Difference between revisions of "The Thirteen Problems"
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− | = | + | <div style="font-size:1.6em; font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: .17em">by [[Agatha Christie]] (1933)</div> |
This is a collection of 13 short stories, featuring Miss Marple prior to her rise to fame. It was originally published in 1933 and is also known under the alternative title ''The Tuesday Club Murders''. | This is a collection of 13 short stories, featuring Miss Marple prior to her rise to fame. It was originally published in 1933 and is also known under the alternative title ''The Tuesday Club Murders''. | ||
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If anyone would simply like to learn what the hype about Miss Marple is all about – give them this collection to read. It highlights the basic truth thanks to which Miss Marple is capable of solving so many mysteries: people are basically the same anywhere on earth; there is little originality in the world, so, once you have observed human nature at close quarters like Miss Marple was able to do all her life that she spent in her quiet little village – this gives you everything you need to judge human beings, and pose hypotheses about their past or future behaviour, ''any''where else in the world. | If anyone would simply like to learn what the hype about Miss Marple is all about – give them this collection to read. It highlights the basic truth thanks to which Miss Marple is capable of solving so many mysteries: people are basically the same anywhere on earth; there is little originality in the world, so, once you have observed human nature at close quarters like Miss Marple was able to do all her life that she spent in her quiet little village – this gives you everything you need to judge human beings, and pose hypotheses about their past or future behaviour, ''any''where else in the world. | ||
− | My favourite story out of the 13 is perhaps the last one, titled [[›Death by Drowning‹]]. It's the only one in the collection that is happening in real time rather than as a narrative of a past mystery. | + | My favourite story out of the 13 is perhaps the last one, titled [[›Death by Drowning‹]]. It's the only one in the collection that is happening in real time rather than as a narrative of a past mystery. It features a sexual motive for the crime: a recurrent theme in Christie's stories that seemingly take place in the highly moral atmosphere of a Victorian village. It's one of the delights of Miss Marple stories to see how Miss Marple demasks that myth, showing that the “Victorian” psyche, for all its outward high morals, was really “as dirty as the kitchen sink”. |
--[[User:Faterson|Faterson]] 21:11, 11 February 2007 (CET) | --[[User:Faterson|Faterson]] 21:11, 11 February 2007 (CET) | ||
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteen_Problems The Thirteen Problems] webpage at Wikipedia | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteen_Problems The Thirteen Problems] webpage at Wikipedia | ||
− | ====== [[Quotations from This Work]] ====== | + | ====== [[Quotations:The Thirteen Problems|Quotations from This Work]] ====== |
− | Simply click the [[quotations | + | Simply click the [[Quotations:The Thirteen Problems|quotations]] tab at the top of this webpage to read the available quotations from this work. If you want to add a quotation of your own from this work to the collection on the webpage, simply press [[the + sign]] at the top of the webpage with the quotations. |
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+ | ====== Discuss This Work or Quotations from it ====== | ||
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+ | Feel free to press the [[edit]] link to the right of this heading, and share your own comment, feedback, or rating for this work or quotations collected from it! |
Revision as of 21:30, 11 February 2007
This is a collection of 13 short stories, featuring Miss Marple prior to her rise to fame. It was originally published in 1933 and is also known under the alternative title The Tuesday Club Murders.
That's what makes the collection especially interesting: whereas in later Christie novels everyone more or less expects Miss Marple to be the cleverest person around when it comes to solving mysteries – here she baffles everyone with her perspicacity.
I would rate this collection to be a seminal Agatha Christie book, better than many full-length Miss Marple novels. My rating for this collection would be an A on a scale from A+ to F-.
If anyone would simply like to learn what the hype about Miss Marple is all about – give them this collection to read. It highlights the basic truth thanks to which Miss Marple is capable of solving so many mysteries: people are basically the same anywhere on earth; there is little originality in the world, so, once you have observed human nature at close quarters like Miss Marple was able to do all her life that she spent in her quiet little village – this gives you everything you need to judge human beings, and pose hypotheses about their past or future behaviour, anywhere else in the world.
My favourite story out of the 13 is perhaps the last one, titled ›Death by Drowning‹. It's the only one in the collection that is happening in real time rather than as a narrative of a past mystery. It features a sexual motive for the crime: a recurrent theme in Christie's stories that seemingly take place in the highly moral atmosphere of a Victorian village. It's one of the delights of Miss Marple stories to see how Miss Marple demasks that myth, showing that the “Victorian” psyche, for all its outward high morals, was really “as dirty as the kitchen sink”.
--Faterson 21:11, 11 February 2007 (CET)
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The Thirteen Problems webpage at Wikipedia
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