Swing, Brother, Swing: 75th Anniversary Retrospective
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- My review of Ngaio Marsh's "Swing, Brother, Swing" also called "A Wreath for Rivera" which celebrates its 75th birthday in 2024. This jazzy, lighthearted novel was the victim of some, perhaps, unfair criticism at the time of its publication.
When I was reading through her works I got to the plot summary for this one and thought, "Is she really reusing the plot from [redacted]?" Glad it was more of a callback than self-plagiarism, haha. You're so right about Marsh's talent for employing an outlandish method of murder but managing to reel it in and not allow it to overwhelm the story. Some of them are downright grisly and wouldn't be out of place in a slasher movie.
Oh yeah. Some of them are definitely out of like Saw or something. Off With His Head is very gruesome. You can imagine from the title what happened to the victim.
I read this one recently, but I read the version with the alternative title, which ruined it for me from the beginning because I immediately suspected the wreath, and thus the person who held it. This is a criticism I'm slightly surprised you didn't include, but clearly you first read it as Swing Brother Swing! I greatly enjoyed your retelling; it was even more entertaining than the actual book in some parts :)
I purposely did not mention the criticism of the alternate title (which I share) because there is an upcoming video in a month or two about good and bad titles and a Wreath for Rivera is an absolutely bad title getting mentioned. It's extremely spoilery.
@@summationgathering Aha, that makes more sense, it didn't seem like you to have missed something like that! That upcoming video sounds like fun. No doubt Grave Mistake will be on there too...
@@coffemuse Grave Mistake literally the book that gave me this idea. The Christie version of this is penciled in for November and everyone else's for December.
Enjoyable! Thank you. But what on earth is an umbrella clip?
I had to look this up because I wasn't sure myself and I did not remember the umbrella part from my previous reads. The book does not describe what it is but what I suspect an umbrella clip is a decorative part of the handle. On old-fashioned umbrellas, especially the fancy kind Lady Pastern would own, you could unscrew the handle of the umbrella and switch them for different looks. That's my best guess.
Another excellent presentation. I have a very spot for SBS - the first NM I read, I think.
You may have noticed that the murderer in almost every one of her novels is the person of least social acceptability - never of the upper class or the aristocracy which is her usual milieu. Apart from her theatrical mysteries, that is. So we get the gardener Gardener in Grave Mistake, the chauffeur and maid in Lampreys, Breezy in SBS, Dr Davidson (who has made his way up thanks to his cleverness but is very much ‘of the people’) in White Tie, the American businessman (haha) in Ecstasy, Kitty Cartarette in Scales of Justice (hints she may have been a high-class courtesan in Shanghai before marrying the Colonel), Cressida in Tinsel (indeed her plebeian origins are the motive for killing her manservant papa), Simon Begg in Off with his head - he is the instigator - notice how he tries to curry favour with Dame Alice and is snubbed by her. Connie in Hand in Glove is interesting because she is upper-class gone wrong - by becoming obsessed with Moppet, her lowly born adopted ‘niece’. The most striking exception is When in Rome - where it is a baron and baroness that are the killers - suggestion of incest between them.
Maybe a good topic for a future presentation?
That's definitely a good topic. Looking into several authors milieu as you put it in terms of choice of murderer. Marsh is always bashing the aristocracy but they really aren't the murderers very often. She does the lower class more often than the other Queens of Crime. You can also add in Dmitri the caterer who is the one directing Dr. Davidson although the murder is the doctor's own doing.
@@summationgathering Agatha Christie’s murderers are socially varied, with quite a few of her own class. In the 60s and 70s Rowena Drake, Clotilde Bradbury-Scott, Elvira Blake, the Ravenscrofts are all upper class . Miss Pebmarsh is professional middle class, Osborne a professional pharmacist, Tim a middle class hotel owner. Norma in Third Girl one imagines Bohemian middle or upper gone wrong. Michael in Endless is working class. Marina Gregg an American actress. Dr Kennedy and Norton middle. Mrs Lancaster lower middle bohemian who married into the upper class. That is the Christie decade of the most diverse social mixture.
@@summationgathering I don’t think Marsh is actually ‘bashing’ the aristocracy. She is more amused by them than critical of them. Look at the Lampreys - inspired by the Rhode family she was very friendly with - and the Pharamonds (the most interesting thing in Last Ditch) - and Lady Lacklander in Scales is also very sympathetically presented. Interesting that Millie, the killer in Final Curtain, is middle class, she married into the ancient Ancred family and so very eager for her awful Cedric to inherit the baronetcy - while all the eccentric Ancreds are innocent.
@@58christiansful Not sure I entirely agree. I think the Lampreys for sure are portrayed in that manner. They are likable, relatable eccentrics. I disagree strongly with the Lacklanders who are portrayed pretty terribly. One is a traitor who sold out his country to protect the aristocracy. His son basically goaded his mistress into committing a murder to protect that secret. Lady Lacklander is definitely the best but I don't think she comes across very sympathetically other than what is happening to her family. I don't remember Last Ditch too much but I will be reviewing that later this year so I'll see. It's very common for the characters who get negative portrayals to not be the murder. It happens frequently.
@@58christiansful Christie is definitely experimenting with different types of murderers in the 60s and 70s. I'm pretty critical of some of these novels but I do find the murderers to be more real and relatable people than they had been in previous decades.