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 the vicarage, investigators find that most of the village despised him. His wife and her lover confess almost immediately, but investigators quickly find they each have alibis. Thus it falls to the village to root out the real murderer, with Miss Marple taking a particular interest.

What makes this an unusual Miss Marple story?

I think this is one of the lesser-known Miss Marples, and upon this latest re-read, I can understand why. (Spoilers ahead!) It’s clear that Christie was still figuring out what makes a great Miss Marple story, and the novel deviates from the typical Miss Marple “formula” in a number of ways:

1. The book is written entirely in first person

Instead of the usual third-person perspective, the village vicar narrates the entirety of The Murder at the Vicarage. While this can work (see Watson / Captain Hastings), in this story it limits our understanding of the facts. Because the vicar has no reason to follow Miss Marple, we only learn about critical pieces of knowledge ex post facto. Instead, we are misled by the Vicar’s assumptions, with Christie using the narration to introduce red herrings (somewhat at the Vicar’s expense, as they make him seem rather dense for accepting them).

2. The book leans on too many foils

Some of the contrast between Miss Marple and others is instead provided by the other old ladies in the village. They have access to the same set of facts as Miss Marple, but fail to come to the any solution. While this succeeds at showing Miss Marple off, it introduces a new problem. It is difficult to tell them apart, and it gets overwhelming trying to keep track of them all. To my recollection, none of the other books feature such a large cast of old women – for other stories with a foil, Christie limits herself to one comparable.

3. The supporting cast are difficult to differentiate

The last point is a reflection of weaker-than-usual character work from Christie, with characters described sparsely, if at all. An illustrative example is Lettice, who’s described as both “vague” and “ethereal”, but whose actions belie those descriptors. In fact, “ethereal” makes me think “detached”, not someones who cares enough to try to frame her stepmother for murder.

It’s possible that Christie assumed that we would recognize each of the characters as “types” or common stock characters. Unfortunately, as 21st-century American reader, I’m not familiar enough with English stereotypes to pick up these references. This makes Miss Marple’s insights less satisfying, as it’s difficult for them to ring true.

4. The mystery relies on a complicated set of physical evidence, rather than human intuition

A potential reason for the reduced character development may be the “fiddliness” of the mystery, which requires a lot of exposition. In the prototypical Miss Marple story, Miss Marple investigates by learning about the motives, personalities, and capabilities of the suspects. But in this story, vital parts of the mystery rely on physical evidence that Miss Marple and other characters must collect and analyze.

This exposition comes at the expense of developing interesting characters, and also costs some suspense points. Because so much “screen time” must be spent establishing the mechanics , there’s less room to develop alternative suspects. It was hard to believe in Archer or the Professor as potential murderers when they received very little narrative attention.

5. Miss Marple acts out of character

I think of Miss Marple as the living example of “you catch more flies with honey” – she has endless patience and understanding, and is rarely explicitly sharp, ironic, or accusatory towards others. She’s also fond of human analogy, routinely relying on her mental database of character references to understand the current problem. In The Murder at the Vicarage, however, Miss Marple displays neither of these traits. She is much more rude than usual, calling people stupid and telling them off directly. Not only that, she solves the case without a single reference or analogy to others. (Christie wrote this before publishing The Thirteen Problems, in which Miss Marple relies on analogy to solve hypothetical cases. It’s possible that the human analogy element, the logical conclusion of Miss Marple’s study of human nature, was not yet fully fleshed out…)

Miss Marple also acts quite differently at the denouement of the novel. Normally, Miss Marple is an active participant in the proceedings, setting some kind of trap to catch the killer. This is critical since her theories rely on human insight, rather than hard evidence – catching someone red-handed is key proof. Yet here, she both fails to predict the killer’s actions against Reverend Hawes. Not only that, the narration completely skips the trap, jumping straight to a conclusion that wraps up other subplots. While there’s a reference to the killers’ trial, it feels a bit unsatisfying compared to other endings in the series.

The adaptation challenge: stay faithful to the text, or to Miss Marple?

This probably seems like I’m bashing on the book, which is sort of true. The mystery itself is a clever one, and I would likely enjoy it as a different book – but it’s not a Miss Marple. (In fact, it’s so far from type that neither the BBC series nor the iTV adaptation include it as the first episode in their series, burying it further down the release list until Miss Marple is more established as a character.)

It’s an interesting place to start, because it highlights a critical dilemma for a potential adapter: when adapting a series, is it better to stay faithful to the text itself, even if a chapter veers off-course in style and temperament? Or is it preferable to try to keep characters and style consistent, even at the expense of strict textual accuracy?

In the next post, we’ll dive deeper into the two television adaptations of The Murder at the Vicarage. We’ll explore how those writers tackled these challenges, and reflect on what the results say about the art of adaptation. Until then – stay cozy, and stay curious!