The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side is what I'd call a poetic mystery.

When I was young, despite the fact that I used to love mystery novels (Blyton's Adventure Series and Famous Five series, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys being my favorites) I was quite opposed to Agatha Christie, having tried to read but failed at reading the only Christie novel I could find easily in my house, namely Elephants can Remember. As a eleven-year old it is easy to get bored by a chapter on the hats a lady owns, and I never went very far into the book. However, since then I've finished Elephants Can Remember, and read a few more of her books, like N or M? and They Do It With Mirrors, and I really enjoyed them, so when my brother brought back this book from the library, I was looking forward to reading it.

It was about this time that I read Tennyson's Lady of Shalott in school and realized where Agatha Christie had gotten the title:

Out flew the web and floated wide-
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott

These four lines have a significance again and again in the book, and so do these lines, whose significance does not become apparent until the very end:

He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

This is not the only thing that makes me call this book poetic, even though it is a major reason. It is just the way this book is structured, and the way it is filled with the life and love of the small town and its residents, and especially the ending, that give this book a poetic resonance for me. In this book, you will see why Agatha Christie is often called the queen of mystery - because of the way she can blend tragedy with beauty, mystery with the ordinary, and base human passions with larger ones.

Yes, I loved this book.

Here's why - well written, compelling characters, including Ms. Marple, who is now vying with Poirot for the top spot in my favorite-detectives list, mostly because of how sharp and fun and sweet she is. Despite being old (very old) she's not beyond 'unraveling' a mystery, and anyone in the town will tell you that 'she's as sharp as needles' and 'I'll believe she's gotten soft when I see her'. She's very progressive. She's the kind of old lady who ditches her nurse and goes for a random walk into the 'Development' (only to get mixed up in a mystery) and stubbornly refuses to call the taxi service anything but the 'Inch' much to the puzzlement of anyone but an old-timer. She's seriously fun to read about.

A basic premise of this story? Well, the whole town's abuzz where Mariana, an old film-star, decides to buy a house in the town. Suddenly, at a party at her house soon after the arrival, silly Heather Badcock is murdered by a lethal overdose put into her glass. About twenty people could've done it easily, but the question is, who would've had a reason to kill the poor lady? Of course, things become quite tangled when people start to suspect that it was Mariana the killer meant to kill, and it's up to Ms. Marple, the town's resident detective, to unravel the tangles and figure out who killed Heather - and what exactly made Mariana's face look like the Lady of Shalott.

Final thoughts: Amazing plot, great writing, very believable characters. Christie does it again, and again, and again. And then once more for good measure. Go read this book.

The Naughtiest Girl in School - Enid Blyton

The Naughtiest Girl in School, by Enid Blyton, is the stuff that childhood is made up off.

Strange statement?

I have grown up reading Enid Blyton. From the "Secret Seven" series, to the "St. Clares" series, I have read almost everything she has written. I grew up with the adventures of Fatty (Five find-outers and a dog) and Darell Rivers (Malory Towers), and I have great respect and admiration for Enid Blyton. However, despite the fact that I've read and I own most of the other series of Enid Blyton, I never quite managed to read the naughtiest girl in school series. So when I saw it recently at a bookstore, and failed to force my brother to buy it for himself, I finally bought it for myself.

Here's what I discovered - the naughtiest girl is one of the most enjoyable of Enid Blyton's school series. The things that make me recommend it over her other school series are as follows - the main character, Elizabeth, is a lot of fun to read about, the school sounds amazing (and is co-ed) and there's a lot of drama in it that prevents this book from getting as dated as the rest of Enid Blyton's books have sadly become. (I am one of her greatest fans, but sadly even I can't find them completely up-to-date anymore.)

We'll start with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is spoilt, and rich, and highly naughty, which in itself will recommend this book to most of my generation. She's smart, very willful and independent. She's not beyond disrupting a class to get what she wants. But despite all this, she is very, very nice. She goes out of her way to help a friend (even though she breaks a dozen rules to do this), she is intelligent and thoughtful, and she really and truly struggles against making things hard for other people. Besides this, she is also interested in varied things such as music, dance, and riding, which make her very human. Through most of this first book, she is trying to behave badly to be sent home (very Mirabel from St. Clare's, especially as Joan is amazingly similar to Gladys, but eventually Elizabeth is a lot more likeable than poor Mirabel ever turns out to be.)

The second is the school. Whyteleafe is a school I would love to attend. It's liberal enough to let the students choose their own monitors and head-boys and head-girls, who have a committee each week where they punish students off their own accord. The Principals, who Elizabeth terms, 'The Beauty and the Beast' seem content to let the students govern themselves (if you're looking for a Ms. Theobald like character here, you will be sadly mistaken) and the teachers and fun-loving and interested in the students. There is a jolly atmosphere, and most importantly as it is a co-ed school, it prevents this book from getting extremely dated. (Sadly I don't think this would work anymore...)

The characters in this book, though reminiscent of characters from other Enid Blyton novels (especially in the case of the aforementioned Mirabel from St. Clare's and Gladys from the same series, who represent Elizabeth and her only friend in the school - Joan) are very well-developed. This book deals with slightly more complex issues like the death of a sibling and arrogance which are not dealt with substantially in any of her other series. This book is a great read, which principles of morality and good conduct and honor that I wish were still as strongly upheld among children, but which is not by any means a preachy book.

This book is, essentially, a book that reminds me of childhood.

Final thoughts: This book is sweet and pretty much timeless. I read Enid Blyton when I want something simple, and just plain uncomplicated, with no 'evil' and no 'badness' and happy endings - when I'm tired of things that 'mean too much' or that I have to analyze. I really recommend this book to everyone. I mean, its just so hard to believe that this book was written in 1940!