Agatha Christie - 'Giant's Bread'

As you may or may not know, over the past three or four years, I've been reading the works of Agatha Christie. What started with dipping my toe into detective fiction, by reading the likes of 'Roger Akroyd', 'Death of the Nile' and 'Murder on the Orient Express', became the voracious task of trying to read all 80 odd of her works.

So now, after finally completing that task (well, nearly - I've still got a book of short stories to track down), I'm tackling some of her wider work; namely, the books written under the name of 'Mary Westmacott'.

They're often clubbed together - despite her having written them over the course of about thirty years, and with no common characters. And they're often dubbed 'romantic fiction' - despite there being few happy endings, even without the grisly murders...

So - 'Giant's Bread'. This was her first non-Crime novel, published in 1930, and it's quite an epic, being about double the word length of your standard Christie.

Perhaps unfortunately, I've read her second book, 'Unfinished Portrait', before this one - so I'm picking up on the apparent similarities of the two. But both, bar framing devices at the start, deal with the life and loves of their central character - in this case, Vernon Deyre.

We first meet him as a child, but quickly he grows up into a young man. Too quickly, you could say - as it's this child's perspective that Christie does rather well, dealing with imaginary friends and childhood games, but also topics like adultery, class, and deaths in the family, through a child's eyes. Yet still keeping the characters in focus - this is the rather selfish, troubled Vernon Deyre, not an idealised childhood.
She rightly uses it much more in 'Unfinished Portrait' - in which we see the girl, Celia, go from a young child, having governesses, moving abroad, going to finishing school... Here, there's a sudden jump from between the ages of about ten and twenty - missing out Vernon's schooling in Eton and Cambridge. Similarly later in the book, little is said about fighting in the (albeit fairly recent in the memory) Great War - instead, we're given the full scoop on the everyday life of VAD work. Well, they say write about what you know...

It's easy to see Agatha Christie's mark on these stories - even this one. Anyone who's read her early short stories will know her love of the opera. Here, Vernon is a musical genius, and although he struggles with his art, the composer of avante garde operas. One might say this reflects her own struggles with coming up with new novels (despite this being the start of a particularly fruitful era for her). Despite one or two laboured points - being scared of pianos gets a little bit forced - the musical side of things is done with conviction.

Whilst there's a particularly open ended prologue which doesn't give too much away, sadly the blurb - and many write-ups, do. It's a flaw of the novel that the plot point oft mentioned (being killed in the war, and his wife remarrying) only turns up in the final third of the book. That's not to say it's not good to read - it's mostly a breeze, despite me taking a couple of weeks with it - and not that there's unexpected moments. You're kept guessing at who Vernon will choose to marry - and for what reasons. Will it be his meek cousin Enid? The charmingly pretty Nell? Or the temptress singer Jane? Even though, from Vernon's point of view, it's not about love (or sex - which hardly gets a mention, discreet or otherwise) but about the music.

In terms of characters, you've also got his arty, rebellious cousin (almost sister) Joe, and neighbour-turned-best-friend, the Jewish wealthy Sebastian (who's surely the best choice for Vernon, no?). It's with him that Christie treads a fine line, from a modern perspective. On the one hand, having a main character who's Jewish - one of the strongest and most forefront in her books - is perhaps mould-breaking and championing. But on the other, he's a stereotype, down to the descriptions of yellow faces and loving of money, and a host of anti-Semetic remarks from other characters. But in the end, he's a stereotype with a heart, and a proper character of his own, so maybe it is a success.

Overall, it's a long meandering book, but as readable as most Christies happily are. There's some memorable characters, and a quite pessimistic tone - and whilst the ending isn't quite as fulfilling given the rest of the book, it's a good 'first' novel from the enigmatic Ms Westmacott.