I’m back! And with a great Miss Marple to come back to.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t remember The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side that much when I started it. I recalled there being an irritating victim and some kind of Hollywood drama – but I did not remember how smooth a read it was! We’re starting to see Miss Marple take on more of a series aspect, with more references and callbacks than ever before. We get to see St. Mary Mead evolve with the times – whether that’s good or bad. This allows Christie to better explore themes of cultural change that she first introduced in The Body in the Library (or perhaps earlier?)

From characters to regulars

I mentioned in the last Miss Marple review that the books have crossed from feeling like standalones to entries in a series. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side continues and expands on that trend. As in 4:50 from Paddington, Christie reintroduces characters that we know and love – Dolly Bantry, Inspector Craddock. Dolly and Dermot act structurally as “regulars” instead of just one-off characters – understanding their history in the series makes this read richer.

Dolly is a fan favorite, and she continues her role as a loving friend to Miss Marple. Yet here, Christie expands her character by giving her another foil – Marina Gregg, the new resident of Gossington Hall. The choice to reintroduce Dolly Bantry allows fans of the series to more deeply understand Marina’s character: she’s someone who aspires to the life that Dolly inhabited naturally. (She also lacks some of Dolly’s common sense – succinctly summarized by their different taste in furnishings. After all, does a bathroom ever really need to be made of marble?) Christie does more than enough work to make the comparison intelligible for non-series followers – but it feels a bit smoother to understand Marina not only as a movie star, but in reference to the village women around her.

Dermot Craddock is back again as well, and continues to be a solid advocate for Miss Marple. If you’re reading Miss Marple, then you almost certainly appreciate his respect for her capabilities. In a way, he’s an interesting foil to nephew Raymond, who almost constantly underestimates Miss Marple (and forces the obnoxious Miss Knight onto her). Both love Miss Marple – but Raymond shows it by spending money instead of time. Where Raymond worries about Miss Marple, Craddock trusts her ability to decide and communicate the level of help she needs. Implicit is the idea that true love requires time and understanding – not simply access to resources.

Because we like Dolly and Dermot so much, they can act more as Watsons, actively supporting the investigation. As she’s done before, Christie bounces the narrative between the characters. We open with Miss Marple, but the narrative bounces from her to Dolly Bantry and back, to Inspector Craddock’s investigation, to the little side characters. This isn’t a new story structure – but it lands a little differently in this iteration. By rendering Miss Marple immobile, Christie introduces more natural points of departure from one narrative to the other: characters can visit Miss Marple, who serves as a “central node” for all their stories. And because we care more about each of them, it’s interesting to follow their stories in a way that goes beyond the purely intellectual establishment of clues.

The evolution of St. Mary Mead

The “series-ness” of The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side goes beyond the human characters. Miss Marple’s village, St. Mary Mead, has a more palpable presence in this story. The story opens with an explicit reference to the changes:

“One had to face the fact: St. Mary Mead was not the place it had been…”

The changes are both cosmetic and substantive. The people have changed, the stores have changed, and there’s been an influx of internal migration due to a new suburban Development. Gossington Hall has been taken over by an American actress – a far cry from the Bantrys. And all of this reflects a post-war shift in Values – to be explored thoroughly by our intrepid sleuth. Through Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry, we can understand the changes, and how Old English Country People feel about them.

Miss Marple begins her exploration with the Development – new suburban housing that seems completely alien to St. Mary Mead’s residents. The young residents seem short on time, and on the surface value convenience over relationships. Where members of Miss Marple’s generation routinely made time to visit multiple shops on the Market street, residents of the Development prefer the supermarket – fast, but not personal. The young wives seem to value things enough to find part-time jobs rather than optimize for their at-home budgets. And this drives changes in the overall style of living in St. Mary Mead – from in-home maids to part-time workers, from a Market Street to a supermarket.

But Miss Marple quickly learns that people in the Development are “still people”. Very early on, she escapes Miss Knight’s clutches to go exploring, and finds comfort that she can still recognize archetypes in the people around her. Christie goes so far as to suggest that folks in the development might prefer the older approaches. The novel ends with Cherry offering to move in with Miss Marple as a New Age Florence. Miss Marple is back to having live-in house help who respects her, even if it’s a slightly different arrangement than before.

Contrast this to Marina Gregg and Jason, who move into Gossington Hall. They decide to completely redo the interior (marble bathrooms!) and the practices inside. Despite paying lip-service to traditional roles (pressing her low of tea, hosting the village festival), Marina and her crew live a completely different lifestyle. They do copious amounts of drugs, treat children as disposable props, and engage in general debauchery. And so, of course, they get their comeuppance one by one, St. Mary Mead rejecting the transplants.

Christie’s used St. Mary Mead in this way before, particularly in The Body in the Library. There, the interlopers were the Blakes, and they ended up integrated into village life. Here, the story ends more dramatically, with death required to bring the intrusive new ways to rest. Christie, via Jason, is drawing a line in the sand – progress is fine, but depravity and selfishness cannot stand.

When looks matter

Jason clearly serves a critical role in the novel, as Marina’s husband and latest love. Christie’s narration makes clear that he loves her as a person, not merely for wealth or fame. And Marina? She perhaps loves his love of her, or the feeling of being known. Either way, she relies on him, trusts him.

Christie goes out of her way to highlight the differences between the two. Where Marina is flighty, Jason is grounded. Where Marina draws attention, Jason works in the shadows. And where Marina is beautiful, Jason is ugly. Marina’s the bird, Jason is the rock. It is in part Jason’s ugliness that makes us certain their relationship is true. Why else would Marina, who could presumably have almost any man she wanted, marry Jason, if not love?

Jason’s loved Marina for years, and he earns our respect as a thoughtful caretaker and a dedicated partner. So when he makes his final move – we understand its import to him, the finality it conveys. Christie emphasizes his appearance in these moments: “And there, standing musing, was a man with a rugged, ugly face…” It’s a strange thing to emphasize… But it is his ugliness and his dedication that assure us – this was an act of love, not greed or desperation. His ruggedness connotes honesty, a visual symbol of the necessity of the act.

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Thus ends The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. This isn’t one of the ones I’d remembered eagerly, but I really enjoyed it. A smooth read, and an interesting one thematically. It’s also fun to see Miss Marple set explicitly in a new time (though we’ll see how well that gets explored next time.)

Until then, stay cozy, and stay curious!