RHYS BOWEN: Last week I watched a Miss Marple on television. I think it was called The Sittaford Mystery. Apparently that was its original title but in US it was retitled Murder at Hazelmoor. And it wasn’t originally a Miss Marple story. With TV license they have inserted her into several stories where she didn’t originally appear. It wasn’t a very good TV adaptation. They made it far more dramatic and far fetched than the original with a cursed Egyptian artifact and additional murders so that I wouldn’t have recognized it had it not been for the names.
So I took out the original to read again. (I have every Agatha Christie on my shelf). It’s not one of her best. Written in 1931 so one of her earlier books. A slim little volume with every chapter essentially having one character question another about where he was that night and thus getting motives and alibis. I found myself impatient because I was not getting the satisfaction I want to get from a book: what was lacking was a sense of place, as well as fully fleshed characters. I needed to care about these people and know where they were!
It supposedly takes place on Dartmoor, during a snow storm. This is important at the beginning but afterward seems to have been forgotten. A blizzard does not melt away overnight! Characters walk across the village, drive up to a remote house with no problem. I wanted to shout “If it snowed yesterday you’d have horrible wet cold feet, you’d flounder into drifts, your cheeks would be burning with cold, the wind would take your breath away, and if you tried to drive you’d slither and have to make your way up a road you couldn’t even see.”
I remember once driving in New Mexico, going over a mountain pass. As we got higher there was more and more snow. No sign of vehicles coming from the other side of the pass. Then the road completely vanished. We had no way of knowing where the road ended, if there was a ditch beside it, and yet we had no way of turning around. Luckily a snow plough came through and saved us, but it was scary. That’s what these characters would have encountered.
Sense of place is so important to me when I read. I like to picture each scene, know the temperature, what the air smells like. When I'm in a room I like to know where the characters are in relation to each other, what is on the walls, what the furniture looks like. One thing Agatha Christie does not do well is give that feel for place. Maybe it’s because she uses fictitious towns and villages and perhaps she doesn’t picture them that clearly herself. It’s all about solving the puzzle.
The other thing that I felt was lacking was fully fleshed out characters. Emily is a smart girl, devoted to her idiot fiancé. That’s all we know about her. And a pleasant policeman does his job. The puzzle was the story. We are only focused on the whodunit. We mystery readers are now used to an interesting sleuth who has a life outside the central mystery. We want a DI Banks, a Mary Russell, a Kincaid and James who are real people who have real life problems to deal with.
It's interesting how the mystery genre has changed, isn’t it? Those old mysteries could be read in an afternoon. You could sum up the characters in one phrase: nosy spinster, bad lot son, bullying father. I’m so glad we’ve come to where we are and mysteries are as legitimate as so called literary novels.
I’d like to know what you think about all this:
What do you think of television adaptations that veer dramatically from the original story?
How important is sense of place to you?
Do you like books that have much more than the simple whodumit?
Having an option on my Royal Spyness series with a fabulous British TV company I find myself wondering how I’ll feel if they move away from the original stories. Will I sit and squirm or will I say “That’s interesting?”
I don't mind television adaptations that veer away from the original story as long as the story they're telling is done well and is true to what I expect for the characters.
ReplyDeleteI think sense of place is vital to the telling of the tale . . . . and, yes, I definitely want a book to have more than just the whodunit . . . .
I would not watch The Sittaford Mystery. I really hate TV adaptations that veer drastically from the book!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, setting is such a crucial part of most mystery books I read these days.
From Celia: I realize that my comment may be anathema to mystery readers and writers but I was never a Christie fan. However I have enjoyed several of the movies made from her stories particularly those with Hercule Poirot.
ReplyDeleteIf the TV or movie version strays far from the book, it’s not for me. That said I would love to see her royal spyness on screen.
CELIA: Christie was my entryway into the Golden Age of British mystery fiction. Without her, I would not have read books by Allingham, Sayers, Tey, Conan Doyle and Marsh (NZ). Having said that, I now read with a more critical eye. Like RHYS, i would probably find some of her books disappointing. It's probably a good thing that I don't re-read many books that brought me so much joy in my tween/teen years.
DeleteLike Grace it was Christie who got me hooked on mysteries at a young age. In those days they were perfect for me—quick easy reads and a chance to out guess the sleuth. Today they are comfort reads at bad times because I know what I’m gettibg
DeleteFrom Celia: I don’t think I answered the questions. Yes I love a clear sense of place. I can easily think of several of the Reds who are masters of that skill, and detail is most important to me. Descriptions of the house can set the tone for the whole plot.
ReplyDeleteI can't comment on the adaptations, but yes, a sense of place and characters I feel I really know as people are important to me as a reader - and a writer.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Ann Cleeves' Shetland series was so well done on the screen. Talk about capturing the feeling of place, in the books and the shows.
DeleteI have not watched Shetland, but I find that so many British crime drama adaptations are well done. I spent my teens & young adult years watching PBS Mystery's BBC and Granada TV shows after reading the books: Inspector Morse, Campion, Lord Peter Wimsey.
DeleteSLOW HORSES is the current Apple+ TV adaptation that I am smitten with. Each season has been faithful to the first 3 books. And what a cast!
YES to Slow Horses! I watched the first season prior to reading the books (so couldn’t be disappointed by a comparison) but have since read the whole series and have been pleased with the subsequent seasons. I love the additional insight of being inside the characters’ heads that comes from the books, but the adaptation has been brilliant!
DeleteSLOW HORSES Season 4 will begin on September 4.
DeleteThe producers have confirmed the fourth season's plot will focus on River and his grandfather. This matches what is in book 4, Spook Street.
For me, it is more about characters than about the mystery. I think that is why Debs books captured me so quickly. I hardly read many mysteries before I found her books.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I am such a huge fan of your Royal Spyness series. The characters are the very best part! So, I don't know how I will feel if they change your stories and your characters.
Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books are great. They combined several stories when they made the TV series and it worked. The people who tried to make a series out of Louise Penny's books failed badly. They chose talented actors. They had her great stories to work with but, the feeling was all wrong. The Jack Reacher books have also been successfully adapted to TV. You never know what to expect. Hopefully, the people who are adapting your series understand and respect why readers love your books.
Agree about the recent Louise Penny adaptation. They did have a good cast but really failed to capture the Three Pines community vibe. Meeting up to discuss the case while enjoying a delicious meal at Gabi's Bistro or Gamache's house was a key part of each book.
DeleteAgreed! My husband enjoyed it, not having read the books, but it felt flat to me.
DeleteThat’s it, Judy! The feeling was all wrong. It’s the tone and intent of the story that needs to translate to TV. When they make a Christie plot sinister and violent it moves away from her vision . Ditto for Louise
DeleteI definitely want a sense of place in a book. Fleshed out characters as well.
ReplyDeleteAs for adaptations, I keep thinking about Craig Johnson's Longmire series. The TV series veered from the books on many levels, but I love both. I think of them as two different worlds where some of the characters have the same names.
You read my mind! Longmire was first adaptation that came to mind because it’s so successful. The new stories fit the spirit of the books. Even the changes are so well done they don’t bother me.
DeleteI wonder if Longmire is such a success because Craig Johnson (swoon) had so much control and/or input over the production, etc. He said he wrote alternate endings for each episode that differed from the book versions so his most loyal fans would get a surprise with each one.
DeleteA recent TV police procedural, "Blue Lights", is set in Belfast. The setting works, the characters are fleshed out and we care about them, present actions are infused with past history. Not based on books, on Britbox Prime.
ReplyDeleteThe Vera and Shetland TV productions based on the books (and then extended beyond the books) check all the boxes: well-developed characters, immersion in a setting in which you can smell the salt air, plausible plots, and of course, superb acting. TV crime at its very best.
Agree! And Ann agrees, too.
DeleteDear hubby and I are watching the Vera series (and I have read several of her books) which we find excellent in so many ways. I will have to check out Blue Lights.
DeleteKate Collins's floral shop mysteries were redone with a much older central character, played by Brooke Shields, and she was given very different circumstances in the show. Not successfully, to my mind, because it sanitized all that was charming about Kate's series. If I hadn't read the books I might have enjoyed the show more, but they "Hallmarked" it to death.
ReplyDeleteRhys, fingers crossed for a successful TV adaptation for Georgie. She deserves an actress who can portray her whimsy and intelligence. Not to mention just the right people to portray Darcy, Fig, Queenie, et al. Throw in a drafty Castle Rannoch for good measure!
I’m excited because this company does such good productions. Let’s hope it actually happens!
DeleteKaren, I completely agree about the Floral Shop mystery movies. Everything about them was wrong: the casting (Brooke was too old by at least 20 years, the actor who was her love interest in the books was too young), the plot lines, the setting. I had so looked forward to seeing the adaptation and was viscerally disappointed. — Pat S
DeleteI love the Agatha Christie books and shows for the precise reason that they are a puzzle and true mystery. I don't want a mystery to necessarily be about the location or place but I want the facts, the clues and to be able to follow the plot. The killer in Christie's works could only be one person based on all the evidence presented. That said, I do love the cozy mysteries but I don't consider them in the same category as I would Christie's or Sherlock Holmes mysteries. The cozy mysteries (which I love too) are more about the characters, the place and the people in the community.
ReplyDeleteI want it all. I want characters who are well developed, and I want a sense of place to hold the story and I want realistic charm and intrigue and most of all, I want mystery..
ReplyDeleteIt's sad when a book (or author) you loved doesn't stand up to revisiting. And YES setting is crucial. And above all I want a plot that makes sense from both a logical and PSYCHOlogical point of view. One that isn't too convoluted for its own good.
ReplyDeleteFrom Diana: This is going to be a long post. Often the movies get me interested in reading the novels, Rhys. In the old days before movies had captions, I would read the book before seeing the movie so that I could get the idea of their dialogue. However, even without captions, I noticed if a movie made significant changes from the book, especially the characters.
ReplyDeletePlease correct me if I am mistaken. In the 1980s and perhaps 1990s, I recall that the BBC did brilliant adaptations from book to screen. The adaptations often were six to eight week series on the screen.
IMHO, when television adaptations veer dramatically from the original story, my first reaction is “Why on earth?” Then I wonder if there were time constraints or the producer had a different vision from my vision of the novel? Here is an example. When I watched the screen adaptation of Louise Penny’s Gamache novel on Acorn TV - Still Life, I noticed that Myrna the book lady had a bigger role in the books while on screen Myrna’s character was a brief glimpse. I think it had more to do with time constraints because it was a feature length movie instead of breaking up into a three part series.
The Agatha Christie mysteries were my introduction to the grown up mystery novels. I read Nancy Drew mysteries then started reading Agatha Christie at the age of 12. I think that Agatha Christie focused more on the characters than the sense of place. At first the books were a challenge to read because there were no pictures in the books. It helped that the early adaptations on BBC faithfully followed the books. I started reading Dorothy Sayers and the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was not until Penny Warner’s Connor Westphal mysteries and Rhys’ Constable Evan’s mysteries that I started reading more mysteries.
Question: Have there been ANY American adaptations from novels that faithfully followed the stories?
A sense of place is very important to me. I loved your description of Lady Georgie trying to navigate through the pea soup fog in London.
Really like books that have much more than simple whodunit. I always like closure, which is another way of saying solving the mystery. Some books “solve” the mystery in finding the killer while other mysteries are not solved by the end because either the author or the publisher / editor wants cliffhangers. I prefer books where there is a “final accounting”, in terms of solving the mystery of who the killer is AND the answer to other mysteries that come up in the story.
Rooting for you that the fabulous British company will faithfully follow the original stories in your Royal Spyness novels.
Veering from the original plot can be tricky, but if well done, can still be successful. One recent example is the Dark Wind series, which takes the Hillerman characters (both Tony and Anne) but resets them in time context and a set of inter-relationships that is quite different from the books, but is still terrific. The other thing that is important is casting. Getting the lead character right is so important. David Suchet is Hercule Poirot; Jeremy Brett is Sherlock Holmes (maybe Basil Rathbone too from a different era); and in the case of the Michael Connelly series, Titus Welliver is Harry Bosch in a way that no other actor possibly could be. And that is why Kennth Branagh, as much as I love his acting, does not work as Poirot; the comparison just does not hold up to Suchet. Similarly while I loved Peter Robinson (RIP), I could never warm to Stephen Tompkinson as Banks; he just didn't capture the unique spirit that Peter imbued in him.
ReplyDeleteI do agree about Branagh! Quite wrong
DeleteIsn’t Branaugh’s Poirot supposed to be a caricature of the Poirot stories?
DeleteFlora here: If a tv/movie adaptation of a book keeps the spirit of the characters, the story, it can veer away and still make me happy. A case in point, some of the non-book events in the Harry Potter movies were exquisitely done, I thought. On the other hand, making an Agatha Christie story dark and sinister would not work for me. Casting is important, but finding a way to capture the essence of a story is important. I was not happy with Dark Winds, for example--I love the books. I would have been happy, had I not read the books, because the series is well done. But, Joe Leaphorn's character was interesting to me precisely because he was a man caught between two worlds. His wife Emma was very traditional, but he'd gone away to college, etc. So to see the series' depiction of Joe wearing a traditional hairstyle signaled a completely different characterization of him.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck, Rhys, fingers crossed that any production gets your characters and tone right! Setting and costumes, etc., are easy enough--but capturing what makes your books so delightful is the challenge.
Congratulations on the option, Rhys. Interesting observations about early Christie. I've always enjoyed her work more in televised versions, or in plays. Her books have always felt a bit sparse. She paved the way, though, and later authors filled in her lapses.
ReplyDeleteIt's a difficult task to take a cerebral medium like reading and translate it to a visual medium like television. There are always changes and compromises. Usually they work well, but they are never the same.
I think, as a writer, you may have greater expectations from the mysteries you read than I do.
ReplyDeleteI do expect logic in the story line as you mentioned about the aftermath of the snowstorm.
I am annoyed by characters who do stupid things like meeting a potential suspect in an isolated location and not telling any one and saying what could happen. Also when they consistently put themselves in life threatening situations while figuring that they can just talk the perpetrator into explaining all the details of the crime and being allowed to walk away. When there is no lesson
learned from one book to the next, I lose interest and will no longer read that author.
I’ve found that most of the golden age authors describe the.characters and their environs in a way that I can use my imagination to bring the stories to life. Many British authors are particularly adept at developing quirky characters and the small village atmosphere whereas a lot of the current authors I have read recently include a lot of irrelevant information such as the color of someone’s car or clothing and has nothing to do with the story and actually takes away from it.
As far as adaptations, I don’t watch them since I have the main recurring characters visualized in my mind and I don’t want to spoil the image I already have. I just prefer the written version because it provides you with the details as the author intended not someone else's interpretation.
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When I see a TV adaptation that drifts dramatically from the original, I wonder why they paid to get the rights to something. If they wanted to change it that much, why not do something original?
ReplyDeleteI love it when I get a good sense of place. And having very real characters helps draw me in as well.
But I also need a story that is constantly moving forward. If I'm not getting new information or something isn't happening, I start to get bored. Rehashing the same information doesn't help at all.
This is so interesting, Rhys. I haven't read any of Christie's early works in years. Maybe I should. I do think a sense of place is critical as well as a deep understanding of the characters. Very excited for your adaptation!
ReplyDeleteI have to start a reply with - Yes, Yes! Georgie on screen! As to TV crime fiction taken from books, usually, I haven't read the books when I watch them translated . Not so with Ann Cleeve's magnificent Vera, and I love those, and with Mick Herron's Slough House books, which have been translated onto the TV series perfectly. Sadly, I didn't think Louise Penny's second attempt to get Gamache onto the screen was any better than the first. I'm so-so about Elizabeth George's books with Lynley and Havers. Character, setting, ambiguities are important anyway and no less on the screen!
ReplyDeleteCurmudgeon that I am about turning books into movies or TV shows, I shudder at Georgie on screen. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting, perhaps a paradox that I so love a well-developed sense of place, but I have read books I enjoyed that really could have taken place in lots of locales. Now, my first choice is always a sense of place that captures my imagination of being there, even if I never have been. I have said for years that Debs' James and Kincaid should be used as tour books for London. Well, actually I've said that Debs should lead a tour of the different places in London where her books take place (and outside of London, too). And, Debs also gives us fully fleshed-out characters. Even the guest characters are fully formed, and I'm delighted when they've become a part of the continuing series. Same for Julia and Lucy about sense of place and characters. I had my travel mate make a detour when we went to Bouchercon Albany and were going to Niagara Falls after. We dipped our toes into the Adirondacks, not very far, but I was thrilled. And, of course, having been to Key West several times, I love walking down familiar streets with Hayley. These authors I particularly mention because I have fallen so in love with the sense of place they've developed for a series. And, Rhys does a wonderful sense of place that includes the historical sense of place in the Royal Spyness, plus characters, both made up and real, that come alive for me. Then, Jenn obviously has a magical touch for both. I'd like to see her hat series on TV. Hank and Hallie in their stand-alone books have a real challenge to accomplish the characters and sense of place that are complete, but, of course, they always nail it. Louise Penny has made us all fall in love with Three Pines and its characters, and I do think that's one of the reasons the film adaptations didn't work for me, as I didn't get the bonding or uniqueness of the place.
ReplyDeleteIn talking about Agatha Christie and her lack of character development, Agatha was largely Golden Age mystery, and character development wasn't a feature of those books. Sense of place was rather generic, too. I think I got more from Agatha's main characters though than when I read what has been credited with being the first critically acclaimed book of the sub-genre of police procedurals, Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh. In my review I note, "One of the challenges for me in reading this early police procedural or many of the classics is the lack of character development. I’m usually a reader and reviewer who is passionate about characters, their many layers and continuing development, especially when in a series. However, the early police procedural isn’t about character development. It’s about the story, the resolution of the crime. I’ve already mentioned that Chief Ford is a blank where his past is concerned, or his present is probed. No psychological study or explanations offered here for a character’s behavior, other than what the victim’s thinking behind her actions and what motivated the murderer. So, it’s with great surprise that I found myself thoroughly engaged in this book, avidly following the investigation along with the police."
Lady Georgie on tv? The potential is there to be great fun. IF they do it right. We'll all be holding our breath, I think. :-) In general, I find the setting of a mystery - geographical and historical too, if relevant - to be crucial to me, and I know why.Often, the basic premise of a mystery is a little, uh, unlikely? It requires some suspension of disbelief. Solid grounding in place/time provides needed almost-reality (Plus it's fun of course.)
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons I prefer well-done adaptations of Christie's novels to reading the originals. Actors, directors and scene designers are able to fill in the emotional and physical gaps she leaves in her work. Her mysteries are often fiendishly clever, but no one reads a mystery for a second time if the only satisfaction is finding out whodunnit.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching Chesapeake Shores on the Hallmark Channel after I'd read the entire Sherryl Woods series of novels. I was very disappointed with how they changed the storyline. One of the lead male characters grew from a carpenter to a country singer / songwriter. The ending did not work out the way that this character had been portrayed in the story and this actor actually left the series before the end as he was not happy with it either. I was very disappointed, too!
ReplyDeleteHallmark as has another series that is based on the "cookie jar" stories by Joanne Fluke. That one has really moved away from the storyline, but because each one is basically a stand-alone, it is not as disturbing as Chesapeake Shores was.