WHICH AC STORY WAS NOT BELIEVABLE TO YOU?

glalonzo0408

For me it was THE DREAM....

tudes

I suppose we can talk about the novels too and not only short stories. In this case, A Pocket Full of Rye, Death in the Clouds and Murder in Mesopotamia.

jennifer

SEMI SPOILER ALERT!!!I would have to agree with tudes...Death in the Clouds - even though I loved it, was hard to believe that no one  in that plane would notice the "change" of flight attendant.   HC's Christmas was also, again a great story, but the string and bladder set up just wouldn't work out that perfectly.  Still loved the stories though.

Tommy_A_Jones

Sparkling Cyanide SPOILER ALERTS!!! I Can't believe no-one would notice they were sitting in the Purse thing,surely people would say here's your Purse and not drink the wrong drink, ad Evil Under The Sun, wouldn't you notice it wasn't who someone said it was and The Hydra short story aswell, wouldn't someone put the Hat on but I like all these except for Sparkling Cyanide

Jessica Schlosser

Murder in Mesopotamia is the hardest one for me to believe.

debaleena.mukherjee

Murder in Mesopotamia, Death in the Clouds, They do it with Mirrors. I enjoy these books a lot but their is a degree of improbability.

Tommy_A_Jones

Cards On The Table, There is a degree of improbalility with most of the boks, It doesn't stop me wanting to read them though :-)

Zeddie

I agree with Death in the Clouds totally. How could you not notice someone with a white coat on, in such a confined space?? 

On a similar note, I think Lord Edgeware dies is also slightly unbelieveable as how could Donald Ross not notice straight away when he met the real Lady Edgeware that she wasn't the woman who sat opposite him at the dinner party?

I still love both these novels so I try not to over-think them!

MissQuin

I did wonder about Death In The Clouds.SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!  But in the adaptation, the air stewards who served the food also wore white coats. Perhaps that's what they wore back then?

Murder In Mesopotamia- Implausible but perhaps not impossible. But for me, the worse end was Taken At The flood. I just couldn't believe who Lynn ended up with. For me the romantic ends is some books are much more implausible than any of the murder plots!  Towards Zero, Taken At The Flood, Blue train- quite a list. 

Tommy_A_Jones

I can't remember the name of one short story I found unbelievable, but Evil Under The Sun was I think a re-working of it, It is set in a Hydra, I don't really find Evil Under The Sun or The Bloodstained Pavement believable either, 

youngmrquin

For me, it was After the Funeral

*SPOILERS*

I will never believe that the family didn't realized that the woman who was in front of them at the funeral wasn't Cora, but Miss Gilchrist. There were many people, my gosh, maybe she could have cheated one or two, or maybe three of them, but not all!

Tommy_A_Jones

I agree youngmrquin

youngmrquin

*SPOILERS*

Not only it wasn't beliavable, I felt AC cheated us here or at least, wasn't playing fair. As a narrator herself, she never (in the books I have read) tells a lie to the reader. She may hide information or build a scenery in which someone sees something in the wrong way, but all the information given is transparent.

Here, in the first two chapters, she plays unfair by describing the reunion with "Cora" in it. If it had been other character's narration, it could have been fair ast least (but still difficult to believe). A case could be made in her favour in the sense that in the first chapter people is described from the point of view of one of the servants. However, in chapter 2, this isn't that clear and it feels more like and external narrator. Yet the character is still refered as "Cora". How were we as readers going to discover this mechanic if we were told, by and external narrator, that Cora was there?

lachy.a.w

Yes, when you say it like that it would have made a lot of sense to have made a member of the family a narrator. Despite the small degree of improbability though, I still really liked After the Funeral.

Tommy_A_Jones

I have just remembered one member of the Family had an idea SPOILER! The won who was slugged on the head, you have to bear in mind they hjadn't seen Cora for ages and the event they were at was a sad one so that would make a difference

MissQuin

After The Funeral SPOILERS!!!!! I feel that any stories than involve imposters changing their appearance, give people feelings of disbelief. But it's worth remembering, this was in  the days when alot of photographs weren't clear. They were sepia or black and white, often grainy. If someone like Cora was  prone to heavy make up, then 20 years later, I don't think that anyone could tell. They had no photoes of her to check, as she had no contact with her family. Most of the people at the funeral were of the 2nd generation and didn't know Cora anyway.  Admittedly her brother should have known, but perhaps he was too busy complaining?

youngmrquin

*SPOILERS*

MissQuin: yes, I agree with you. As Tommy has already pointed out, a) there were many years since the last time she was seen in a family meeting and photographs weren't clear, and b) those members who were present were really young.

However, I still claim that, as said in my last post, AC wasn't playing fair here. As an external narrator, she calls Miss Gilchrist explicitly "Cora" and we ought to believe her because she never lies. In Seven Dials or Sittaford the reader is made to believe something taken for granted certain information, but all what is written is "real". I mean, she doesn't provide false information. How were we supposed (as readers) to figure this out if we were told that Cora was there?

If the narrator would have been one of the members of the family, the mislead would have been made sense because in the end it was his/hers point of view. But this is not the case. Like Tommy, I really enjoyed the book but I felt that the solution was impossible for the reader.

lachy.a.w

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head guys. The quality of the photos would certainly make a difference and the the time since she was last seen by the family - a lot changes in 20 years! (or however long it was). As well as that, one of the characters (I forget who) realised that Cora wasn't Cora so that made it somewhat more realistic. Really though, I think close analysis like this is simply good from separating Christie's absolute classics from her very good books. 

MissQuin

I mentioned before, I don't mind if a story is slightly unbelievable, if the characters are interesting. 

Murder In Mesopotamia SPOILERS!!! A woman meets a man, marries him, she thinks he's dead. Then she meets another man, but it turns out it's the very same man in disguise! Surely she'd notice?! I mean you can change your appearance for a brief time. But every single day? No. But saying that I liked the book because the characters were endearing. The relationship between Poirot and Nurse Leatheran is warm but also quite amusing.  

 

Tommy_A_Jones

Tommy_A_Jones said

You have described the book very succinctly Miss Quin, but there we part company, The Book in my view is to The Poirot books what Passenger To Frankfurt is to Non-series books, In My view The worst, an there is nothing I could say in its favour, The Big Four has good Chapters, The Labours of Hercule are a nice take on the Mythological  counterpart but there is Nothing I could say in favour of Murder In Mesopotamia, I thought ITV did a much better job, The Book needed Hastings Badly and ITV put him in it.

roamingrover86

Totally agree with YoungMrQuin . Just couldn't get it around my head about Miss Gilchrist going unnoticed . Well, she did get  found out with that mirror reflection explanation but for her to pull it off the first time must have meant that everyone else present were BLIND!

Tommy_A_Jones

Most of the others were the type of people who were too self absorbed to notice outside of themselves, the other one if she is how she was portrayed by Judy Punch is too Jolly Hockey sticks to realise something was amiss, I love the book but can't remember how she is written.

LL88

The short story "The Forth Man"...

Christopher_Wren

MissQuin said:

After The Funeral SPOILERS!!!!! I feel that any stories than involve imposters changing their appearance, give people feelings of disbelief. But it's worth remembering, this was in  the days when alot of photographs weren't clear. They were sepia or black and white, often grainy. If someone like Cora was  prone to heavy make up, then 20 years later, I don't think that anyone could tell. They had no photoes of her to check, as she had no contact with her family. Most of the people at the funeral were of the 2nd generation and didn't know Cora anyway.  Admittedly her brother should have known, but perhaps he was too busy complaining?

The brother wasn't at the funeral. And the nieces and nephews had never seen Cora. Except for the nearly blind butler, only Helen and Maude could have recognised Cora, and Helen at least realised, that something was wrong.

Murder in Mesopotamia is the most unbelievable one to me. The victim simply should have recognised the murderer right from the start.

Richard3

The correct response is "Passenger to Frankfurt."

Tommy_A_Jones

As I do not know how The Secret Service operate, I can neither agree or disagree with you. 

StathisZavitsanos

I shall say that when I read "Cards on table" I told myself "How could someone kill someone and no one noticing him?" However It had a wonderfull plot

Tommy_A_Jones

I agree, Wonderful book

Tommy_A_Jones

I wonder if the Murder in Sparkling Cyanide would work, if someone replaced a purse or something in the wrong place would people automatically go to the wrong place and be driven there because of the purse? 

MissQuin

Sparkling Cyanide-  the solution and massive spoiler!!! warning!!!  I imagine myself in their situation, I go off ot dance and leave my purse behind ( actually did people leave purse behind?) and I came back to the table. I certain I  would remember where I had  previously sat. 

BUT Although I know I'd notice if I sat somewhere else, there are people who aren't very aware of their surroundings. If I arrived at the table and someone had already sat down in my own seat, I might be hesitant to tell that person they were in the wrong place. Especially if I worked for them ! I'd have to tell them they've made a mistake, which sounds bad as it's so very trivial. 

I can't understand why the murderer didn't notice and asked to switch seats. Although that might draw attention to themselves? 

Tommy_A_Jones

What if you were't the first back at the table? You are assuming people would be like you but it wouldn't have to be the Killer who notices things  SPOILER WARNING! Think of Lord Edgware Dies and After The Funeral.