Giant’s Bread

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Vernon, Džoi i Sebastijan odrastaju i svako kreće nekim svojim putem. Životi im se i dalje prepliću, ali nerazumevanja među njima rastu. Sebastijan tuguje jer ga Džoi ne želi za muža, da bi kasnije pobegla sa jednim umetnikom. Vernon je rastrzan između želje da povrati porodično imanje i da oženi devojku koju (misli da) voli. Na sve to još dolazi i njegova novootkrivena ljubav za komponovanjem i produženje studiranja, kao i nedostatak novca. Sledi priča o usamljenom dečaku koji odrasta u disfunkcionalnoj porodici,o prijateljima-izmišljenim i stvarnim,o čudovištima i strahovima. I da,o ljubavima. So much devastation. There were many twists - befitting Agatha Christie's style - but these were so much more emotional. Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, and the novel After the Funeral. Abney Hall became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. Six months later, Vernon is sent to France and Nell becomes a VAD nurse, finding the work and the treatment meted out to volunteers like her hard to take. After some time she receives a telegram to say that Vernon has been killed in action. Several months pass and George Chetwynd meets Nell briefly, before he goes off to Serbia to carry out relief work, and promises to keep in touch with her. Nell has, through her widowhood, inherited Abbots Puisannts and she makes a move that Vernon never could by selling the house. She finds out that Chetwynd has bought it and he invites Nell and her mother to visit him at the house where he proposes to her. She accepts and they marry.

Do not expect this ‘love story’ (term used in the loosest possible way) to be uplifting. The aftertaste this book leaves you isn’t so much ‘romantic’ as bitter and cold, even unpleasant. Agatha Christie meets Thomas Hardy, to an extent! Na kraju mi još ostaje da pročitam Nezavršeni portret, a moja trenutna top lista MV romana izgleda ovako: The first of her novels published under the nom-de-plume “Mary Westmacott”, Agatha Christie’s romantic tragedy is spectacular and elegantly written. This book is an experiment for both author and reader: Agatha wanted to see if her novel would survive on its own merit without the hype of the famous name, while I as a reader was interested to see if her writing style - which works so well in the murder mystery genre - would still stand strong in the romance genre. This tragically insightful story starts from Vernon’s point of view as a toddler at country estate Abbots Puissants (which will become another of his obsessions). Christie writes from a delightfully innocent child’s perspective. Vernon gradually realizes Mommydaddy are two distinct people, and is surprised to learn Nurse has a full name beyond “Nurse.”

Aunt Nina's marriage breaks up and Walter wants her and her young daughter Josephine (Joe) to live with them, but Myra objects. Fate takes a turn though when the Boer War breaks out and Walter goes off to fight. In his absence, whilst Vernon is away at school, Nina dies and Myra takes Joe in. As a result, Vernon has a playmate in the holidays and the two start to make a circle of acquaintances. One of them, Nell Vereker, is a thin girl who cannot keep up with Vernon and Joe in their games. The local village is aghast when the property adjoining Abbots Puisannts is bought by a rich Jewish family called the Levinnes and, although held at arm's length at first, gradually the family come to be held in a grudging acceptance. Vernon and Joe also make friends with the son of the family – Sebastian, who is about the same age as them. A few weeks before the end of the war, Walter Deyre is killed in action and Vernon inherits Abbots Puisannts, though as he is not of age so it is held in trust for him. A shortage of money means that Myra and her son have to move, and they rent the house out while they move to Birmingham to be near Uncle Sydney. I had previously heard the Mary Westmacott novels described as bittersweet romances. The cover of this edition of Giants' Bread calls it a "novel of romance and suspense". I find both of these misleading. This is not a romance novel. It's also not terribly suspenseful, or bittersweet. While there is a lot of emphasis on various romantic relationships, they're really not the point of the book. They're also fairly uninteresting. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, came out in 1920. During her first marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

It’s a stretch to use this text to claim Christie is chiding herself for writing mystery novels (comfort) when she could be writing more Westmacotts (love). But it is safe to say that, like most successful authors, she struggled with the push-pull of creativity and career. Agatha Christie and her perfectly plotted whodunits will always be catnip to adaptors. Right now, Chichester Festival Theatre is staging the queen of crime’s fiendish Murder on the Orient Express, with Henry Goodman donning the brilliant Belgian detective’s famous moustache, while Kenneth Branagh is planning a third in his Poirot-based film franchise. Her name has even been bandied about at the trial of the century, albeit in the new form of “ Wagatha Christie”.The story itself is a little harder to rate and review. I've been a fan of Christie's mysteries and nonfiction since I was a kid, and I have read many of her books at least twice. But I had no idea what to expect from her "romance" fiction. I'm not sure this qualifies as a romantic story, but I'm also not the right person to ask for that determination. I will just say it was an interesting departure from her mysteries. It opens with a prologue featuring a stunning new operatic composition, a work of musical genius, and then the rest of the book shows us how it came to be and what sacrifices were involved. I was aware that it wasn't in her usual genre of crime novel, however, I read lots of different genres so the difference just made me llook forward to reading it even more. However, I have to say I really didn't like it. Vernona Dejra upoznajemo kao dete. Njegovo, na prvi pogled, bezbrižno detinjstvo je sve samo ne to. Jedinu ljubav koju je spoznao je bila od rođake vršnjakinje Džoi i susedskog deteta, Sebastijana. Otac mu je brzo poginuo u Burskom ratu, a majka koja nije puno marila za Vernona, odjednom postaje opsednuta njime i guši ga svojom ljubavlju (koja to zapravo i nije, nego joj ništa drugo u životu nije preostalo).