The body in the library

romifran

Hallo! Happy to be part of Mrs Agatha Christie's community!
I'm an Italian teacher, and I'm writing a thesis about "The body in the library" and the rule of the library in this novel.
I would be glad to have some more information about this, if you have any.
I also have a specific question: for which reason in the movie dated 2004 (directed by Andy Wilson, with the fantastic Geraldine Mc Ewan starring Miss Marple) and adapted from the novel were so many features changed in comparison with Mrs Agatha Christie's plot?
Thank you very much for your kind help and congratulations for your wonderful website!
Roberta Dell'Elice

taliavishay-arbel

Hello RomiFran! I like your question - I never thought of it before, but once you asked it seems so obvious that the library has a multiple role in the book (I'm assuming you meant "role" and not "rule"). WARNING: SPOILERS!! First, the physical aspect - the Library is usually on the first floor and in front of the house, and therefore accessible from the outside. That made it relatively easy to force open a locked window and dump the body there. Secondly, the symbolic meaning for Colonel Bantry - if "An Englishman's home is his castle" then the library is the keep - the innermost, safe room where the master of the house can relax with a brandy and cigar and newspapers and know that he won't be disturbed. Dumping a body in the library is violating Colonel Bantry's inner sanctum, and is symbolic of the more serious violation which will happen later, when he is suspected, not only of the murder but also of an affair with the victim, and is ostracized by his neighbours. Thirdly, the library is typically the mans room in the house, and as such very masculine and not sexy in any way. So that the appearance of the body of a young female who seems to be an entertainer in the library is extremely incongruous, and leads to the hypothesis that she was not killed there but rather dumped there as a secondary maneuver. And fourthly, the Library plays a role again towards the end, when Mrs. Bantry, after hearing about the way her husband has been shunned by the country, insists on their sitting in the library - and in doing so enables her husband to lift his head and rise above the shame and misery he has been feeling, by showing to him that she believes in him and trusts him.

Tommy_A_Jones

You might want to add to your Thesis that Agatha Christie was staying in a Hotel when At Breakfast she saw an Elderly man and 3 younger people, not wishing to have her mind contaminated by talking to them she went home before this could happen and from the 4 people got the idea of Body In The Library.

P_Lombard

According to John Curran's Murder in the Making, Christie's Body in the Library tackled one of the staples of detective fiction (a body in a library) by experimenting with this convention. So one angle you can also explore is how Christie's use of this literary convention adheres to and/or departs from previous uses of this convention. It might also be helpful to compare and contrast the role of the library in Body in the Library with the role of libraries in other Christie novels. 7 Dials Mystery, A Pocketful of Rye, and Hallowe'en Party are three other Christie novels that come to mind in which important things happen in libraries.

romifran

taliavishay-arbel said:

Hello RomiFran! I like your question - I never thought of it before, but once you asked it seems so obvious that the library has a multiple role in the book (I'm assuming you meant "role" and not "rule"). WARNING: SPOILERS!! First, the physical aspect - the Library is usually on the first floor and in front of the house, and therefore accessible from the outside. That made it relatively easy to force open a locked window and dump the body there. Secondly, the symbolic meaning for Colonel Bantry - if "An Englishman's home is his castle" then the library is the keep - the innermost, safe room where the master of the house can relax with a brandy and cigar and newspapers and know that he won't be disturbed. Dumping a body in the library is violating Colonel Bantry's inner sanctum, and is symbolic of the more serious violation which will happen later, when he is suspected, not only of the murder but also of an affair with the victim, and is ostracized by his neighbours. Thirdly, the library is typically the mans room in the house, and as such very masculine and not sexy in any way. So that the appearance of the body of a young female who seems to be an entertainer in the library is extremely incongruous, and leads to the hypothesis that she was not killed there but rather dumped there as a secondary maneuver. And fourthly, the Library plays a role again towards the end, when Mrs. Bantry, after hearing about the way her husband has been shunned by the country, insists on their sitting in the library - and in doing so enables her husband to lift his head and rise above the shame and misery he has been feeling, by showing to him that she believes in him and trusts him.

Hallo taliavishay-arbel! Thank you very much for your kind reply. Yes, you're right! I meant "role", of course. What you wrote is really interesting and I'll use it for my Thesis. Can I abuse of your patience and competence to insist on my "specific" questions? I try to be clearer: in the 6th chapter Adelaide Jefferson affirms that her father-in-law, Mr Jefferson, is mutilated. In the 8th chapter Mr Jefferson tells the investigators that his wife, daughter and son had died in a plane crash. The movie directed by Andy Wilson starts by a family dinner: it's Mr Jefferson's son birthday; a German bomb suddenly hits their house and many people die. I suppose the director had chosen this solution in order to put the reader "in medias res"; probably it was the easiest way to introduce the life story of Mr Jefferson and the different characters, too. But I can't undesrtand why Andy Wilson has completely changed the end: in Agatha Christie's novel, as you perfectly know, Adelaide Jefferson and her brother-in-law Mark had got married and they were expecting their former father-in-law's legacy. In the movie Adelaide had fallen in love with Josie and they were also expecting Mr Jefferson's legacy... On the other hand, Mark is not involved at all in Ruby's murder and he is a very generous and honest man. I can't understand the reason of this global change that seems disrepectful with regard to the author. Sorry for my disturbing you and thank you in advance for your helpful suggestions.

romifran

Tommy_A_Jones said:

You might want to add to your Thesis that Agatha Christie was staying in a Hotel when At Breakfast she saw an Elderly man and 3 younger people, not wishing to have her mind contaminated by talking to them she went home before this could happen and from the 4 people got the idea of Body In The Library.

Hallo, Tommy_A_Jones! Thanks a lot for your suggestion! May I know which is the source of this interesting anecdote? If you can tell me something more about this, I'm thanking you in advance. Kind regards.

romifran

P_Lombard said:

According to John Curran's Murder in the Making, Christie's Body in the Library tackled one of the staples of detective fiction (a body in a library) by experimenting with this convention. So one angle you can also explore is how Christie's use of this literary convention adheres to and/or departs from previous uses of this convention. It might also be helpful to compare and contrast the role of the library in Body in the Library with the role of libraries in other Christie novels. 7 Dials Mystery, A Pocketful of Rye, and Hallowe'en Party are three other Christie novels that come to mind in which important things happen in libraries.

Hallo, P_Lombard! Thank you very much for these suggestions. I find them very interesting and I'll use them in my Thesis. Kind  regards.

Griselda

Directors make changes to make the story more contemporary and valid. They are trying to keep the viewer interested by increasing the sense of drama. It has been quite common in recent years for movie or tv drama directors to change the plot. For example, it happened with the adaptation of The Sittaford Mystery: the murdered man is given a romance which never existed in the novel,and there was a further change to relationships. If you were to read back over a range of discussions which have taken place on this forum, you would see that various forum members have both questioned the changes, and hypothesized on why they have been considered necessary. Generally those commenting have concluded that the production team have not appreciated the quality of Christie's characterisation,and have judged that it would seem dated and unexciting to modern audiences. If you bear in mind that same sex relationships tended  not to be publically acknowledged at the time the novel was being written, then we can see that the director introduces an interesting element of conflict and secrecy, which hightens the drama.  By modern standards, Christie's characters, perhaps, come across as being constrained by social conventions to the point that they lack  passion and raw emotion. Bear in mind that it is quite a common state of affairs that a director or screenwriter of an adaptation may not have read any Christie novels before they have been asked to work on the project. They therefore come to the work cold, and don't have years of re-reading the novels, and seeing new flashes of brilliance each time, as has happened to we the fans. We have sometimes questioned why Agatha Christie Limited could have permitted the changes, since, the organisation, presumably, reveres Christie's skills and want to protect her legacy.   What we have to remember is, that although Christie is the most widely-read author after Shakespeare, her legacy is certainly not treated with the same respect as the great English playwright. No one would alter a Shakespeare play (hardly), but Agatha Christie's output continues to be seen as popular, brain-teasing, fun, but not great literature. Her work is not being viewed as something with a timeless and universal human interest for all audiences and all times, but rather as something stuck in a time warp which might need to be updated to make it relevant to modern tastes. We the fans disagree, but only slowly are critics coming round. If you want to work out why those specific changes, I'd say that there might be a suggestion of it in the novel. In The Sittaford Mystery, there are things which make you think the journalist has a personal interest in the murder, and there are scenes of the two young women together seeming like kindred spirits. In the novel, The Body in the Library, the character of Mark is somewhat underwritten - he's not very interesting and doesn't have a chance to show himself as a fleshed out character -  and that is why I suggest the director opted for a different theme and ending. Mark's sister in law is a more fully drawn character in the novel: there are more references to what she's feeling. If you compare the drawing of Mark, with that of SPOILER Lawrence in Murder at the Vicarage, and Patrick in Evil Under the Sun, he is weak and doesn't come to life for the reader.  

Anubis

What a terrific summary, Griselda. This Christmas, I received a DVD of the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution. In the commentary, director Billy Wilder said that AC was a great plotter, but that her dialogue could be "flat" when it was put on the screen. For this reason, the director and the screenwriter added personal details about the characters and plot points to heighten the suspense and also put in moments of comic relief.

Anubis

P.S. To answer your question directly, Romifan, sometimes they change the plot because of necessity. For instance, the events in the Hercule Poirot book Taken at the Flood occur during and after WWII. However, since all HP stories were filmed to appear in 1936, the plot had to be changed somewhat. Also, I cannot quite erase from my mind the notion that the director might want to give the viewer the same "jolt" of surprise that the reader gets from reading the book for the first time.

romifran

romifran said:

P_Lombard said:

According to John Curran's Murder in the Making, Christie's Body in the Library tackled one of the staples of detective fiction (a body in a library) by experimenting with this convention. So one angle you can also explore is how Christie's use of this literary convention adheres to and/or departs from previous uses of this convention. It might also be helpful to compare and contrast the role of the library in Body in the Library with the role of libraries in other Christie novels. 7 Dials Mystery, A Pocketful of Rye, and Hallowe'en Party are three other Christie novels that come to mind in which important things happen in libraries.

Hallo, P_Lombard! Thank you very much for these suggestions. I find them very interesting and I'll use them in my Thesis. Kind  regards.

Thank you very much once again! I have read so much and searched in the three novels you have suggested to me: I've found a lot of interesting connections and comparisons with The body in the library! They will be really useful for my Thesis!

romifran

Griselda said:

Directors make changes to make the story more contemporary and valid. They are trying to keep the viewer interested by increasing the sense of drama. It has been quite common in recent years for movie or tv drama directors to change the plot. For example, it happened with the adaptation of The Sittaford Mystery: the murdered man is given a romance which never existed in the novel,and there was a further change to relationships. If you were to read back over a range of discussions which have taken place on this forum, you would see that various forum members have both questioned the changes, and hypothesized on why they have been considered necessary. Generally those commenting have concluded that the production team have not appreciated the quality of Christie's characterisation,and have judged that it would seem dated and unexciting to modern audiences. If you bear in mind that same sex relationships tended  not to be publically acknowledged at the time the novel was being written, then we can see that the director introduces an interesting element of conflict and secrecy, which hightens the drama.  By modern standards, Christie's characters, perhaps, come across as being constrained by social conventions to the point that they lack  passion and raw emotion. Bear in mind that it is quite a common state of affairs that a director or screenwriter of an adaptation may not have read any Christie novels before they have been asked to work on the project. They therefore come to the work cold, and don't have years of re-reading the novels, and seeing new flashes of brilliance each time, as has happened to we the fans. We have sometimes questioned why Agatha Christie Limited could have permitted the changes, since, the organisation, presumably, reveres Christie's skills and want to protect her legacy.   What we have to remember is, that although Christie is the most widely-read author after Shakespeare, her legacy is certainly not treated with the same respect as the great English playwright. No one would alter a Shakespeare play (hardly), but Agatha Christie's output continues to be seen as popular, brain-teasing, fun, but not great literature. Her work is not being viewed as something with a timeless and universal human interest for all audiences and all times, but rather as something stuck in a time warp which might need to be updated to make it relevant to modern tastes. We the fans disagree, but only slowly are critics coming round. If you want to work out why those specific changes, I'd say that there might be a suggestion of it in the novel. In The Sittaford Mystery, there are things which make you think the journalist has a personal interest in the murder, and there are scenes of the two young women together seeming like kindred spirits. In the novel, The Body in the Library, the character of Mark is somewhat underwritten - he's not very interesting and doesn't have a chance to show himself as a fleshed out character -  and that is why I suggest the director opted for a different theme and ending. Mark's sister in law is a more fully drawn character in the novel: there are more references to what she's feeling. If you compare the drawing of Mark, with that of SPOILER Lawrence in Murder at the Vicarage, and Patrick in Evil Under the Sun, he is weak and doesn't come to life for the reader.  

Honestly, I couldn't imagine that I would find so kind people in this social forum! And with a so huge competence! Thank you! I have appreciated all your suggestions very much!

romifran

Anubis said:

P.S. To answer your question directly, Romifan, sometimes they change the plot because of necessity. For instance, the events in the Hercule Poirot book Taken at the Flood occur during and after WWII. However, since all HP stories were filmed to appear in 1936, the plot had to be changed somewhat. Also, I cannot quite erase from my mind the notion that the director might want to give the viewer the same "jolt" of surprise that the reader gets from reading the book for the first time.

Hallo, Anubis! You are certainly right! In my Thesis I'll try to give an explanation of the changes I have mentioned, following your suggestions! Thank you very much!

Griselda

Thank you Anubis. Yes, I think it is the jolt of surprise factor which motivates directors. A fair number of viewers will have read the books or seen earlier tv versions, and even if they have forgotten, they will suddenly remember like I've often done,  and will know the ending, so it is naive for a director to put all their dramatic eggs in the unmasking basket. They go for the slow burn, themes nicely suggested throughout the action suddenly bearing fruit and giving the plot a new twist to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. It must be so much easier to cover a new whodunnit written recently for the screen and the times. I guess that for the Estate it wouldn't be helpful to AC's legacy for critics to write that there is no point in covering AC books, because the plots are so well known. One occasion when it seems  acceptable to have a very well-known story is with pantomime. Perhaps that is why some adaptations do seem jokey and with an element of 'look behind you!!'.

Tommy_A_Jones

I cannot remember where I heard or read about Agatha Christe The Hotel and 4 Breakfasters, I might have read it in The First Notebooks Book or a Documentary about Agatha Christie.

taliavishay-arbel

Hello! for some reason my posts keep getting blocked. I'm trying again for the last time: Romifran, in answer to your question: SPOILER: first of all, a correction: in the original book, it is not Mark and Adelaide who are secretly married but Mark and Josie. The whole point is the body switching in order to provide an alibi for Mark for the time of death of the girl whose body is found in the library (and whose approximate time of death is determined by the doctor). But given the body switch, Josie has to be in the plot, since she is the one who (mis)recognizes the body in the library.

As to the switch from Mark to Adelaide as co-conspirator in the new movie, frankly, I didn't like it (as Griselda said, most of us fans are conservative about adhering to the original story). But besides what Griselda already said - about "modernizing" and giving the story a new twist - it also enabled that very touching scene at the end, where Mark comforts Adelaide's son as she is being taken away.

Griselda

Siddhartha has drawn our attention to axioms in Christie's writing, and I think he may have mentioned the device of 'the accomplice'. To create a mystery which no one can easily solve,  as Siddhartha points out in an earlier thread, there must be some confusion over motive, or opportunity. Often (though not always)there will be a confusion and misdirection of the time of murder, and often, there need's to have been an accomplice to work out this misdirection with timings. In some of her novels, this accomplice is a wife whom nobody knows is wife, sometime the husband and wife/girlfriend pretend to be at each others' throats SPOILER (Death on the Nile, Evil under the Sun), sometimes a foolish or innocent woman is duped and used, and perhaps killed (Pocket Full of Rye, Death in the Clouds). Sometimes the girlfriend is it in for the money, ( Sparkling Cyanide, The Blue Train - but, eventually, they would have got bumped off, I expect). The Body in the Library - the book - therefore, conforms to one of AC's favourite formats. It's a good format, because you can get the reader to say at the end, "Why didn't I guess they were together!!")

On the question of why the library in 'Body in the Library', servants were often told to keep out of it because the master of the household would have his papers in an order all of his own, and wouldn't want them messed up by a cleaning lady. A dining room would often be used by servants setting up early for the evening meal, and polishing silver - so that room would be not appealing to a murderer. Sorry if this point has already been made.

Griselda

Sorry, just remembered, it's not SPOILER the murderer who puts the body in the library. It would still have been quiet though.

romifran

taliavishay-arbel said:

Hello! for some reason my posts keep getting blocked. I'm trying again for the last time: Romifran, in answer to your question: SPOILER: first of all, a correction: in the original book, it is not Mark and Adelaide who are secretly married but Mark and Josie. The whole point is the body switching in order to provide an alibi for Mark for the time of death of the girl whose body is found in the library (and whose approximate time of death is determined by the doctor). But given the body switch, Josie has to be in the plot, since she is the one who (mis)recognizes the body in the library.

As to the switch from Mark to Adelaide as co-conspirator in the new movie, frankly, I didn't like it (as Griselda said, most of us fans are conservative about adhering to the original story). But besides what Griselda already said - about "modernizing" and giving the story a new twist - it also enabled that very touching scene at the end, where Mark comforts Adelaide's son as she is being taken away.

taliavishay-arbel said:

Hello! for some reason my posts keep getting blocked. I'm trying again for the last time: Romifran, in answer to your question: SPOILER: first of all, a correction: in the original book, it is not Mark and Adelaide who are secretly married but Mark and Josie. The whole point is the body switching in order to provide an alibi for Mark for the time of death of the girl whose body is found in the library (and whose approximate time of death is determined by the doctor). But given the body switch, Josie has to be in the plot, since she is the one who (mis)recognizes the body in the library.

As to the switch from Mark to Adelaide as co-conspirator in the new movie, frankly, I didn't like it (as Griselda said, most of us fans are conservative about adhering to the original story). But besides what Griselda already said - about "modernizing" and giving the story a new twist - it also enabled that very touching scene at the end, where Mark comforts Adelaide's son as she is being taken away.

  Your post is in, now. Of course, you're right... I've made a mistake: the secretly married are Mark and Josie and not Mark and Adelaide... And concerning the movie, I'm conservative, too and I prefer the original version... "modernizing"? No, thanks! Nevertheless, I agree with you: the scene where Mark Comforts Peter is very touching!