a tendency cropped up in other novels and films of the time.
Delicious Death,
if you are a Catholic, divorced and want to remarry within the Catholic Church you do have to pay a fee to the church for the annulment. Now I've no idea where this money goes, but there is a fee. I know this first hand because someone I knew (who was a Catholic) wanted to marry someone and that person was a divorced Catholic. In order for them to be married in the church the first marriage would need to be annulled. And they did have to write out a check to the church. The annulment was granted. I've have no idea the reasons why the first marriage was annulled nor quite frankly did I really care because I found the whole thing pretty stupid. Once again I don't know what this money is used for, but getting an annulment is definitely not free. As far as legitimacy of children, I believe one of the arguments Anne Boylen the 2nd wife) would have used to disqualify Mary I, King Henry the 8th's daughter from his first marriage, from throne, was the fact Mary was illegitimate. Since Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled their daughter was no longer legitimate since the marriage of her parents never took place. Obviously Anne Boylen wanted her child to succeed to the throne. Of course eventually Anne Boylen lost her head, so this argument was never put forward. However, the whole idea of annulling a marriage is totally ludicrous because once something takes place it can't be undone. In my mind this is similar to the selling of indulgences by the Cathloic church, which was one of the things that Martin Luther denounced. Just another way to make money. And saying a child is legitimate, although the marriage they were conceived in was annulled i.e. never took place doesn't make sense. If their parents marriage was anulled (for whatever reason) then how could they be legitimate since according to the church two people have to be married when the child is born for that child to be legitimate. And I'm sure you are right about the Catholic Church getting around the legitimacy of children. Human beings have a great capacity to rationalize anything no matter how illogical it may be.
In Italy, divorce wasn't legalized until 1970, so it really comes down to where you lived/live. Not every country is the same. Christie was lucky enough to live in England. Had she not, she might have been trapped in a marriage where her husband not only did not love her, but was in love with another woman. In such circumstances I doubt Christie would have had a happy life.
What you believe Anne Boleyn (not Boylen) might have done (but didn't do) is irrelevant. You are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to make up your own "facts". The so-called annulment by Cranmer of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was never recognised by the Church, and the Pope eventually excommunicated both Henry and Cranmer.
I don't doubt that in America your friend was expected to write out a "check" (by which I suppose you mean cheque), that is how your society works. It's well known that the American clerics are abusing the system and dishing out annulments like confetti, up to 70% of all annulments worldwide are granted in America on grounds that are gravely suspect. It has been a matter of concern to John Paul II, Benedict XVI and the present Pope. This is not a reflection on the Church's official stance, it's an indication of the American ethos.
This site is intended for the discussion of the works of Agatha Christie, it's not a platform for people to spew out anti-Catholic rhetoric. If you want to do that there are plenty of sites where you will find people only too happy to oblige you. I'm sure you're already familiar with many of them.
Comments
I understand your point. And sometimes, I think the same as you. But I think that this impression can be because you live in different times. Maybe for someone who lived in this time, it wasn't unbelievable. It could have happened. I think it can be just a matter of time, things were different, you had differents values and views. Something that was extremely important in that time nowdays is completely irrelevant and in the same way, something that is believable nowadays is navie.
So, I give a chance.
I think with all Agatha Christie books there is a bit of unbelievability to help the Stories move on, there has to be coincidences like someone said in a different thread, also, If you want to keep your Comfortable Lifestyle in Sussex and your Westie and maybe Subscription to the Golf Club or Bowls Club or Bridge Club and want to Carry on going to Restaurants and Theatres and The Opera and Ballet and all this means a lot to you perhaps you just might stoop to anything to avoid going back to the times when you didn't have all that
I think all the Characters in Taken At The Flood were very real..