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The Body in the Library, Pt. 2: Characters and themes
Welcome back to our series on adaptation, where we use the Miss Marple murder mysteries to understand keys to adaptive success. Our current focus is The Body in the Library, the second book in the Miss Marple series (and arguably the first “true” Miss Marple). The Body in the Library was adapted for the BBC…
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The Body in the Library, Pt. 1: A triumph of character…
Welcome back to our series on Miss Marple, where we examine the art of adaptation through the lens of the original spinster sleuth. We’re now at episode two, The Body in the Library, which features a more recognizable version of our protagonist. (As always, a blanket spoiler alert for the contents of The Body in…
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The Murder at the Vicarage Part 2: The Adapter’s Dilemma
(As before, spoilers!) When we left off with The Murder at the Vicarage, we ended on a challenging conclusion for any literary adapter: the novel, while a reasonably interesting mystery, is not a great example of a Miss Marple book. Specifically, it exhibits some rather large “deviations from type” that likely force an adapter to…
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The Murder at the Vicarage Part 1: What makes a good Miss Marple novel?
So, here we go with the first in a series on adaption! The Murder at the Vicarage is the first of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series. The plot revolves around the murder of Colonel Protheroe, a blustering ex-millitary man who serves as a magistrate in St. Mary Mead. When he dies of a gunshot in…
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A Series is Announced: Exploring serialized adaptation with Miss Marple
I’ve always found the art of adaptation – taking a novel and transforming it for a different medium – particularly interesting. It started with my love of the Harry Potter series – specifically, with the film adaptation of Goblet of Fire. I’m pretty sure young Ellora went through all five stages of grief as she…