Well, this is one of those very few books that I read which I did not enjoy very much. That's really just because I pick my books very carefully, and this one was actually forced on me by a crowd of people, mystery-lovers. And of course, the characters are the most important aspect of a book and this one has a much stronger focus on plot than character-development. I'll address this later. Anyways, I'll stop being so harsh for now. This is the plot: ten people are mysteriously called to an island and one by one they die in curious fashions that parallel the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Soldiers." As they die the surviving characters grow more and more paranoid about who the murderer is, which they are sure is one of them.
One thing first, before I forget. There's a confusion about this book concerning it's title. It was originally called "Ten Little Niggers" but then there was this whole uproar over using that word, even though in 1939 it was perfectly natural. It was then changed to Ten Little Indians and there was a movie made about it. But that, apparently, wasn't good enough so now it's And Then There None because that's the end of that nursery rhyme. Actually, here, I'll include it. The poem's actually really interesting because of how it's changed. Watch.
Ten Little Injuns
Ten little Injuns standin' in a line,
One toddled home and then there were nine;
Nine little Injuns swingin' on a gate,
One tumbled off and then there were eight.
One little, two little, three little, four little, five little Injun boys,
Six little, seven little, eight little, nine little, ten little Injun boys.
Eight little Injuns gayest under heav'n.
One went to sleep and then there were seven;
Seven little Injuns cuttin' up their tricks,
One broke his neck and then there were six.
Six little Injuns all alive,
One kicked the bucket and then there were five;
Five little Injuns on a cellar door,
One tumbled in and then there were four.
Four little Injuns up on a spree,
One got fuddled and then there were three;
Three little Injuns out on a canoe,
One tumbled overboard and then there were two.
Two little Injuns foolin' with a gun,
One shot t'other and then there was one;
One little Injun livin' all alone,
He got married and then there were none
There's the original from 1868 by Septimus Winner. Then there's the one from the book.
Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in half and then there were six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two Little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.
See the difference? There are lots. Important. Now, the most significant one is the end, right? When the first gets married instead of dying (haha, get the joke?) and the other hanged himself. Strange, huh? Well, interestingly enough, one of the highlights of the book, actually, the murderer changes the words, and the victims don't notice until the end when the final survivor recalls that he/she should be getting married now, and the readers are like, "huh? no, you're gonna hang yourself, dummy." But then you do research and this whole eerie vibe goes on with how the murderer has actually convinced the others of this terrible rhyme when originally, it was different, still terrible, but different. There's also the funny fact about the Indians. In my copy, it said Soldier Boys and I was wondering why my parents kept telling me about Indians. Well, haha, apparently Indians are no longer politically correct, so they are soldier boys now. A whole aspect of the story was changed. It''s Soldier Island, Soldier china figures, Soldier Poem. And to think they were all originally N----. The hilarious thing is that apparently the Teddy Bears exist as a substitute too. This is from Wikipedia though, so take the teddy bears lightly, though I do love to believe it with ease, but the rest is confirmed by me to be true. Strange politically correct world we live in, eh?
So it's a murder-mystery... Yeah, alright here's the thing. Remember that time I went on that rant about thrillers and mysteries and such? Well, I'm really sorry about that, but regrettably, it's still true, and that I just dislike strictly genre-fiction books. I love literary-fiction books a lot, but genre... that's an issue. It's because they are written for a purpose, a specific purpose, and often, that mars the poetic aspect of writing. I'm not saying writing has to be flowery, to be good, but it has to have some sense in structure or some specific voice that reveals more than facts. Anyways, so, I guess I'm just picky, and as mystery-lovers do not like romance or horror or whichever, I am just the same.
You see the issue then right? I can write a perfectly good critique on And Then There Were None now, as I have been doing, with characters and style and message and symbolism and such, but I just don't think it will be sincere at all. It's unfair to Agatha Christie to have to be subjected to my criticism, since we are such entirely different people. So let much just write some few positives.
There's the plot, which is amazing. The simplicity of it is astounding, for it works, to some extent, with a frame because it is begun with the nursery rhyme, which acts as a summary for the entire book, like the sonnet in the beginning of Romeo and Juliet. So you know what's going to happen from the start, and sure enough, it does happen very accordingly. However, the in-betweens between the deaths, the murderer question, is always intriguing. I personally was quite uninterested in it for a while, but i do admit that it greatly amused me when they got down to the last four, Armstrong, Blore, Lombard, and Vera. Now usually I wouldn't hesitate at ruining books for you all because thus far, most of what I have commentated on is literary fiction, and there, what people call ruining a book is absolutely harmless in my eyes. In literary fiction, knowing the plot, often, is not all too detrimental to the effect of the book, mainly because it is the writing and the CHARACTERS that matter. This is genre-fiction though, and among that, mystery, so I won't dare to go into the results. I'll just say that the epilogue is very fulfilling as a conclusion to the story.
The epilogue, though, made me appreciate the rest of the story a bit more. The writing in the epilogue is a but tired, and in my opinion, the book would have been wonderful as just ending with the last chapter, because the ending is very good. It has to do with characters, that's why. There are too many characters in this book. It's an issue. Books could have hundreds of characters and be brilliant, honest; it's just that you need very few main characters that the reader gets to know and sympathize with. So the book gets better as it goes, for me, not because the plot thickens - though that was actually true for the final four, especially the final two - but but because there are fewer and fewer characters, and you get closer and closer to them. The most interesting characters for me in this book were Vera and Lombard, which was probably who Christie meant to be, and successfully made so. Vera has a wonderfully colorful back-story that is given in nice vague bouts of memory, and even hallucination. Lombard has a wonderfully intriguing past that is never revealed at all. You never know much of it, and that provides a nice actual mysterious feel. The best mysteries are the ones that are never solved, and created by chance, and deals personally, psychologically. So it is with Lombard.
There are a very many tacky things that occur in the book plot-wise, but I'm sure they'd work perfectly for a different audience, but the tacky thing in the writing did bug me a lot. Agatha Christie uses more ellipsis than a cartoon artist writing A Collection of Proposals...for Marriage... It's appalling. The book looks like swiss cheese that survived a German machine gun battle. Then this is paired with the army of hyphens racing out her pen, along with the fanatical use of italics. I mean, can you believe that he was the killer?!! There's another thing. She actually uses the question mark followed by an exclamation point. Terrifying...Terrifying!! Well, of course this all is done for the purpose of suspense, which of course, works very well for people inclined towards that genre. It's really selling right now after all. If Christie lived now, she'd be booming. I'm one of the oddities.
Anyways, that was really harsh. I'm actually leaning towards deleting it. Actually I did delete half of it. It is a bit ridiculous. Very. Anyways, good thing Agatha Christie is such a popular writer. If she were any less well-read, I could never do this to her. So, there's me and mystery. It doesn't mix well. well, good thing is that now i am reading The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad and the Heart of Darkness, so I'll probably be doing those together. Be looking forward to it. They're very very different from Christie. You've no idea. Well, whatever works for you is fine, remember. Please don't feel offended by my austereness. I know it may appear that way, but really, i'm not cold at all. I love books as much as ever, and Christie is definitely enjoyable in some way for everybody, even me, and I hear that if you're going to read Christie, it ought to be this one. It's her masterpiece, and believably so. In reading, you have to try to get some variety before you could start judging any book or any author, and when you go for variety, you're going to come across a lot of rubbish, and of course, rubbish for one person could be treasure to another, strangely enough. But the important thing is to love books, and most of all, the key line remains the same:
Read folks, Read.
"Oh, yes. I've no doubt in my own mind that we have been invited here by a madman--probably a dangerous homicidal lunatic."
"Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all..."
"Did I write that? Did I? I must be going mad..."
"I'm afraid of death... Yes, but that doesn't stop death coming..."
"Don't you see? We're the Zoo... Last night, we were hardly human any more. We're the Zoo..."
