Its been ages now, and unlike DK I tend to be both irregular and prosiac…
Anyway, I’ve finally finished Agatha Christie. 70 novels are no mean feat and in the end even sordid murders had started to feel wearisome. I got tired of Poirot’s vanity and yet he is likeable. Miss Marple on the other hand was faintly repulsive from the very beginning.
One sentiment I thoroughly agree with AC, planned murders are idiotic. Even the cleverest murder is bound to be idiotic. A rational mind, if it fears, will find a way to safeguard itself, if it covets, will steal (its easy to steal legitimately) and if it hates, then life could be made much more painful than death. An impersonal killing, of course is even more pitiful, usually political, it is the mark of a failed cause.
Then I started on the Foundation trilogy by Asimov. I’ve also finished the side novels and the prequels. The series itself is excellent, but the sequels and the ‘Gaia’ bit… frankly Trevize was irritating and the timeline horribly patchy. It would have been quite simpler had Asimov kept Foundation a separate universe from the Robot series.
It was all very good, ho-humish, nothing of the LOTR scale though. Whenever there is the deux ex machina of too much telepathy going around I start getting wary (I adored the second foundation, it was Foundation’s Edge which started the whole new age Gaia mumbo jumbo).
Lastly, two books I’ve got to mention.
The most horrible book written by Agatha Christie (she went quite gaga after 70) would be ‘Passenger to Frankfurt’. Read it at your own peril if you want to get really bewildered after a bad day, you’ll start confusing hippies with skinheads and understand that the best solution to the worlds problems is spraying all the ‘violent young people’ with a magic gas that makes them ‘benevolent’.
The most interesting book she wrote would probably be ‘Death comes as the end’. Its a unique concept which hasn’t been copied too much…
That’s all. Future posts will attempt to be not this dry. Goodnight, or rather goodmorning.
One of the few generals in history who never lost a battle
