octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I'm not the biggest Sherlock Holmes fan in the world, having only read a couple of the books, but I do expect him to be right. This time, he was not right. (Although, to be fair, his rather pedestrian explanation did seem entirely plausible!) The true solution is much sadder, and ultimately much sweeter. The ending is certainly very touching, and if Effie's own behaviour isn't entirely admirable, her husband at least is a thoroughly decent man, and better, in the end, than either of them ever suspected. 

This is the second Miss Marple short story in a row where I solved the mystery before Miss Marple told me the answer, which is possibly the most successful I've ever been as a mystery reader. Admittedly, it was less a shining insight on my part, and more a decision to look for the most domestic detail and assume it was key to the entire thing... no surprises that, when the question of laundry came up, I knew I was on the right track to an answer. 

So far, the solutions to the short stories in this series have hinged on cooking, gardening, and laundry (plus one wandering off the domestic topic altogether in the silly temple of Astarte story) so it admittedly didn't take a great deal of perspicacity on my part to realise the trend. 

I am the first to admit that, when it comes to mysteries, I rarely guess right as to the details. Perhaps I'm just not suspiciously oriented, but clearly today is an exception, because I picked where the missing gold was right off. I didn't know why it was where it was, but I knew where to go looking. And while I didn't suspect the location for the same reason that Miss Marple did, it continues to entertain me that she's able to solve these mysteries because she knows small housekeeping details that her compatriots in the Tuesday Mystery Club would absolutely overlook. 

This is such a disturbing novella - I've read it before, several times over the years, and I even wrote a short story about Gregor's sister Grete recently, and her attempts to get over her loathing of insects, which was published in an anthology last year (I think it was last year).

It's just so weird. Gregor wakes up, an insect, and somehow his life gets worse from there. I note this particular translation comes straight out and says he's a cockroach, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the original untranslated version didn't specify what sort of insect he was. It just leaned into the aversion factor, hard, and everyone automatically filled in the blanks with "cockroach." Well, they are revolting. I'm mad on nearly all animals, but I cannot warm to cockroaches. They skitter. They're filthy. (Do they? Are they? Or have I just tapped into a prejudice that's as immovable as it is unfair?) 

Anyway, it's clear to me that Kafka knew what he was doing when he tapped into that shared, unthinking repulsion. It's very clever, and it works. 

This is a very basic adaptation of the first season serial "The Reign of Terror." In fairness to the author, it was a particularly underwhelming set of episodes that weren't that entertaining to watch, so he's hampered by the source material (Susan, especially, was dire). On the other hand, in fairness to me, the reader, Marter does absolutely nothing to improve the dismally repetitive nature of the storyline. In fact, his adaptation is mostly notable for the many detailed description of the clothes. 

I suppose I can't really blame him. Under the circumstances, better clothes than plot. 

I didn't enjoy this one as much as its immediate predecessor, "The Tuesday Night Club." It's a little bit overwrought, I think, and I can't quite wrap my head around Miss Marple and sacred groves and suggested orgies in the service of ancient goddesses. Everyone's very worried about the creepy grove, but I can't help but think that all the histrionics around it have been devised, by Christie, to draw attention away from a relatively thin mystery plot. When it comes to Miss Marple, I much prefer the domestic setting, rather than the attempt at evoking a misdirected horror that is the case here. 

I've come across this concept before, in an Isaac Asimov collection, although given the relative dates I'm pretty sure he got the idea from Christie. A group of people meet once a week, and each week one of the members puts a mystery to the rest and asks them to solve it. Miss Marple sort of invites herself, but in all fairness this is less rude than it appears, given that the people discussing it don't even think of including her, because of course a little old lady won't have anything valuable to contribute when it comes to the various crimes and shady dealings of the world. Needless to say, the dotty old lady act is exactly that and she beats them all hollow, solving the case because she knows something they don't about making desserts. Which on the one hand I find quite amusing... but on the other, berries (particularly strawberries) are clearly the correct topping for a trifle, so I don't know what unfortunate kitchen Miss Marple has been frequenting, I really don't. 

This was excellent! I've seen the film adaptation, and really enjoyed it, so when I saw this on my mum's bookshelf (she's a big du Maurier fan) I thought I'd read it - "The Birds" is only a novelette, so it didn't take long.

It's very different to the film. A lot more focused, a lot more claustrophobic: just a farm worker, his wife, and their two small children, huddled inside the house and hoping for the birds to go away. The end is particularly interesting, left open and ambiguous as it is. That's not unusual for good horror, which specialises in letting readers imagine the worst (a cunning plan, given that "the worst" is often dependent on the individual). Anyway, I was sad when it ended. I could happily have read on, but have to admit that this is small and perfectly formed the way that it is. It really is the perfect literary example of "atmospheric." 

The prose in this short story could use a little polishing, I think, and the cover is really not great, but these issues aside this is competent, if not outstanding. I have difficulty writing very short pieces myself, so all credit to Farthing that she's managed to produce a complete story in a handful of pages, because that's much harder than it looks. I also appreciated that there was the odd quirky detail - the supernatural obsession with beets, for example - which brought touches of originality into a fairly standard horror story.