Agatha Christie: A Question

[dolorous_ett]

I've read Miss Marple stories, like just about everyone else, but I have only a hazy idea of when they're supposed to be taking place.

So I just wondered, could some expert on my flist tell me roughly how much older she would be than Minerva McGonagall?

Comments

[aella_irene]

I think that they're meant to take place when they were written- there were references to the Great War, and the Second World War, and I don't think she got that much older. Most of them, though are set after World War 2.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That seemed to knock the new plot bunny pretty hard on the head - I'd wanted mardy schoolgirl!McGonagall watching Marple on a case. But thanks to snorkackcatcher's Literary Series Time theory, the thing might just work...

[zaftig46.livejournal.com]

I don't know how old Minerva is supposed to be, but Miss Marple lost her fiance in WWI, and the stories take place in the 1950s.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That would make her a bit too young for my story, but if I base the story on some of the earlier Marple tales I might just be able to swing it...

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I wish I still had the 'biography' of Miss Marple - if it is still in the secondhand bookshop at work, do you want me to grab it for you?

I think she was supposed to be born in the 1890s, and 'In Bertram's Hotel' seems to be Edwardian in my memory (she remenisces about staying there with her uncle/godfather/relative pre-WWI). She was around sixty in the 1950s...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I think I'll pass on the biography, with thanks - if I do write this story I'd probably be better off reading a few of the actual books - it's a while since I've read them.

I suppose I could just have her as one of those old-before-her-time types?

[snorkackcatcher]

The recurrent characters in Agatha Christie seem to live in Literary Series Time, which moves at a slower rate relative to the outside world (e.g. the permanently 11 William Brown) -- an unfortunate side effect of having to keep finding new stories for characters over a period of decades when you didn't expect to need to and already set them up as Wise Old Owls.

The books almost all seem to be set round about their publication date, but that raises awkward questions for both Marple and Poirot. From memory, she first appears in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, where she's already supposed to be an elderly lady -- even really stretching the definition of 'elderly' by 1930 standards, you couldn't suppose her to be less than about 55. The last novel (if you discount Sleeping Murder) is IIRC Nemesis in 1972, in which case she'd be round about a hundred if you don't count in LST! She's definitely more frail by then, but manages a round Britain bus tour solo ... As someone said, she reminisces about her Victorian upbringing and mindset; as far as I know, the WW1 beau was something thrown into the recent ITV UnMarple 'jazzed up' series. Not as awkward as Poirot (already retired during WW1 in The Mysterious Affair at Styles?), but still, make of that what you will.

McGonagall was supposed to be about 70 circa GoF according to JKR -- although that was the same interview in which she said Dumbledore was 150, so a pinch of salt might be something to keep handy for emergencies. That would make her a more-or-less contemporary of Tome Riddle and Hagrid, and about half a century younger than Miss Marple in 1930 -- but given the LST Effect, probably about a quarter-century by the 1970s? :)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Thanks - you've just rescued my plot bunny (this may or not be a good thing!).

I must remember Literary Series Time as well - what a great notion!

And there's a story to told about Hercule Poirot and his dabbling with the Philosopher's Stone (hence the seemingly eternal youth), but that's perhaps for another day...

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I don't know (and I see lots of people have been very helpful), but I love that you have to ask that question.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

The answers to the questions are pretty great. The idea that motivated the question... perhaps not quite so much.

Thanks anyway!