Nemesis
Tommy_A_Jones
Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
I am on the last bit of Nemesis for the 2nd Time and loved it as much as the first time, I do think Jason Raphiel could have given Miss Marple more of a hint as to what he wanted her to do something like "Please find the Truth" secondly I think it would be great if Cooke and Barrow were 2 of Mr Goby's Operatives and I do hope Miss Marple didn't appologise to Joanne and Emlyb for suspecting them after the way they treated Joanna's Relative.
Tagged:
Comments
“There is no doubt that the effort involved in typing or writing does help me in keeping to the point. Economy of wording, I think, is particularly necessary in detective stories. You don’t want to hear the same thing rehashed three or four times over. But it is tempting when one is speaking into a dictaphone to say the same thing over and over again in slightly different words. Of course, one can cut it out later, but that is irritating, and destroys the smooth flow which one gets otherwise.”
I have heard from many that the reason why Jason Rafiel didn't mention the case or anything about his son to Miss Marple was so that he wouldn't influence her. But Miss Marple wasn't a woman who could easily be influenced by anyone, even as someone she knew like Rafiel. Miss Marple is a woman who explores all avenues, not taking what anyone say, including their biases at face value. All throughout the Miss Marple books, she mentions numerous times of not trusting others so easily. Not that she didn't trust Jason Rafiel but she sure wasn't going to take his opinion of his son Michael being innocent if he addressed that in his letter and run with it, without questioning and picking through that. And Mr. Rafiel had enough sense and knew her well enough to know that.
"as I said, it might (or might not) have saved Miss Temple's life"
--it kind of confirms the point I'm about to make, I think. The whole matter of probing into this case was a risk from the beginning no matter which method Jason took. And to dig into a cold case of murder that happened long ago, with the possibility that the wrong party (his son Michael) is in prison, there's always that risk that something can go wrong. The real murderer is still out there. And Jason was convinced that his son weren't involved in those murders. So what he does he do? He wants the case to be reopened so to speak. He takes the approach that he wants to take to reopen and possibly solve it. He decides to let Miss Marple undertake it. He knows the risks and dangers involved and that's why he sends Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow to be her bodyguards. He doesn't know whether anyone's life will truly be taken and who it would be if that occurred. Maybe nothing would happen. But he knows that there's a possibility. He doesn't know what possible insight that Professor Wanstead, Archdeacon Brabazon, Elizabeth Temple, or the Bradbury-Scott sisters could have that would be a threat to their life and lead to their downfall. All he knows is that they are all share a common familiarity and bond to Verity Hunt and/or his son Michael. His main goal --his mission-- is to keep Miss Marple alive for she is the one who is commissioned, she is the one whom he trusts in her powers and ability to root out the truth. In the book Mr. Rafiel realized his time on earth was short and he said, "I want justice for Michael. But I am handicapped. I am a very ill man. My time is measured now not in years or months but in week." Then Professor Wanstead suggested to Jason, "Lawyers, I suggested -- I know a firm--" then Jason says, "Your lawyers will be useless. You can employ them but they will be useless." He knew that lawyers couldn't root out the truth the way Miss Marple would. Miss Marple has the perfect camouflage and he knew that no one would hesitate talking to an elderly woman -- how much of a threat could she be? Anyone speaking to someone who is part of the law wouldn't open themselves up the way they would to someone like Miss Marple! And back to whether Miss Temple's life being saved or not, you also said in an earlier post:
Well it's not a guarantee either if no manipulation or pulling of the strings would have saved Elizabeth Temple. Because if it happened the other way around, maybe Temple would have held back something. Maybe she would have looked into something herself. Now the flaw in Nemesis was how did the murderer come to suspect Elizabeth Temple? The Joan Hickson film fills in that gap. The book made it seem as if the murderer had to be psychic. Well I think Elizabeth Temple, in the book, had to somehow indicate that she suspected something -- whether it was through (a) a letter, (b) a phone call, (c) coming over to the Old Manor to see the murderer. And whatever it was, it resulted in Temple's unfortunate death. I can't blame Jason Rafiel indirectly for her death. And I can't blame Temple for her own death either but if you use the scenario (that isn't explicitly stated in the book) that she somehow intentionally made the murderer aware that she knew something, she signed her own death warrant. And if Miss Marple knew what she was looking for ahead of time and could have interrogated Temple more fully, is it a guarantee that she would have told Miss Marple everything? If you fill in the "flaw" with the ones I proposed, then even in that scenario Temple's life wouldn't have been spared. Because in both scenarios, Temple would have held back on telling anyone any information and tried to look into the matter herself and "confront the murderer" so to speak.
Ok, I'm overthinking too much and it's almost 4 in the morning where I'm at. I enjoy the discussion and I hope my response made some sense!
Chapter 18 "Archdeacon Brabazon" is very insightful and beautifully written chapter that Christie should get recognition for. Anyways in this chapter Archdeacon says, "The boy [Michael] was not stupid. He had a certain amount of intellect and talent. He could have done well if he wished to do well and had taken the trouble. But he was by nature -- let us admit it frankly -- a delinquent. He had certain qualities one appreciated. He had a sense of humour, he was in various ways generous and kindly. He would stand by a friend, help a friend out of a scrape. He treated his girl friends badly, got them into trouble, as the local saying is, and then more or less abandoned them and took up with somebody else." And Michael was accused of rape which I don't think he did at all. Yes he went through women like he went through water but I think he was accused of rape because he went off and left them and that made them angry. And to be accused of that sure didn't help with his already bad rep. Yes, Michael had very bad qualities about him but he had good qualities too and I think though Verity saw these bad qualities, she saw the good in him and how possibly better he could be though she believed that there was a probability that some of the bad qualities would remain. She fell in love with Michael. Archdeacon saw the love they both shared. He said, "Those two loved each other." He saw the love that Verity had for Michael and how she was willing to go through the good and the bad with him, for better or for worse. It's not like Michael hid his bad qualities from her -- she saw it and she knew it. In the end would he have been good for Verity? Would the marriage have lasted? Maybe so, surprisingly. Essentially Archdeacon says that they exemplified what a true marriage is, without being married yet! Their relationship painted a portrait of what all married couples should demonstrate: honesty, truth, commitment, devotion, steadfastness, loyalty. .
Everyone accuses Michael of murdering Verity Hunt and Nora Broad because of his past. So they come to the conclusion and say, "well look at his past, of course he committed the murders" and it comes down to looking at things in black and white but as we come to know towards the end of the story, Michael didn't commit those murders no matter what his delinquent past looked like. Things are not always in black and white, there are shades of gray. I think Agatha Christie's purpose is not to pin Michael into this label as a "good un" or a "bad lot" and that she's intentionally giving us ambiguity with this character. How you see Michael and how you know him depends on "perspective" because to some all they see (or hear) is the bad and they come to a blanket statement saying that he's bad and he's no good but to Verity she would say that you don't know him like she does, that he has both good and bad qualities and that those bad qualities can be redeemable but that doesn't mean you should write him off as a evil, wicked, depraved human being.
I hope I'm making some sense. I'm probably thinking too hard. My mind is a little muddled right now so I'm just writing what is on my mind.
It does not make sense, Agatha Christie's definition of Michael. She was scrabbling around with thought in order to understand modern day changes in the way younger people thought and behaved which made little sense to her. If Michael was kindly, and people, in my experience, often are, kind as a rule rather than selectively, why did he abandon those young women? That isn't kind, and they are individual human beings too, aren't they? Was he, then, a misogynist? He can't have made them all pregnant, surely: they can't all be that fertile, but what else could Christie mean by 'getting them into trouble'. I thought her 'Endless Night' attempt to understand a sociopath was good, but don't like this take on another type of modern type. I generally have many misgivings about Christie's later works and the way she is interpreting the modern generation. I though Elvira in 'At Bertram's Hotel' was painted badly. I kind of got what Christie was trying to present with her energy going inwards, and I saw that she would have preferred the kind of 1950s jolly outgoing forces of nature, like the character of Elvira's mother. But it was tedious to read all those conversations between Elvira and solicitors and guardians. They conveyed no insight into who she really was, and why. Then in 'Elephants Can Remember', the young woman, the daughter says she might get married if she feels like it, in a nonchalant way which isn't quite naturalistic. Even the couple in 'The Pale Horse' or 'Third Girl' (the doctor and his initial girlfriend, I can't remember which novel) considering marriage in an unenthusiastic way, but not minding to share romance outside of marriage, they don't seem to represent or capture in action the younger generation of the 60s and 70s, and their attitudes to marrying, and, in general, preserving the forms which mattered so much to their parents. In 'Third Girl' you see the older generation's angle. One older lady says that you used to be able to keep young girls in order, but not any more, and those sentiments, expressed, too, in The Mystery of the Christmas Pudding, do seem genuine, and to be well-understood by the author, and they do seem to be consistent with the characters and their world.
Agatha Christie is focusing on the three sisters, and the test of whether 'Nemesis' is one of her greatest novels will probably be best decided by whether or not the reader can capture and understand their characters as the story progresses. I will need to read the story again to see what I think.
What do you think of the lesser characters in Nemesis, ChristieanForLife? Do you think they are a little flat. The fellow coach passengers seem to be, to me.
By the way, ChristieFanForLife, in terms of sharing views, there are a number of interesting comments made on the Agatha Christie Facebook site, it is just that they don't exactly lend themselves to discussion. But they sure inform our knowledge and understanding, and give a breadth of points of reference. It would be good if some of those comments could be brought over to this site by the moderators, and questions put out. Someone was saying today that the world has changed so much since Christie's day that the directors of new movies should hire historians to inform they of the value structure which would have informed the viewpoint of Poirot and Miss Marple.
I'm sure that you look at the Facebook site, but I just thought I'd say that I think reading it and finding people with similar views, is a substitute for debate when none is forthcoming on this site.
So the example you pointed out about the young daughter in Elephants Can Remember who said nonchalantly she'll get married if she wants sounds very realistic to me and speaks of the attitude and spirit of that time period. And Michael Rafiel dallied along with women, messed around with them, and fooled around with other girls. There was no responsibility or commitment on his part. That was the changing views of the times and he reflected the age he was brought up in. And again from another website which says it better then I:
I think A.C. did capture the younger generation of the 60s and 70s and though not all of them adapted the mindset of that age, a lot of them did. So in that respect there is a slight imbalance with A.C. accurately portraying the younger generation more negatively than positive. Many of the women in Nemesis were boy crazy such as Nora Broad but then you have someone like Verity Hunt who wasn't that type of girl. She was a girl that wasn't following the customs and attitudes of her generation. And though Christie portrayed the younger generation in a bad light many times, she was being honest with what she saw and that the tide of the youth was headed in a different direction. It appears that with each passing generation things seems to get worse. And I noticed that her books as she got older seems to have got darker as well.
People might be open minded, but once they had actually decided to marry, they would be serious about it, and treat it as a different thing to their former dalliances. Anyway, women have never, as far as I remember it, wanted to portray themselves as unfeeling and casual. A lot of people rejected marriage on the grounds that it was a social institution which was forced upon individuals and they should be able to choose, but they wanted to make a commitment of their own making. Often, youngsters had a wild youth, and then settled down when they realised what was important to them. Ordinary people fell in love and committed in the 60s and 70s, it was mostly the liberal intellectuals and the film makers who presented a different world. Either way, Michael was obviously callous with women, and was happy to help ruin their reputation, and therefore their future happiness, and that is an unattractive trait. A writer of our time might explore Michael's relationship with the female figures in his life. Times change, and theories change with them.
So perhaps Michael's discarded conquests were victims of the sexual liberation movement which wasn't giving them more equality after all, and perhaps this is what AC meant to put across. But. actually, I don't think AC had thought through her angle sufficiently for this novel, and I don't get a clear idea of who Michael is and what is his potential as a human being.
But quite honestly, I'm not very keen on AC's portrayal of character in another later novel: the one about the adopted children and the killing of their mother, and the alibi for the one who was convicted. Is the title 'Ordeal by Innocence'? I thought that she generalised unfairly, at times, crudely presenting some insensitive stereotypes.
To be honest, you've got me thinking about what are the ingredients of natural dialogue. I would need to re-read Nemesis and to analyse the style to be sure of how to express what is significant. In Nemesis, the dialogue just doesn't sound right in places. One thing I can say more scientifically is that I don't think an Archdeacon would speak of 'delinquency' because, to the clergy, there is original sin, moral fibre, moral weakness (as in Dr Sheppard in TMORA), temptation and sinning. I think that delinquency is a pyscho-social creation, and I can't see a clergyman having truck with the term. So I think that AC got the modern and the traditional mixed up there.
Incidentally, I did enjoy reading comments on Facebook Agatha Christie site. I know you can't chat, but it does widen one's points of reference. One lady was commenting that there should be advisors on hand to help film directors on the historical detail, but also theologians or academics to inform them of the moral framework within which Poirot and Marple would have been operating. She said this framework is sometimes not right in film adaptations. It was a useful point, because she also said that AC had not enjoyed an adaptation of one of her novels in the early 1960s and had not wanted any more films made for a while. Think that is what she said. If this forum frustrates you, CFFL, I would keep on reading Facebook.
Archdeacon firmly believes in original sin and he wouldn't part with that belief, but he's using a term that bests describes Michael Rafiel's propensity as a result of original sin (the tradition with the modern). Some out of original sin have a tendency and propensity to lie, some to steal, some to gossip, others to go against authority and get in trouble with the law. Instead of saying Michael has the propensity to commit crime, he uses a more fashionable and modern term but I don't think that devalues the traditional beliefs of the clergy.
It's similar to the term "depression" which is nowhere mentioned in the Bible though there those who felt what we coin as depression. Today it's a psychological term and there are many in the clergy today who use that word and yet they still firmly believe in original sin. Again, the traditional and the modern.
Many of Christie's novels are about exposing and unveiling he who has no real morals. Sometimes these characters have shown bravery in wartime situations (the murderer, SPOILER, in Taken at the Flood.) Michael does not seem to be presented as one of these: there is the ambiguity of the goodness to friends but the cruelty to women,but who and what he is, that is harder to judge.
Probably not a good idea to have written this novel about the past and to pay so little attention to outlining, and revealing through actions, Michael's character. I don't like the retrospective novels so much anyway. A murder mystery thriller is all about being there, as a reader, and getting a sense of it. That's why Five Little Pigs isn't one of the greatest reads for me.
I think if Agatha Christie was still alive Endless Night and Nemesis would be more in the vein of the kind of books she would write today since most mysteries steer away from the pure puzzle aspect and more into the psychological sociopath genre -- a look into the criminal mind.
Even though Michael Rafiel was a wrong 'un in many ways, he wasn't too far gone. He could be fully redeemed from that lifestyle as a delinquent and "bad boy". Verity believed he could change and Michael was willing to turn over a new leaf. He did have some good qualities and though that is hard to say because of the bad things he's done that also shows a chance of redemption for him. I think Rafiel was intentionally written as an ambiguous character...he wasn't a person you could slap a blanket label onto as either a good 'un or a bad lot. Because there were some good qualities about him and yet there were some bad ones. I think the main point was whether Jason Rafiel was "redeemable" -- could he change? Could he be saved out of that delinquent lifestyle and live productively as a member of society?
What I want to know, is what is a new audience. What is modern? You can be up to date with politics, art, fashion and culture and still be able to appreciate a drama forged in a previous age. As far as I can tell, young adults, e.g. those in their twenties, don't much telly, so you'd be sensible to take into account all demographics, and people old enough to have seen the earlier adaptations.