Underused and Overused Characters.

Tommy_A_Jones

I was trying to find a topic like this, it does exist I just can't find it and don't have the patients to look very far - I have scrawled 8 Pages -Which Characters were Underused and dare In ask are any overused? I would say Battle, Miss Lemon, Bunch, Leonard, Julian, Dolly and The Beresfords and Albert were underused and I think Poirot is in too many, This is probably personal preference but there are some I could do without which would make the other Poirots all the more special.

Agathasmykid

Yes, I agree on all of those, except for Poirot as I am a huge fan.  

I would have liked to have seen more of Inspector Japp.  I always felt that a book from his perspective could have been very humorous as he works hard to catch a criminal or murderer, while at the same time getting upstaged by those around home.  I have always had a soft spot for Japp.

tudes

@Tommy_A_Jones, I think, for instance, Sad Cypress would be much better without Poirot. He enters only in the middle of the story and I think the murder could be solved without his abilities. Although, I have to say, he's my favorite character.

Tommy_A_Jones

I would have kept him in Sad Cypress but that is a book I find average, I still read it but wouldn't take it to a Desert Island and it could be one I stop reading there are about 4 of those I still read but might stop reading.

tudes

Tommy_A_Jones said:

I would have kept him in Sad Cypress but that is a book I find average, I still read it but wouldn't take it to a Desert Island and it could be one I stop reading there are about 4 of those I still read but might stop reading.

Me too. It's not one of my favorites, but I wonder if Poirot wasn't in the book, it would be better?
I also think The Hollow would be better without Poirot. For me it's very difficult to think about this book as a mystery novel.
On the other hand, I like Battle a lot. I love him in The Secret of Chymneys. I think he was underuse. He could have featured much more stories.

Griselda

I like your insight into The Hollow. Now I am prompted to think about it, the novel doesn't have that feel of a mystery. For me, the artist character doesn't become real on the page, and yet I feel that she was real to AC, and that, in real life, there would be a type like her. In fact I think I know someone who would SPOILER protect someone as she did, under those circumstances. The murderess....I don't know, a bit like the one SPOILER in Dumb Witness.... hard to fathom how that psychology would work. Neither seems to have risk taking credentials.

Tommy_A_Jones

I have just realised if Sad Cypress didn't have Poirot tor could be the sleuth, I don't have any problem with \The Girl Poirot is defending and she is a believable Character, I just find the Book a tad boring but not half as boring as some

ChristieFanForLife

tudes said:

I also think The Hollow would be better without Poirot. For me it's very difficult to think about this book as a mystery novel.

Funny how you mention The Hollow being better off with Poirot. Agatha Christie thought the same thing and actually felt as if she ruined the novel by putting Poirot in it. She felt the story was better off without Poirot so much that she wrote a stage play version of it omitting him! I think the reason why it's difficult for you to see The Hollow as a mystery novel is because this particular book is much deeper than her others. Modern French novelist Michel Houellebecq who admired The Hollow said that the book is "a strange, poignant book; these are deep waters [she writes about], with powerful undercurrents." It's a deep book and I would put it in the same realm as Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress. The Hollow has undercurrents of her Mary Westmacott books. 

Griselda

What is odd for me is that, SPOILER, the nasty person is killed at the beginning, so we don't get to see what he is like as a person, and how he had a hold over women. I suppose, in that sense, it is like Murder on the Orient Express. I think for a great mystery - one that satisfies our  primordial instincts - you maybe need to experience sensing there is an evil person there, and sharpening your senses to determine where the danger is coming from; like our cavemen ancestors would have done. I' m grateful for the references, ChristieFanForLife. This summer, I am going to investigate Michel Houllebecq. 

Madame_Doyle

@Griselda, have you ever read any work by Francois Mauriac?  I found that reading him presented me with a bigger framework in which to reflect on Agatha Christie's more complex and disturbing books, such as The Hollow.  It's difficult to know what to think of them sometimes.

Griselda

No, I haven't read Francois Mauriac yet, Madame Doyle. I shall look out his work and start reading them. It would be useful to have this help, in view of the fact that I sense, and I'm certain that it should be possible to understand the artist character - Henrietta. She is the clever, plotting one, really. I would like the opportunity to think along certain lines, and get a better understanding of The Hollow - and, perhaps, too, Dead Man's Folly, which I feel has greater depths than I am currently appreciating. All I feel with The Hollow is that the sculpture idea came first, the thought of someone thinking to hide something within it. Perhaps an artist type then presented itself to Agatha Christie.

ChristieFanForLife

Griselda said:

What is odd for me is that, SPOILER, the nasty person is killed at the beginning, so we don't get to see what he is like as a person, and how he had a hold over women. I suppose, in that sense, it is like Murder on the Orient Express. I think for a great mystery - one that satisfies our  primordial instincts - you maybe need to experience sensing there is an evil person there, and sharpening your senses to determine where the danger is coming from; like our cavemen ancestors would have done. I' m grateful for the references, ChristieFanForLife. This summer, I am going to investigate Michel Houllebecq. 

SPOILER..... for who gets killed in The Hollow (if you haven't read it yet don't peek)

We do get a sense of what John Christow is as a person. He is a man who is devoted to his profession and is willing to do whatever it takes to find a cure for Ridgeway's Disease BUT in contrast, he's not devoted to his wife Gerda for he is messing around with Henrietta and soon again with Veronica Cray. He is a man in whom you can hate but also admire due to his profession and dedication to that. But in the department of relationships he is a complete dog.

tudes

ChristieFanForLife said:

tudes said:

I also think The Hollow would be better without Poirot. For me it's very difficult to think about this book as a mystery novel.

Funny how you mention The Hollow being better off with Poirot. Agatha Christie thought the same thing and actually felt as if she ruined the novel by putting Poirot in it. She felt the story was better off without Poirot so much that she wrote a stage play version of it omitting him! I think the reason why it's difficult for you to see The Hollow as a mystery novel is because this particular book is much deeper than her others. Modern French novelist Michel Houellebecq who admired The Hollow said that the book is "a strange, poignant book; these are deep waters [she writes about], with powerful undercurrents." It's a deep book and I would put it in the same realm as Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress. The Hollow has undercurrents of her Mary Westmacott books.

Exactly! The characters are much more deeper.
SPOILER:  The story is much more about a woman that wants to protect her lover's wife (that she thinks is the murderer and it is) because she feel guilty or ashamed or something much more complex. She thinks she was the reason why the wife killed him. It's so not Poirot story. I think the mystery is secondary in this book. The core is the complexity of the human emotions.

LeopoldoAtila

I think Bundle was an underused character. She's a quite detective and very funny. She could have appeared in much more books.

taliavishay-arbel

Going back to The Hollow, tudes, I think the reason Henrietta tries to protect Gerda is not because she feels guilty but because she feels John wanted her to. By protecting Gerda she feels she is still connected to John. As soon as that part is over, she drifts away from her connection with him, envisioning a statue expressing grief, because she has no real human feelings apart from her sculpture. I think one of the frightening things about Henrietta is her lack of "conventional" feelings and morality. Midge is the perfect foil for her - poor against Henrietta's wealth, insisting on standing on her own feet even if it means doing violence to her feelings by working in an abusive situation, as opposed to Henrietta's uncompromising faithfulness to her inner truth (which makes her destroy the Nausicaa statue, and refuse to lie to John even when he needs her to) and in the end Midge succeeds in winning and keeping her man - because she has warmth, as opposed to Henrietta's coldness. Yes, this is a deeper book, a novel about people and relationships rather than a detective puzzle - and the mystery serves the human interest.

Griselda

Yes, I agree with all that you say about Henrietta, Tali. I bet AC knew an artist like Henrietta. Isn't there a short story (GKCFan will surely know and tell us) about an artist who buys lots of presents for a mother who finds it hard to be attentive to her children. The artist buys them clothes. I think she is in love with the mother figure's husband. This is an AC story, isn't it? I know someone like Henrietta. She appears somewhat cold. Her creativity is somewhat measured and controlled. She would help a former partner to entertain his new girlfriend (whom he seems set to marry) even though she stifles feelings of surprise that he could marry someone else after not being able to commit himself to her, years before. I think her morality is a socially-constructed morality: doing the right thing; being diplomatic and proper , unprotesting - and practical. It is possible I think that AC knew characters and instinctively understood them, without actually deconstructing what makes them who they are - and her imagination performs this part when it writes the story, choosing the plot.

Griselda

I  think The Hollow would be a good one to dramatise - but not as a mystery. Poirot could be left out. It would be a full and engaging story like The Turning of the Screw is. Great actresses could play the key parts. Perhaps Cate Blanchet or Gwyneth Paltrow could play Henrietta.

taliavishay-arbel

Griselda, could the story you meant be "Within a Wall" from "While the light lasts"? It has some of the elements you mentioned: SPOILER: a woman in love with a married artist, who pays his wife, presumably for things for their daughter whom the wife/mother neglects (the woman is her godmother) but actually for the wife to spend. The end reveals the reason for the payments and is rather horrible, I felt.

Griselda

Yes, that's the story. I can't remember what the reason for the payments is. Could you please preface it with a SPOILER note and tell me.

taliavishay-arbel

Griselda: SPOILER!!!!!!!! the wife wanted the husband to paint society portraits, so that he would make a lot of money, and feed her extravagant shopping habits. He wanted to paint real, meaningful pictures. The other woman gave the wife money (and left herself practically penniless) so that the wife would leave the husband to do what he wanted. Ostensibily the payments were for gifts for her god-daughter, but only after she died, the husband discovered a begging letter from his wife among her things and realized what was going on - but then the wife used her femme-fatale sex-appeal to suck him into doing what she wanted. For me, that was the most horrible part. SPOILER!!!!

Griselda

How horrible, as you say! Some Agatha Christie stories make one feel quite uncomfortable about the depth of human unpleasantness.

ChristieFanForLife

tudes said:

Exactly! The characters are much more deeper.
SPOILER:  The story is much more about a woman that wants to protect her lover's wife (that she thinks is the murderer and it is) because she feel guilty or ashamed or something much more complex. She thinks she was the reason why the wife killed him. It's so not Poirot story. I think the mystery is secondary in this book. The core is the complexity of the human emotions.

Here's an interesting observation made by John Curran who wrote and put together Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks which is pure gold:

The character drawing in this novel is the most searching she has done to date. Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress paved the way but in The Hollow, her powers of characterization reached full power -- to the detriment, unfortunately, of the detective plot. Five Little Pigs is the most perfect example of the marrying of the two, Sad Cypress still has a distinct detective plot with clues and alibis; but in The Hollow, the detection is minimal and Poirot is almost surplus to requirements.

tudes

Clever observation, @ChristieFanForLife . Thanks for sharing.I have the same opinion.
It's curious that the murder and the "detective part" just happen almost in the middle of the story (as far as I remember). I feel the way about Endless Night, although there are differences, it's not a mystery novel.
In general, I think in the 60's novels Poirot seems a little displaced. For instance, Hallow'en Party ou Elephants can remember could have been written only with Ariadne Olivier as detective.

Annika

I wish they would adapt the books that Superintendent Battle was in and have one consistent actor playing him.

Tommy_A_Jones

I quite agree Annika.