Instead it focuses on a middle-aged woman stuck in an isolated rest house in the desert for days, waiting for a train to take her back to civilisation. Joan’s lack of understanding can result in some memorable dark comedy in what is essentially a psychological tragedy. Dame Agatha Christie wrote this short novel under the name of Mary Westmacot- It is in some ways a film script, or the story-line for a film. It is a psychological novel and although the main character is a rather egotistican and self-important woman, you can't help feeling sorry for her.

Joan Scudamore is travelling back from Iraq to England and misses her train to Stamboul to connect with the Orient Express. Brilliantly done; a truly gripping exercise in self-analysis that is so acutely painful in its process since it is such an unwilling endeavour. While Joan states her views on these people and what a good wife and mother she is and marriage she has, it becomes rapidly clear that the people around her have very different and much more realistic impressions of the woman Joan actually is. In an earlier life, Philip was a leading mountain climber and made the first ascent of one of the seven summits of the seven continents, the Carstensz Pyramid. We hear Joan’s thoughts about her husband, her three children, her marriage, raising the children, and a little about people in their lives.I was uncomfortably aware that I should probably have recognised the flyleaf quotation that provides the novel’s title; resisting the temptation to consult Google I was rewarded when all was explained later in the book. Depois de terminarmos este livro, sem duvida que precisamos mesmo de fazer uma auto-reflexão profunda de quem somos e quem queremos ser. As other incidents crowd into her mind, she tries to blame the sun for making her fanciful, but is eventually compelled to accept the ugly truth.

I’m still gobsmacked at Christie’s genius in weaving together Joan’s memories with bits of poetry, Bible verses, conversations, etc. The question, however, that keeps the story quite tense is whether Joan will realise this by the end of the book. She escapes from the rest house to take walks in the desert and the self-examination she’s been putting off indefinitely proceeds. She's pleased with her image as the caring and dutiful mother who had rushed to her youngest's bedside. How much, I found myself wondering, are we all like Joan: naively going through our lives, following our own conceptions of what is right and wrong, and almost totally oblivious as to how little others truly care about us?The reader is enticed to gather all the clues of this life, especially the details in between the lines, to put together the picture of this woman and her influence, like an investigation. Joan Scudamore, traveling back to London from Baghdad after a visit to her grown daughter, encounters bad weather and misses her train, which leaves her stranded in the desert for a few days that feel more like weeks. In this telling scene, it is Joan, not the author, who believes the question is ‘quite natural’, that the reaction to it is ‘ludicrous’ and William’s voice ‘odd’ when replying.

B. Priestley John Buchan journalism marriage melodrama melodramatic fiction Mrs Alfred Sidgwick Naval Fiction Nevil Shute novels about novelists P. While I have read all of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories, this might be the first time I have read anything written under the nom de plume of Mary Westmacott. Agatha's first husband left her for another woman which allegedly caused her to have a nervous breakdown that was related to her famous mysterious 1926 eleven day disappearance.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps.