I like it of course. I'm not crazy about it but I like it. It has an aura of innocence about it, it "feels" of childhood dreams.. I like how Alice acts and talks like an educated little girl, like she really behaves like a child. I like that this book is written in "proper English", and I like that there isn't any answer to the Hatter's riddle, since after all this is all but a child's dream. This story was not changed in the Disney movie. It's so full of lovely nonsense that they needed not change a thing to make it good :-p
It starts with Alice feeling bored and sleepy :-) then she sees the white rabbit and follows him out of curiosity. She falls for a long long time and lands with no damage, like it only happens in dreams. There's a small door, leading into a beautiful garden, but she's too big. There's a little key on the table that could open it if she was the right size. The bottle labelled "drink me" makes her little but she forgot to take the little key, so she eats the little "eat me" cake and becomes 9 foot high and can't move. She starts crying, creating a big pool of tears, and she also scares off the rabbit who in his haste drops his gloves and fan, which she takes because she feels very hot indeed. With the fanning comes the shrinking, and she's deep in the pool of tears, suddenly filling with animals. She upsets a mouse talking about her beloved cat Dinah and of a farmer's dog, a terrier as good as Dinah at caching rats. They both swim to the shore where many other animals gather to hear his story on why he hates cats and dogs. He is, however, offended again and goes away, right after the caucus-race to dry themselves. Alice speaks again of Dinah and all the birds go away too. Alice is now alone, when the white rabbit comes and somehow mistakes her for his maid Mary Ann and sends her to his home to look for his gloves and fan. She goes and she finds them, but then stops to drink something out of curiosity: "I'll just see what this bottle does" and she grows so big the house hasn't enough space for her. The rabbit is scared and sends in the lizard Bill through the chimney but she has a foot in there and kicks him out (pun:chapter title: the rabbit sends in a little Bill :-p). They throw pebbles at her, the pebbles become little cakes and she eats them and is small again. She escapes into the woods; she meets a puppy but she's so small she has to run away. She sees a large mushroom with a "large blue caterpillar sitting on the top": they talk and she learns that "one side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter", of the mushroom of course, so the tries. At first she grows so tall she's taller than any tree and mistaken for a serpent by a pigeon, then she carefully tries the left bit and the right bit until she is her usual size. She comes across a little house so she makes her small again to enter. There's the Duchess with the baby-pig, the cook who uses way too much pepper and the Cheshire-Cat always grinning. When the cook starts throwing things Alice runs away with the baby, but when she realizes it's a pig she lets him loose. She sees again the Cheshire-Cat up on a tree and asks him for direction then it disappears. Since she's already met hatters in her life and it is now May so she reasons the March Hare won't be all that mad now, she heads to the Hare's house and there she meets the March Hare having tea with the Hatter and a Dormouse, because since the Hatter made Time angry it is now always tea-time for them (six o'clock). She soon tires of it and goes away and finds a door in a tree and she goes through it to find herself back in the room with the glass table and the little door, but now she knows the drill: big enough to take the key, she makes her small enough to enter the little door and she's now in the beautiful garden. It's the Queen of Heart's garden, and cards-gardeners two, five and seven are painting white roses red. The Queen wants to play croquet with Alice, with hedgehogs as balls, flamingos as mallets and the soldiers making the arches. When the Cheshire cat's head appears and they argue about beheading it, they call the Duchess who was in prison for being late. The Duchess is more pleasant when away from pepper, and likes to find a moral in everything. The game ends when all the guests are under sentence of execution (the Queen's very fond of shouting "off with his/her head") and the soldiers have stopped being arches to take them into custody (the King, however, ends up with a general "you are all pardoned")
The Queen wants Alice to hear the Mock Turtle story, so a gryphon takes her to find it and they tell her about their education (the classical master taught Laughing & Grief instead of Latin & Greek :lol: or another way to say Comedy and Tragedy :-p) and show her the Lobster-Quadrille dance, but then the trial begins so they stop and the Gryphon and Alice go to see "who stole the tarts". The Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing them, but there's no proof. Witnesses: the Hatter, the cook and Alice. Some nonsense letters the Knave denies to have written are to be read by the rabbit: "where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" - "Begin at the beginning- the King said very gravely - and go on till you come to the end: then stop" (it's so simple and obvious but I love it)
Alice rebels at the Queen's "sentence first, verdict afterwards" and all the cards "rose up into the air and came flying down upon her". Alice wakes up near her sister, and tells her everything, and what a wonderful dream it has been, and her sister dreams about her and how, one day, Alice might find pleasure in remembering the happy summer-days of her childhood.
ITA Alice nel paese delle meraviglie
Reviews, opinions on movies, films, series, books… mostly my feelings about it - Be careful if you hate spoilers, you’ll find lots of them here…
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愛の、がっこう. Ai no gakkou Learning to love
I liked it a lot, too much since it was not well made, unfortunately not, but the character of Kaoru was very touching and well played, the ...
Sep 22, 2016
The poet by Michael Connelly
This was a good book, I liked it. It was a bit long, but maybe I felt it too long because of how stressed I was in that period (well, still am actually), but the book was good. Nothing totally useless as I often find in other novels; not too many descriptions, just those pertinent to the story, they didn't bother me at all. Interesting characters and plot, although a very tough one. It's a story of murders and pedophiles, and it's all very sick, but the book is well written, captivating, and the investigation is well told. In details, it all starts when reporter Jack McEvoy is told of the death of his brother Sean, his twin brother. Suicide. It seems absurd, but everybody is sure it is a suicide, and Jack believes them for a while. Sean was a policeman and apparently he left a strange note: "out of space, out of time". Not able to cope with his death, Jack starts a research on cops that committed suicide, planning to write an article about it, and he reads of a cop that left a note as bizarre as Sean's. Jack also reads that that particular note was taken from Poe, and there it all starts.
The main character of that story (from which the note was taken) was called Roderick Usher, and the day he died Sean had to meet a person named Rusher! Jack finds that "out of space out of time" is also taken from a poem written by Poe. He talks about it to the FBI, at this point sure that Sean was murdered by a serial killer leaving notes taken from Poe's work. He finds other cases of cops whose murder was believed to be a suicide but wasn't. He works together with an FBI team (the BAU like in Criminal Minds :-p). Bob Backus is the leader, then there are Rachel Walling and her ex husband Gordon Thorson. She is very beautiful and he acts like a jerk, so no wonder that Jack hates him and distrusts him, while falling in love with Rachel. The book, as so often happens, follows two stories. Jack's investigation and Gladden's story from his point of view. He is a pedophile, who kills the children to "spare them from becoming like him", who was also raped as a child by a cop who was supposed to care after him. Gladden would also take pictures of these children and sell them online to make money, because there's a lot of sick, disgusting people out there in the world.
The reader is of course led to believe that Gladden is the serial killer they're looking for, the same man that after killing the children and the people connected with them who had spotted him and alerted the police on him, also kills the cops that work on the murder cases.
When the story comes out on the papers, Jack is sure, again no wonder, it's very very human, that it was Gordon who talked to a journalist. He never doubts it, until it all seemed to end when Gladden kills Gordon and in a struggle Jack kills Gladden. Thinking about it over and over, Jack starts to believe that Gladden was guilty only of the first murders, not of the cops' deaths. He reviews everything in his head. If he first suspected Gordon of having betrayed their deal, because he greatly disliked him, he then turns to Rachel. He is so insecure when it comes to love affairs that had always wondered if she really cared about him or wanted something else from him. He now thinks she lied all along, using Gordon's room to send the fax signed from the poet, stealing documents from Jack's room and killing those cops as she probably once killed her father who had raped her.
Everything seems to fall into place to make her the poet, so he talks about it to Backus, the only one he thought he could trust. Wrong.
Backus was the poet, and he used those notes to link his crimes to Gladden, and it would have worked but for Jack's talk with Gladden and his relationship with Rachel, who came looking for him after hearing him on the phone and sensing that something was wrong. Rachel arrives in time to save him, but she is a strong, tough woman who cannot forgive him for believing all those horrible things about her instead of trusting her.
Jack goes home, sells his book on the poet making lots of money that he'll use to help Sean's yet unborn child.
Nobody knows for sure why Backus did it, that's the thing about this ending. There was a clear motive for Gladden, there was one similar for Rachel, but it's not clear why Backus did it.
He is not found. Some believe he's dead, others keep looking for him.
ITA il poeta
The main character of that story (from which the note was taken) was called Roderick Usher, and the day he died Sean had to meet a person named Rusher! Jack finds that "out of space out of time" is also taken from a poem written by Poe. He talks about it to the FBI, at this point sure that Sean was murdered by a serial killer leaving notes taken from Poe's work. He finds other cases of cops whose murder was believed to be a suicide but wasn't. He works together with an FBI team (the BAU like in Criminal Minds :-p). Bob Backus is the leader, then there are Rachel Walling and her ex husband Gordon Thorson. She is very beautiful and he acts like a jerk, so no wonder that Jack hates him and distrusts him, while falling in love with Rachel. The book, as so often happens, follows two stories. Jack's investigation and Gladden's story from his point of view. He is a pedophile, who kills the children to "spare them from becoming like him", who was also raped as a child by a cop who was supposed to care after him. Gladden would also take pictures of these children and sell them online to make money, because there's a lot of sick, disgusting people out there in the world.
The reader is of course led to believe that Gladden is the serial killer they're looking for, the same man that after killing the children and the people connected with them who had spotted him and alerted the police on him, also kills the cops that work on the murder cases.
When the story comes out on the papers, Jack is sure, again no wonder, it's very very human, that it was Gordon who talked to a journalist. He never doubts it, until it all seemed to end when Gladden kills Gordon and in a struggle Jack kills Gladden. Thinking about it over and over, Jack starts to believe that Gladden was guilty only of the first murders, not of the cops' deaths. He reviews everything in his head. If he first suspected Gordon of having betrayed their deal, because he greatly disliked him, he then turns to Rachel. He is so insecure when it comes to love affairs that had always wondered if she really cared about him or wanted something else from him. He now thinks she lied all along, using Gordon's room to send the fax signed from the poet, stealing documents from Jack's room and killing those cops as she probably once killed her father who had raped her.
Everything seems to fall into place to make her the poet, so he talks about it to Backus, the only one he thought he could trust. Wrong.
Backus was the poet, and he used those notes to link his crimes to Gladden, and it would have worked but for Jack's talk with Gladden and his relationship with Rachel, who came looking for him after hearing him on the phone and sensing that something was wrong. Rachel arrives in time to save him, but she is a strong, tough woman who cannot forgive him for believing all those horrible things about her instead of trusting her.
Jack goes home, sells his book on the poet making lots of money that he'll use to help Sean's yet unborn child.
Nobody knows for sure why Backus did it, that's the thing about this ending. There was a clear motive for Gladden, there was one similar for Rachel, but it's not clear why Backus did it.
He is not found. Some believe he's dead, others keep looking for him.
ITA il poeta
Sep 13, 2016
Marple - Sleeping murder - 2005
Marple is Geraldine McEwan here, and she is called in to solve a mystery by Hugh Hornbeam (Aidan McArdle). He is helping Gwenda Halliday (Sophia Myles) who just came from India, to settle in the new house she personally chose. She's engaged to an older man still in India, but it's clear that Hugh is in love with her. Anyway, she's having nightmares and flashes of a dead woman, strangled, in that same house, and the name Helen that she doesn't remember ever knowing. She was so little back then that she doesn't even remember ever being to England.
So, Hugh calls for Miss Marple to come and help them solve this mystery.
They find Gwenda had indeed lived in that same house when she was a baby, and Helen was the name of the woman engaged to her father. They meet her uncle, Dr James Kennedy (Phil Davis-he was the murderer in the first Sherlock episode) who says that his sister Claire died in India of a car accident, that Helen disappeared the night before the wedding, sending only a postcard, and that Kelvin Halliday committed suicide because she had left him (now, how could nobody doubt that? He had a little girl to think of!!! and had also survived his first wife's death, apparently, so it's not so likely that he would kill himself because a girl had left him!). Helen was part of a theatre group, and they are all suspects now, along with an old friend of Helen: Walter Fane (Peter Serafinowicz) who has an overprotective and jealous mother (Geraldine Chaplin, whose first line here is: 'she was a nymphomaniac' speaking of Helen, who she thought wanted to take Walter away from her, before Kelvin arrived, that is). I'm very glad to say that there is Una Stubbs in this episode, as Mrs Pagett, a woman that worked in that house when Gwenda was a baby, and is hired again now - her fancy for the refrigerator is lovely :-) it could have been silly with another actress, but with her is just quite lovely :-)
The other performers were: Dickie (Paul McGann, didn't recognize him but now I see why I liked him) and his wife Janet who got pregnant, only the father of the child was Walter, but Dickie thought it was fellow performer Jackie and they had a fight.
Evie Ballantine (Sarah Parish) was really good but didn't get the respect she deserved from the rest of the crew. Dickie thought she wasn't good enough to have a solo part (she's now the only star of them all) and Jackie (Martin Kemp) who she liked very much, treated her badly. The night Helen disappeared Evie had tried to commit suicide and Jackie saved her. The end of the mystery is: Claire faked her own death in India because she was a thief and wanted to escape the police; Helen was Claire trying to start a new life with her husband and daughter under a false name; Dr Kennedy was obsessively in love with his sister, but when she refused his avances he killed her, and also killed Kelvin. The episode ends with a smile, showing Jackie driving away with Evie, and Dickie and Janet playing cards with Walter and his son George (who worked for him, so in a way he had always been close to him), and Miss Marple giving an advice to Hugh, who runs to Gwenda and proposes to her. We don't hear any word, but we see him on one knee, then she takes his hand and they walk on together, so I think no words are necessary here. Nice. I quite liked it. Good actors :-)
ITA addio miss marple (?)
So, Hugh calls for Miss Marple to come and help them solve this mystery.
They find Gwenda had indeed lived in that same house when she was a baby, and Helen was the name of the woman engaged to her father. They meet her uncle, Dr James Kennedy (Phil Davis-he was the murderer in the first Sherlock episode) who says that his sister Claire died in India of a car accident, that Helen disappeared the night before the wedding, sending only a postcard, and that Kelvin Halliday committed suicide because she had left him (now, how could nobody doubt that? He had a little girl to think of!!! and had also survived his first wife's death, apparently, so it's not so likely that he would kill himself because a girl had left him!). Helen was part of a theatre group, and they are all suspects now, along with an old friend of Helen: Walter Fane (Peter Serafinowicz) who has an overprotective and jealous mother (Geraldine Chaplin, whose first line here is: 'she was a nymphomaniac' speaking of Helen, who she thought wanted to take Walter away from her, before Kelvin arrived, that is). I'm very glad to say that there is Una Stubbs in this episode, as Mrs Pagett, a woman that worked in that house when Gwenda was a baby, and is hired again now - her fancy for the refrigerator is lovely :-) it could have been silly with another actress, but with her is just quite lovely :-)
The other performers were: Dickie (Paul McGann, didn't recognize him but now I see why I liked him) and his wife Janet who got pregnant, only the father of the child was Walter, but Dickie thought it was fellow performer Jackie and they had a fight.
Evie Ballantine (Sarah Parish) was really good but didn't get the respect she deserved from the rest of the crew. Dickie thought she wasn't good enough to have a solo part (she's now the only star of them all) and Jackie (Martin Kemp) who she liked very much, treated her badly. The night Helen disappeared Evie had tried to commit suicide and Jackie saved her. The end of the mystery is: Claire faked her own death in India because she was a thief and wanted to escape the police; Helen was Claire trying to start a new life with her husband and daughter under a false name; Dr Kennedy was obsessively in love with his sister, but when she refused his avances he killed her, and also killed Kelvin. The episode ends with a smile, showing Jackie driving away with Evie, and Dickie and Janet playing cards with Walter and his son George (who worked for him, so in a way he had always been close to him), and Miss Marple giving an advice to Hugh, who runs to Gwenda and proposes to her. We don't hear any word, but we see him on one knee, then she takes his hand and they walk on together, so I think no words are necessary here. Nice. I quite liked it. Good actors :-)
ITA addio miss marple (?)
Jul 14, 2016
The agony column by Earl Derr Biggers
This was nice :-) A bit old-fashioned, since it takes place in 1914, but nonetheless nice at the end. At first I couldn't decide if it was a murder case with a love story as its background, or if it was a romantic novel hiding behind a mystery.. now it's all clear :-) It starts with an American in London, Geoffrey West, seeing a girl with her father, and it was love at first sight. This pretty American girl shared with him an idle passion: each morning both of them liked to read a special column in the Daily Mail: the Personal Notices, "popularly known as the Agony Column", full of personal, cryptic messages, and thus West had the idea to approach the girl through that column. When she read the column of personal notices she found his words to her, and she replied the same way, stating she was fond of "mystery and romance" and demanding that he would write to her "one letter a day for seven days" to prove how interesting and worthy he is. For sure the letters arrive, one each day. He writes about how he met an English man in America who gave him a letter for his cousin in London. Upon meeting this captain, he was told he had no cousin by that name! Then the poor captain was killed, and he was questioned by the police. A strange woman threatened him "advising" him to change his deposition, then the captain's younger brother asked for the same thing but with a different 'motive': although innocent, he wanted to confess the murder to save the honor of the family name. Was his brother a traitor of his Country? West strongly confided in Colonel Hugh's help and advice. The moment came when both the brother and the woman confessed to the murder, but she only did it to get inside Scotland Yard. The Colonel had West arrested, but also released the next day, with the startling revelation that the spy was actually the chief inspector of Scotland Yard himself!
This the girl learned in the sixth letter, which ended with the surprising confession that West did, indeed, kill the captain! In the seventh letter the explanation: he's a writer of plays, and he invented the story to provide her with the "mystery and romance" she was so fond about :lol:
I admit I had wondered at the beginning, but totally forgot while reading further :-p
Seven letters, now he can only wait for her move. Due to the worrying news of war, many people including the girl Marian and her father have to flee the Country. She sends him a telegram saying what boat she'll be on, and he goes too: even without a ticket. There he meets her, and eventually her father. Needless to say she'll accept him, of course, and her dad will approve too :-) but it's nice how these last pages are written. Sweet and rather funny, at least pleasant :-)
So nothing regarding the murder actually happened. The captain is alive and quite amused by the story, and everything he wrote was just fiction :lol: So that's what it was: a love story masked as a mystery novel :-)
Seven keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers
Interesting and nice, but rather slow and with no thrill, and unfortunately no comedy: a generous amount of good comedy, and maybe just a hint of slapstick, would have made a great play out of it. I'd like a movie like that, they're not making good comedies anymore. A lot of good actions, and that's it. I can't wait to see comedy back into fashion!
As I was saying, though, there is no comedy in here at all. A couple of short action-scenes, and the rest should be a mystery but it's so slow... I liked the female characters though: good and rather modern!
The story: the Baldpate Inn, on top of Baldpate Mountain, opens in Summers but stay close in winters. It's almost Christmas, and the Inn is the most solitary place in the world. For this reason William Magee chooses it for his "retreat". He is a writer, and he seeks absolute solitude to write a great story full of heart and soul. He gets a key from the Inn's owner's son. Magee has been there but an hour when other people start arriving. First Mr Bland, who has a gun and who hides something in the hotel safe (he has secured a key from the Inn's manager); then Professor Bolton whose key was given to him by the owner himself. Pretty Miss Norton and her nothing-alike-mother have a key, but maybe it was stolen. Four keys until now.
Mr Cargan, the mayor of the near town of Reuton, comes with "his shadow" Lou Max (five). Already at this point things start to move. Miss Norton tells a more-in-love-by-the-minute Magee that there are 200.000 dollars in that safe and she must have it. When Cargan and Max are about to go away with the money, a mysterious figure stops them, but Magee surprises him too and runs away with the money. Right there and then in comes Miss Thornhill (six) and he's confused as to what he should do with the money. It's not her beauty that confuses him but the fact that she comes with his friend's recommendation and assurance that she can trust Magee and he'll help her. So Magee hides the money until he has time to think, but Bolton sees where and takes it, but Bland catches him with the bundle in his hands and takes it from him. Suddenly Mr Hayden comes (with no key) saying it's his money and he wants it back, but that bribe-money were promised to Cargan, who won't give it up. Bolton has again the bundle (taken from the hands of "the hermit of Baldpate" now working as their cook) and Magee knows it. Again a fight with the mysterious man and Magee's ready to give it to Miss Norton, when Hayden threatens him with a gun, but in comes the seventh key's holder, the mysterious figure, Mr Kendrick who has spent six years hiding abroad because tricked by Hayden, who now commits suicide. Kendrick is reunited with Miss Thornhill who waited for him all this time. Magee takes the gun and keeps them all there until Miss Norton is safely away with the money. He now learns the whole story of the corrupt mayor, Hayden that wanted to bribe him, Bolton working for justice and wanted the money as proof against him... but nobody knows who Miss Norton really is. Morning comes and they all go away to Reuton, where they discover the truth. She's a journalist and a sensational article condemns all the sordid story of the bribe. Happy that she was on the good-side, Magee professes again his love and wins her over, quite happy that he did not find the solitude he had looked for at the Baldpate Inn.
Now, the whole point of taking the money was somehow stupid on those who were on the honest side: how can a bundle of money with nothing specific about it be a proof that Hayden wanted to bribe a very happy-to-be-bribed mayor? It's just money, it could come from everywhere! So you see it makes no sense at all, but it could have make a good comedy, since the mystery was so disappointing.
What a shame it wasn't.
As I was saying, though, there is no comedy in here at all. A couple of short action-scenes, and the rest should be a mystery but it's so slow... I liked the female characters though: good and rather modern!
The story: the Baldpate Inn, on top of Baldpate Mountain, opens in Summers but stay close in winters. It's almost Christmas, and the Inn is the most solitary place in the world. For this reason William Magee chooses it for his "retreat". He is a writer, and he seeks absolute solitude to write a great story full of heart and soul. He gets a key from the Inn's owner's son. Magee has been there but an hour when other people start arriving. First Mr Bland, who has a gun and who hides something in the hotel safe (he has secured a key from the Inn's manager); then Professor Bolton whose key was given to him by the owner himself. Pretty Miss Norton and her nothing-alike-mother have a key, but maybe it was stolen. Four keys until now.
Mr Cargan, the mayor of the near town of Reuton, comes with "his shadow" Lou Max (five). Already at this point things start to move. Miss Norton tells a more-in-love-by-the-minute Magee that there are 200.000 dollars in that safe and she must have it. When Cargan and Max are about to go away with the money, a mysterious figure stops them, but Magee surprises him too and runs away with the money. Right there and then in comes Miss Thornhill (six) and he's confused as to what he should do with the money. It's not her beauty that confuses him but the fact that she comes with his friend's recommendation and assurance that she can trust Magee and he'll help her. So Magee hides the money until he has time to think, but Bolton sees where and takes it, but Bland catches him with the bundle in his hands and takes it from him. Suddenly Mr Hayden comes (with no key) saying it's his money and he wants it back, but that bribe-money were promised to Cargan, who won't give it up. Bolton has again the bundle (taken from the hands of "the hermit of Baldpate" now working as their cook) and Magee knows it. Again a fight with the mysterious man and Magee's ready to give it to Miss Norton, when Hayden threatens him with a gun, but in comes the seventh key's holder, the mysterious figure, Mr Kendrick who has spent six years hiding abroad because tricked by Hayden, who now commits suicide. Kendrick is reunited with Miss Thornhill who waited for him all this time. Magee takes the gun and keeps them all there until Miss Norton is safely away with the money. He now learns the whole story of the corrupt mayor, Hayden that wanted to bribe him, Bolton working for justice and wanted the money as proof against him... but nobody knows who Miss Norton really is. Morning comes and they all go away to Reuton, where they discover the truth. She's a journalist and a sensational article condemns all the sordid story of the bribe. Happy that she was on the good-side, Magee professes again his love and wins her over, quite happy that he did not find the solitude he had looked for at the Baldpate Inn.
Now, the whole point of taking the money was somehow stupid on those who were on the honest side: how can a bundle of money with nothing specific about it be a proof that Hayden wanted to bribe a very happy-to-be-bribed mayor? It's just money, it could come from everywhere! So you see it makes no sense at all, but it could have make a good comedy, since the mystery was so disappointing.
What a shame it wasn't.
The daffodil mystery by Edgar Wallace
It's a very old style, but I like his books enough. This one was nice too. The switch for me was not at the end, but rather early in the book, when the murder surprised me. It starts with rich, spoiled Mr Lyne talking to one of his employees. He likes her, but she (Odette Rider) refuses him strongly and Lyne feels deeply offended. He starts hating here and wants revenge. He talks to Mr Tarling, the book's hero, I thought, ad wants to hire him to frame the girl up, telling him she's been robbing his store. Tarling understands the lie and refuses the job. He's a serious detective (who ha worked mostly in China) and feels it his duty to warn the girl of such hatred. Now, at this point I thought Lyne was the bad guy and that Tarling would have to protect Odette from him, but here was the real switch of the book for me: it's Lyne himself that gets killed and Odette is a suspect. Obviously Tarling falls in love with her and he's asked to investigate the murder. Also obvious is that she's innocent.
There are many things involved: Mr Milburgh who also worked in Lyne's store and had been robbing him for a long time: he was Odette's mother's second husband, so the girl didn't want him exposed. Also Mr Stay, a little criminal that Lyne had helped many times, not really out of generosity but because the strange man liked to be talked about, to play the part; Stay loved him deeply, believing him an angel, the best man in the world, and he believed all the lied that Lyne had told him about Odette. Stay was furious and wanted to ruin her. He killed her mother (I guess he thought it was her) so I wasn't all that surprised to find out that he had also killed Lyne by mistake, in an attempt to disfigure her. He loved Lyne so much that he went mad and tried his best to avenge his death against the person he thought responsible for everything: Odette. While Tarling and Inspector ( I think) Whiteside were searching for Milburgh as a thief, an arsonist ( he burned down the place where all the books were supposed to be reviewed by specialists to discover any irregularities) and a murderer, Tarling's Chinese assistant Ling Chu learned of the danger she was in (because Milburgh had told Stay the hospital she was in, after discovering her mother's death) so he went to her to protect her. He arrived to see Stay driving a taxi, without her suspecting a thing. He stayed on top of the taxi until it stopped (Stay phoned Tarling knowing that he would suffer after being told the girl's fate) then he freed Odette and took her place. Once Stay arrived where he wanted to take her (the cemetery, to bury her with Lyne) he got out instead, they thought and Stay was recovered in a hospital where he regained his sanity and confessed all before dying: how he went to her house to punish her, not knowing that Lyne had decided to go to her (for his unholy purposes no doubt). In the dark they didn't recognize each other, so they struggled and he shot his assailant. Later he realized what he had done, that he had killed the man he loved as a God, and tried to take him to a hospital but Lyne died before getting there, so Stay laid him down in the park and put flowers on him (daffodils found in the park).
There were a lot of false tracks too: daffodils in Odette's apartment (of a different kind, though); Ling Chu's sister that was called "The little Narcissus" but foreigners (like Lyne) called her "the little daffodil": Lyne had offended her with inappropriate speeches and insulted her when she refused to go to him and sit on his knees, so she killed herself to regain her honor (because he had "put shame upon her by embracing her before the eyes of men). Ling Chu hated the man and wanted to kill him so he went to the store thinking, wrongly, that he would live there. Instead he was almost discovered by Milburgh who took the gun (Tarling's gun) that Ling Chu had left there in his hurry. Stay had taken that gun when Milburgh had gone to Odette's apartment that same night (because he wanted her to be accused of the theft for which he himself was responsible). That's about it, I think, and obviously it ends with Tarling and Odette together, planning to go back to his beloved China.
There are many things involved: Mr Milburgh who also worked in Lyne's store and had been robbing him for a long time: he was Odette's mother's second husband, so the girl didn't want him exposed. Also Mr Stay, a little criminal that Lyne had helped many times, not really out of generosity but because the strange man liked to be talked about, to play the part; Stay loved him deeply, believing him an angel, the best man in the world, and he believed all the lied that Lyne had told him about Odette. Stay was furious and wanted to ruin her. He killed her mother (I guess he thought it was her) so I wasn't all that surprised to find out that he had also killed Lyne by mistake, in an attempt to disfigure her. He loved Lyne so much that he went mad and tried his best to avenge his death against the person he thought responsible for everything: Odette. While Tarling and Inspector ( I think) Whiteside were searching for Milburgh as a thief, an arsonist ( he burned down the place where all the books were supposed to be reviewed by specialists to discover any irregularities) and a murderer, Tarling's Chinese assistant Ling Chu learned of the danger she was in (because Milburgh had told Stay the hospital she was in, after discovering her mother's death) so he went to her to protect her. He arrived to see Stay driving a taxi, without her suspecting a thing. He stayed on top of the taxi until it stopped (Stay phoned Tarling knowing that he would suffer after being told the girl's fate) then he freed Odette and took her place. Once Stay arrived where he wanted to take her (the cemetery, to bury her with Lyne) he got out instead, they thought and Stay was recovered in a hospital where he regained his sanity and confessed all before dying: how he went to her house to punish her, not knowing that Lyne had decided to go to her (for his unholy purposes no doubt). In the dark they didn't recognize each other, so they struggled and he shot his assailant. Later he realized what he had done, that he had killed the man he loved as a God, and tried to take him to a hospital but Lyne died before getting there, so Stay laid him down in the park and put flowers on him (daffodils found in the park).
There were a lot of false tracks too: daffodils in Odette's apartment (of a different kind, though); Ling Chu's sister that was called "The little Narcissus" but foreigners (like Lyne) called her "the little daffodil": Lyne had offended her with inappropriate speeches and insulted her when she refused to go to him and sit on his knees, so she killed herself to regain her honor (because he had "put shame upon her by embracing her before the eyes of men). Ling Chu hated the man and wanted to kill him so he went to the store thinking, wrongly, that he would live there. Instead he was almost discovered by Milburgh who took the gun (Tarling's gun) that Ling Chu had left there in his hurry. Stay had taken that gun when Milburgh had gone to Odette's apartment that same night (because he wanted her to be accused of the theft for which he himself was responsible). That's about it, I think, and obviously it ends with Tarling and Odette together, planning to go back to his beloved China.
ITA il mistero del narciso
Jul 13, 2016
The yellow crayon by E. Phillips Hoppenheim
How boring. It was really boring: no fun, no mystery, no thrill, no action. It's supposed to be a spy-story full of intrigue and love and danger.. the love part I could see: former countess Lucille has been recruited to come to London and end the career of a socialist politician so she's forced to leave her house without a note and her husband the Duke of Souspennier (aka Victor) is determined to get her back, his great love and only reason for living.
The intrigue: the yellow crayon is the name of a secret society that unites the aristocracy of Europe and works to defend their privileges against the socialists. The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer called for her and she 'could not refuse' because both her and Victor are members. Her task is to have Mr Brott fall in love with her so much he'll choose her over his political career, and it works! His career is ruined but then a crazy man shoots him for betraying the people. I don't think they cared enough about it, there are people that think they are in every way superior, they only count and others are nothing! Just like Victor's valet, who died and nobody cares.
The danger: a few time Victor or Lucille are threatened with arrest, and of course there is the valet episode. He's found dead: he committed suicide because he had been ordered to kill Victor and he saw no other way out of it. That's it basically.
The Prince says to Lucille 'you can't go' and she doesn't. I mean, there's really nothing to it.
It was boring, and most annoying with that attitude of superiority they all possess. It felt like it was a right thing to do, you know, give your life for someone who is your superior, stuff like that, how sick it was, very annoying.
The intrigue: the yellow crayon is the name of a secret society that unites the aristocracy of Europe and works to defend their privileges against the socialists. The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer called for her and she 'could not refuse' because both her and Victor are members. Her task is to have Mr Brott fall in love with her so much he'll choose her over his political career, and it works! His career is ruined but then a crazy man shoots him for betraying the people. I don't think they cared enough about it, there are people that think they are in every way superior, they only count and others are nothing! Just like Victor's valet, who died and nobody cares.
The danger: a few time Victor or Lucille are threatened with arrest, and of course there is the valet episode. He's found dead: he committed suicide because he had been ordered to kill Victor and he saw no other way out of it. That's it basically.
The Prince says to Lucille 'you can't go' and she doesn't. I mean, there's really nothing to it.
It was boring, and most annoying with that attitude of superiority they all possess. It felt like it was a right thing to do, you know, give your life for someone who is your superior, stuff like that, how sick it was, very annoying.
The gold bag by Carolyn Wells
Fleming Stone, a private detective better than Sherlock Holmes, as his friend detective Burroughs tells us... but come on, the bits with Stone were the worst. I liked the rest, but not his deductions. Let's be honest and say that this deductions are often rubbish: -he always walks at her right side, never at her left, that proves that either she's deaf in her left ear of he is deaf in the right ear- come on, is it really?? It can be, of course, but it's in no way absolute. Maybe he likes to give a lady his left arm, or maybe she likes to carry her bag with her left hand/shoulder... there can't be just one reason for simple actions like that, people are different, not all the same! Anyway, the rest of the book was nice. Very old-fashion due to its age, but nice. Joseph Crawford is murdered, and Burroughs goes to investigate, and he falls in love with Florence Lloyd, Crawford's niece and engaged to Gregory Hall, a fortune-hunter. Florence is the heiress, so she's suspected a lot, and Hall too is suspected because of course he wanted the money. A late-night paper is found in the room of the crime, along with a gold bag. From this Burroughs starts his investigation alone; he interrogates people, he follows every clue, but he feels too much in love and worried over Florence to think clearly. Hall refuses to say where he was the night of the murder and the reason behind that was really too obvious. He was with another girl and didn't want Florence to know. Burroughs tries to convince people to send for Stone, but they all refuse except Florence. She agrees, they call for him and in one day he solves everything! The murderer poisons himself to escape the shame and the sentence, Florence breaks her previous engagement and shows a new affection for Burroughs, quite happy.
A few more details: when the will was nowhere to be found (making the brother Philip the heir) Hall was for breaking the engagement, when it came out (after Philip confessed his stealing it) he was all for marriage again. Of course the motive for the murder was money, but not the will. It was all a financial matter, people playing the market. Joseph had a big stock of the same thing others had, and by selling it all at once of course the price would have fallen causing big losses to the others. One of these people would have been financially ruined, so he killed him in an act of desperation. Funny how in the 'good old days' people (of a certain class) were all good and intelligent, isn't it? How come now there are so many bastards around and even more idiots? It's surprising, it is indeed.
I don't know why but I like the ending line, when Burroughs asks Florence if she loves somebody else (of course she broke up with Hall, saying she actually never truly loved him) and the last line is "you-she murmured softly, and I was content" I don't know why but that 'and I was content' sticks to my mind, it's nothing special and yet it is :-)
Cat among the pidgeons - Poirot's film/tv-episode
I don't know where in the series is this, anyway, as always I liked it; I think David Suchet is the perfect Poirot, I like the atmosphere so English and the actors, although I was sorry that they changed the funniest scene in the book, when young Julia leaves the school to go to London, and is then introduced to a Poirot who knows nothing. Of course they had to, this is the Poirot series, you can't have him appear twenty minutes before the end. They didn't change much this time, they only had to cut it short a little bit. I don't remember the thing about the voodoo doll being in the book, I don't think it was, and I could have done without it, honestly it was silly. I didn't recognize Amanda Abbington as the art teacher, since she looked so different from Mary Watson :-p
I like Miss Bulstrode a lot, and Mrs Upjohn, the scene when she entered at the end was quite good. I liked Shaista and Miss Rich too. There isn't much to say, the story is pretty much the same as in the book. Prince Alì, his friend Bob and the jewels hidden in the tennis racket. The school and fake Princess Shaista. Jealous Chaddy hitting Miss Rich on the head (almost killing here) but giving her life at the end to save her dear friend Bulstrode. Poirot here is a friend and stays here to help Bulstrode figure out the best person to take her place when she'll decide to retire.
ITA macabro quiz
I like Miss Bulstrode a lot, and Mrs Upjohn, the scene when she entered at the end was quite good. I liked Shaista and Miss Rich too. There isn't much to say, the story is pretty much the same as in the book. Prince Alì, his friend Bob and the jewels hidden in the tennis racket. The school and fake Princess Shaista. Jealous Chaddy hitting Miss Rich on the head (almost killing here) but giving her life at the end to save her dear friend Bulstrode. Poirot here is a friend and stays here to help Bulstrode figure out the best person to take her place when she'll decide to retire.
ITA macabro quiz
Jul 11, 2016
The day time stopped moving by Bradner Buckner
A nice short story, about ten pages long. It start with a suicide: Dave responded to the difficulties of life by wasting himself; instead of looking for a solution hoping for better days he started drinking, a lot, and losing money betting on horses. His wife Helen could not stand this situation any more and after having many times threatened to leave, she finally does. He comes home twelve hours late and totally drunk and upon seeing her goodbye letter he goes crazy. He thinks that killing himself "will show her" and he actually pulls the trigger... but then he finds himself in the strangest situation. He seems to be alright, but also the only one that is. Everything and everyone is frozen, people are like statues. He seems to be the only one that can move about, until he meets a dog called Major and a man called Erickson.
Erickson tells him it's his fault, an experiment gone a bit wrong, sort of, so time froze and only those that were between life and death in that precise instant can now move (the dog was probably hit by a car, it seems). To put things right and get time moving again he simply needs to add power to his machine (still working) and since they can't move things that are frozen, so they can't use the wire in the room, they make one. Upon Dave suggestion, they strip each other of everything that might be used as a wire, using coins, keys, and stuff. When time moves again, he finds himself alive because the old gun had not worked properly, and Helen is in the room with him, she came back for him. He's decided to change his life for the better, now that he's had a second chance. Only six minutes have passed since he fired the gun, so he believes his adventure impossible, just a dream, but then he realizes it was not a dream when he reads of Erickson's death, with the details of the poor dog's presence and what's more, the "chain of small metal objects" they had made together.
Now, why he was frozen too since apparently he was nowhere near death at all is another matter...
Erickson tells him it's his fault, an experiment gone a bit wrong, sort of, so time froze and only those that were between life and death in that precise instant can now move (the dog was probably hit by a car, it seems). To put things right and get time moving again he simply needs to add power to his machine (still working) and since they can't move things that are frozen, so they can't use the wire in the room, they make one. Upon Dave suggestion, they strip each other of everything that might be used as a wire, using coins, keys, and stuff. When time moves again, he finds himself alive because the old gun had not worked properly, and Helen is in the room with him, she came back for him. He's decided to change his life for the better, now that he's had a second chance. Only six minutes have passed since he fired the gun, so he believes his adventure impossible, just a dream, but then he realizes it was not a dream when he reads of Erickson's death, with the details of the poor dog's presence and what's more, the "chain of small metal objects" they had made together.
Now, why he was frozen too since apparently he was nowhere near death at all is another matter...
The secret house by Edgar Wallace
A pity that the end was so abrupt. Another bad finale. The book wasn't bad, Wallace wrote very well and I like his style, but this time the end was not satisfactory at all. The story: Farrington is a rich, respectable man on the surface, but under the name of Fallock he is also a merciless blackmailer and a murderer. He is the guardian of young beautiful Doris, the only person in the world he loves. Poltavo is a criminal: he has quite a record set for himself and now he works for Fallock. Frank is a young man passionately in love with Doris, and in good terms with Farrington, who gives him an assignment: find out who is the heir of the Tollington's fortune, the only descendant of a woman that went away with her husband and never let her family know where she was or how she was now called. Lady Constance Dex is a woman that lost the true love of her life because of Fallock and now wants revenge (although her beloved was quite something, leaving her and his Country just because he heard voice that her past conduct had not been honorable, not thinking of talking to her about it!)
T.B.Smith and Ela are detectives hunting down these criminals.
Poltavo takes a fancy to Doris, enough to confuse her. He speaks of real sentiment but we're told that he's not new to this kind of thing, and usually it is "real" only for a short period of time then he gets tired. Farrington fakes his death not just to avoid prison or revenge, but mostly because of Doris. In his will she'll discover that she's to marry Frank or she'll lose all her fortune. She feels obviously forced and up in arms over this. She's young and inexperienced and is not sure about her feelings. Right now she likes Frank but doesn't love him, however when she receives a letter from her supposed-to-be-dead-guardian urging the marriage for his safety, she complies. She marries Frank and only now the whole of Farrington's plan for her is clear: he has used her fortune and she has nothing left, that's why the marriage was so important: Farrington knew all along that Frank was the Tollington heir. He had known for years, and that's why he killed his father (Constance's lover) so that Frank might be heir. We know nothing more of these two: will she love him? Will he keep true to himself and his own words and love her now (penniless) as he loved her before (rich)? Nobody will ever know.
Farrington is hidden in the Secret House, a thing that made me think "uh, like Harry Potter's school!" only the rooms here moved not by magic but by electricity....
His accomplice Fall is just as bad as he is. In that house they will kill Poltavo before he has a chance to betray them to Smith, and to do so they use their very own electric chair, only it is described to be a very, very quick death..
Constance is taken prisoner and freed by mere chance by Smith and Ela, and again we know nothing more of her. The detectives discover the secret of the house but Smith is taken prisoner and about to be electrocuted, so Ela runs to cut off the power to the house, just in time. T.B. will shoot Farrington: the end. Just like that. Not a word more. We can imagine, of course, Fall being convicted, Constance trying to move on, Doris and Frank managing their married life... but I would have liked to read about it, not imagine it by myself, there was no satisfaction in this ending at all.
T.B.Smith and Ela are detectives hunting down these criminals.
Poltavo takes a fancy to Doris, enough to confuse her. He speaks of real sentiment but we're told that he's not new to this kind of thing, and usually it is "real" only for a short period of time then he gets tired. Farrington fakes his death not just to avoid prison or revenge, but mostly because of Doris. In his will she'll discover that she's to marry Frank or she'll lose all her fortune. She feels obviously forced and up in arms over this. She's young and inexperienced and is not sure about her feelings. Right now she likes Frank but doesn't love him, however when she receives a letter from her supposed-to-be-dead-guardian urging the marriage for his safety, she complies. She marries Frank and only now the whole of Farrington's plan for her is clear: he has used her fortune and she has nothing left, that's why the marriage was so important: Farrington knew all along that Frank was the Tollington heir. He had known for years, and that's why he killed his father (Constance's lover) so that Frank might be heir. We know nothing more of these two: will she love him? Will he keep true to himself and his own words and love her now (penniless) as he loved her before (rich)? Nobody will ever know.
Farrington is hidden in the Secret House, a thing that made me think "uh, like Harry Potter's school!" only the rooms here moved not by magic but by electricity....
His accomplice Fall is just as bad as he is. In that house they will kill Poltavo before he has a chance to betray them to Smith, and to do so they use their very own electric chair, only it is described to be a very, very quick death..
Constance is taken prisoner and freed by mere chance by Smith and Ela, and again we know nothing more of her. The detectives discover the secret of the house but Smith is taken prisoner and about to be electrocuted, so Ela runs to cut off the power to the house, just in time. T.B. will shoot Farrington: the end. Just like that. Not a word more. We can imagine, of course, Fall being convicted, Constance trying to move on, Doris and Frank managing their married life... but I would have liked to read about it, not imagine it by myself, there was no satisfaction in this ending at all.
ITA la dimora segreta
Get Carter - 2000
A film I didn't even know existed, but not too bad. There are a few things totally useless and I think they weighted on it. The nice part was the relationship between Carter and his niece Doreen, never too much, difficult of touching where it had to be. In details: Stallone is Jack Carter, who calls himself a "financial enforcer": what he does is beating up people who owe money to mob boss Fletcher. When his brother dies, he leaves Las Vegas to go to the funeral. He used to live there so he knows where to go and who he should talk to. Jack believes his brother Ritchie has been murdered, and he unveils many things: Cyrus (Mickey Rourke) makes porn movies using girls that not only know nothing about the movie, but are also drugged and raped. Millionaire Kinnear (Alan Cumming) helps him financially (for some reason he's in Cyrus hands) and when Ritchie took hold of a disk with some videos in it, Cyrus killed him. Watching the video, Jack is overwhelmed and enraged when he sees Doreen. Luckily she remembers very little, although that little is already too much imo.
The best scene of the movie is when Jack talks to Doreen without telling her that he knows. He says she's a special girl, history is in the past we can only move on, shit can happen to anybody, and all those things that could work for him too. He also says that her mom loves her and she should talk to her. Doreen understands that somehow he knows, and talks to him and they hug and it's a nice scene, played well both by Stallone and Rachel Leigh Cook (Doreen, of course).
Jack kills the rapist first then he beats Cyrus up but doesn't shoot him (he was either unconscious or already dead, his end is not clear to me). He goes after Kinnear but gives him a second chance and lets him go alive. He kills Brumby (Michael Caine) who had always claimed to be Ritchie's friend but he was in on it too. Again, it's not too clear to me what his part was, in the whole mess.
Unfortunately there was a sort of side story: Jack had an affair with the girlfriend of his boss, apparently. He tells her to go away, she doen't. Fletcher tells him (again) to come back, but he doesn't, so Jack's ex-partner comes to kill him: fast chase, a bit of shouting and a boring conclusion where Jack, obviously, wins. This story is useless and weighs on the movie. The time would have been better filled in some other way, something concerning the main plot: with Jack and Doreen, or Doreen and her mom (Miranda Richardson), or a bigger talk Jack-Cyrus, or maybe explaining better Brumby's role in the matter... Mostly it would have been good to see more about Ritchie's story, what he knew about them, how he came to have that disk (yes, the girl gave it to him but why? did he know already about Doreen or did he watch it for other reasons?) , the whole story I mean.
ITA la vendetta di Carter
The best scene of the movie is when Jack talks to Doreen without telling her that he knows. He says she's a special girl, history is in the past we can only move on, shit can happen to anybody, and all those things that could work for him too. He also says that her mom loves her and she should talk to her. Doreen understands that somehow he knows, and talks to him and they hug and it's a nice scene, played well both by Stallone and Rachel Leigh Cook (Doreen, of course).
Jack kills the rapist first then he beats Cyrus up but doesn't shoot him (he was either unconscious or already dead, his end is not clear to me). He goes after Kinnear but gives him a second chance and lets him go alive. He kills Brumby (Michael Caine) who had always claimed to be Ritchie's friend but he was in on it too. Again, it's not too clear to me what his part was, in the whole mess.
Unfortunately there was a sort of side story: Jack had an affair with the girlfriend of his boss, apparently. He tells her to go away, she doen't. Fletcher tells him (again) to come back, but he doesn't, so Jack's ex-partner comes to kill him: fast chase, a bit of shouting and a boring conclusion where Jack, obviously, wins. This story is useless and weighs on the movie. The time would have been better filled in some other way, something concerning the main plot: with Jack and Doreen, or Doreen and her mom (Miranda Richardson), or a bigger talk Jack-Cyrus, or maybe explaining better Brumby's role in the matter... Mostly it would have been good to see more about Ritchie's story, what he knew about them, how he came to have that disk (yes, the girl gave it to him but why? did he know already about Doreen or did he watch it for other reasons?) , the whole story I mean.
ITA la vendetta di Carter
The hasty heart - 1949
A good film, sad, but not one I would watch and rewatch. I liked that it ended before the death...
It's a peculiar story: 1945, Burma, the war is over and the soldiers are going home, but those that have been injured can't go yet. Corporal Lachlan Mclachlan (Richard Todd) has recovered from the operation itself, but is left with just one kidney and unfortunately it's a bad one. The patients in the hospital ward are told about this, and knowing that he has but weeks to live they feel compassion and want to help. The corporal though knows nothing about it and can't understand why they won't let him go home. Everyone including Sister Parker tries to be as kind and as helpful as they can, but "Lackie", as they call him, has had a difficult life so he trusts no-one. He is very stubborn and openly hostile towards everyone. Sister Parker doesn't give up, and plans a birthday party for him. Touched by the gesture, Lackie becomes more friendly, and for the first time in his life he makes friends; he talks to them about his home in Scotland, asking if they'll like to go there, but they all have a home elsewhere and would like to return there. There's a guy from London, one from New Zealand, one from Australia, and there's Yank, obviously American, played by Ronald Reagan. There's another one too, an African man they call Blossom because that's the only English word he knows. At first I wondered about him, not sure why they included such a character that seemed to add very little to the story or the group, so the nicest bit of the film, at the end, was finding out that Blossom was actually the key to everything. Once told the truth, Lackie will of course believe that it was all an act, that they acted out of pity but were not real friends, so he closes up again, becoming once more hostile and proud; everyone tries to talk to him but he doesn't care for their words, not believing them. He's about to go home to spend his last days at home, and Blossom comes forward to give him the necklace he made. When Lackie throws it back at Blossom Yank gets angry. Of course they all felt pity for him (but it was out of friendship that Yank refused to go home, wanting to stay with him) but Blossom didn't know! Blossom doesn't understand English, so he didn't know before and still doesn't. That rules out the pity, so the gift can only be out of sympathy and friendship :-)
When Lackie is about to leave, he bursts into crying, finally saying that he doesn't want to die alone. There's nobody waiting for him in Scotland, so he asks them to accept him back, he wants to stay there with them, and of course they agree :-) The movie ends here, not showing us his death. It even ends on a funny note, with the English guy finally managing to look under his kilt to see if he wears anything :-p
One thing that puzzled me at first was that they called the girl "Sister" Parker, and I had thought she was a nun, but then Lackie proposed to her and to make him happy she accepted to marry him (before he knew of his fate, of course). At first Lackie was very unpleasant, but then he started acting like a child :-p because he had never had friends. The most touching bits were when Lackie told about home and future, and everyone looked sad knowing that that was never gonna happen.
Personally I don't share this belief that not knowing is better, although surely it depends on the person, it is not better to me.
It's a peculiar story: 1945, Burma, the war is over and the soldiers are going home, but those that have been injured can't go yet. Corporal Lachlan Mclachlan (Richard Todd) has recovered from the operation itself, but is left with just one kidney and unfortunately it's a bad one. The patients in the hospital ward are told about this, and knowing that he has but weeks to live they feel compassion and want to help. The corporal though knows nothing about it and can't understand why they won't let him go home. Everyone including Sister Parker tries to be as kind and as helpful as they can, but "Lackie", as they call him, has had a difficult life so he trusts no-one. He is very stubborn and openly hostile towards everyone. Sister Parker doesn't give up, and plans a birthday party for him. Touched by the gesture, Lackie becomes more friendly, and for the first time in his life he makes friends; he talks to them about his home in Scotland, asking if they'll like to go there, but they all have a home elsewhere and would like to return there. There's a guy from London, one from New Zealand, one from Australia, and there's Yank, obviously American, played by Ronald Reagan. There's another one too, an African man they call Blossom because that's the only English word he knows. At first I wondered about him, not sure why they included such a character that seemed to add very little to the story or the group, so the nicest bit of the film, at the end, was finding out that Blossom was actually the key to everything. Once told the truth, Lackie will of course believe that it was all an act, that they acted out of pity but were not real friends, so he closes up again, becoming once more hostile and proud; everyone tries to talk to him but he doesn't care for their words, not believing them. He's about to go home to spend his last days at home, and Blossom comes forward to give him the necklace he made. When Lackie throws it back at Blossom Yank gets angry. Of course they all felt pity for him (but it was out of friendship that Yank refused to go home, wanting to stay with him) but Blossom didn't know! Blossom doesn't understand English, so he didn't know before and still doesn't. That rules out the pity, so the gift can only be out of sympathy and friendship :-)
When Lackie is about to leave, he bursts into crying, finally saying that he doesn't want to die alone. There's nobody waiting for him in Scotland, so he asks them to accept him back, he wants to stay there with them, and of course they agree :-) The movie ends here, not showing us his death. It even ends on a funny note, with the English guy finally managing to look under his kilt to see if he wears anything :-p
One thing that puzzled me at first was that they called the girl "Sister" Parker, and I had thought she was a nun, but then Lackie proposed to her and to make him happy she accepted to marry him (before he knew of his fate, of course). At first Lackie was very unpleasant, but then he started acting like a child :-p because he had never had friends. The most touching bits were when Lackie told about home and future, and everyone looked sad knowing that that was never gonna happen.
Personally I don't share this belief that not knowing is better, although surely it depends on the person, it is not better to me.
Four weddings and a funeral - 1994
I always liked this movie, for its humor and for John Hannah. Oh I like his Matthew so much, he's so cute and sweet and nice, and of course heartbreaking at the funeral. Sure, the real protagonist is Charles (Hugh Grant) who unfortunately I don't like very much. He meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell) and is immediately in love with her, but can't admit it, not to her not to himself. They meet during social occasions like, no surprise, weddings and even a funeral. It will take him a lot of time to admit it, passing through her wedding and separation and even his almost-wedding, but they'll finally be together. Obviously.
Other characters are nice too: Tom (James Fleet) is nice, I like him a lot; Scarlet (Charlotte Coleman) is fun. I like other characters too and I like the ending that shows images of these characters' future: Charles and Carrie have a baby, Matthew finds a new boyfriend and smiles again, Tom is happy with Deirdre, Scarlett is happy with her Texan boyfriend: they're so cute, she's like a pocket-girlfriend :-p
The most touching moment of the film is of course Gareth's death, right from the start, when we see Matthew smiling and singing, not knowing that Gareth has fallen down and is dying. Of course his speech at the funeral is very touching, he's a very good actor, he made me cry. Funny how all his friends are sort of surprised: Charles says he never knew that two of them friends were already married, all that time. That sentence stuck with me. At that moment I also liked Tom's simplicity, such a contrast between him and Charles and his torments. Tom who is so sure that one day he'll find someone, never stopping to think What If, good for him.
I liked every moment the camera was on Matthew :-) I liked the love story between David and Serena (right,yes?) because it moves on slowly wedding after wedding, and again it's a big contrast when you think that Charles is going backwards, in a way. I liked Serena, she saw and liked him at once, so she prepared herself by learning sign language and she approached him, and they hit it off nicely. Charles' story, on the other hand, goes like this: he meets girl, girl goes back to America, girl comes back with boyfriend, them marries said boyfriend, while he tries to tell her he loves her only to take it all back, so he tries to forget her by marrying another girl but on his wedding day he learns that she's free again, so calls it off and gets punched in the face for it. And well deserved it was!
Finally he meets her again but doesn't let her go away this time.
ITA quattro matrimoni e un funerale
Other characters are nice too: Tom (James Fleet) is nice, I like him a lot; Scarlet (Charlotte Coleman) is fun. I like other characters too and I like the ending that shows images of these characters' future: Charles and Carrie have a baby, Matthew finds a new boyfriend and smiles again, Tom is happy with Deirdre, Scarlett is happy with her Texan boyfriend: they're so cute, she's like a pocket-girlfriend :-p
The most touching moment of the film is of course Gareth's death, right from the start, when we see Matthew smiling and singing, not knowing that Gareth has fallen down and is dying. Of course his speech at the funeral is very touching, he's a very good actor, he made me cry. Funny how all his friends are sort of surprised: Charles says he never knew that two of them friends were already married, all that time. That sentence stuck with me. At that moment I also liked Tom's simplicity, such a contrast between him and Charles and his torments. Tom who is so sure that one day he'll find someone, never stopping to think What If, good for him.
I liked every moment the camera was on Matthew :-) I liked the love story between David and Serena (right,yes?) because it moves on slowly wedding after wedding, and again it's a big contrast when you think that Charles is going backwards, in a way. I liked Serena, she saw and liked him at once, so she prepared herself by learning sign language and she approached him, and they hit it off nicely. Charles' story, on the other hand, goes like this: he meets girl, girl goes back to America, girl comes back with boyfriend, them marries said boyfriend, while he tries to tell her he loves her only to take it all back, so he tries to forget her by marrying another girl but on his wedding day he learns that she's free again, so calls it off and gets punched in the face for it. And well deserved it was!
Finally he meets her again but doesn't let her go away this time.
ITA quattro matrimoni e un funerale
となりのトトロ (totoro) - 1988
I like it. Each and every one of Hayao Miyazaki's movies possess a poetic and delicate touch that appeals to me. In a way I could say that this movie has little to no plot, basically "two little girls trying to cope with their mother's illness, with a little help", but this is what makes it so nice and adorable, because it's not about action, it's about images and feelings and magic.
The Totoro in the title is a strange, huge animal usually invisible to people, a sort of spirit of the woods. It reminds little Mei of the image of a troll she has in her books, so she says Totoro trying to say the Japanese word for Troll but failing to pronounce it correctly as it often happens to her, but in the dubbed version this "joke" is lost, at least in the Italian version where Mei pronounced everything correctly so it might seem she totally invented the name for him/it, but it can still be clear to those who care to pay attention that she means another word, because when she says Totoro to her sister, she doesn't ask "what is it?" instead she replies "oh you mean...".
Still, the name Totoro is so cute that it doesn't really matter :-)
The story is quite simple, as I said before. Mei is four and has an older sister, Satsuki. Their mother must stay in a hospital so they move to a house in the country in order to be closer (three hours is the walking distance, but there is a bus, of course). It's a sad situation, little Mei misses her mum and Satsuki is worried she might die and leave her alone. She is the "older" sister, but she's still a child herself. Maybe this is the reason why Totoro shows himself to them. Mei finds him while wondering alone in the woods, then they both meet him on a rainy night while at the bus stop waiting for their father (to give him an umbrella, the sweet things).
They meet him again outside their house, waking up in the middle of the night, but more importantly Satsuki finds him when she needs him. Towards the end the sisters learn that their mother won't come home for the weekend as planned, Mei throws a tantrum, shouting that she doesn't want it (to wait for another time to see her mother, she wants her now, she's so little) and the sisters fight (poor Satsuki is responsible for her but she's only 9 or 10, she's a child herself)so later Mei wanders alone with the intention of walking to the hospital to give her mum an ear of corn thinking it'll make her feel better, but she gets lost and nobody can find her. Satsuki is worried, her dad has to go to work every day so he's not home, and the whole village helps her find little Mei. Nobody can find her, so Satsuki asks for the woods' spirits' help, to lead her to Totoro. She gets there and crying asks for his help. Totoro calls the catbus (imagine a bus entirely made of fur, with a tail and the head of the Cheshire Cat, plus its eyes are like torches). Satsuki gets on the catbus and it brings her to Mei, then it brings them both to the hospital. The sisters and the catbus stop on top of a tree and looking through a window of the hospital they see their father talking to their mom, who is smiling and saying that as a precaution the doctors won't let her go, but it won't be long. Happy to know that she's ok they go back home. The end. More or less :-p
The credits at the end show some drawings that explain what happens afterwards: mom back home with them, reading them stories, and Satsuki and Mei playing with other children; now they don't need Totoro anymore and they won't see him again, but this is ok because this is a sweet Japanese film where people are not obsessed with showing Totoro to other people or finding out more. Totoro was a special part of their lives when they needed him, and they'll always remember him.
While I watched it I saw a scene where dad and daughters bath together in the same bathtub, and wondered how many people in the world might be offended or angry at that. It's a completely innocent scene of course, normal family life, but we live now in a sex-obsessed world, so I wonder.. besides, I remember that as a teenager watching American movies or series I was shocked to see that children kissed their parents on the lips (and being actors they weren't even related) and I was like yeuch, what are they doing?? because nobody does that here; to be honest, it is still a bit weird :-p
Tonari no Totoro
ITA il mio vicino totoro
Jul 8, 2016
The kidnap murder case by SS Van Dine
Well, it was a bit boring here and there, but not a bad read. I like the character of Philo Vance (at least for now), and I like the fact that in every book, after the solution is revealed, we are told a bit of what happens to the other characters.
The story is quite simple, and the solution didn't shock me at all. It starts with Kaspar Kenting being kidnapped from his home, but Vance is from the start quite sure that he's probably already dead. The other characters are: Kaspar's brother Kenyon, a good and responsible man, not like his stupid brother or his even worse father. Kaspar's wife Madeleine, her brother Frayn and her mother Mrs Falloway. Plus Mr Flees, the family lawyer who 'controls' their money. A first attempt of paying the ransom fails and Madeleine is kidnapped too, while Kaspar is found dead (and has been dead for a long time, like Vance feared). In the end Vance, Van Dine who refuses to leave him alone, and sergeant Heath find the house where she's kept and free Madeleine. Vance reveals that, in a desperate need of money after having played and lost the Kenting's money, Fleel had planned everything. Incidentally Vance manages to save Heath's life: he kills three men, Madeleine's kidnappers, who were all wanted by the police so now Vance is "threatened with a medal" and plans to go abroad to avoid all the fuss :-)
We learn that in time Madeleine will marry Kenyon and Mrs Falloway will follow Vance's advice and have her son cured by the doctor whose name was given to her by Vance. All's well that ends well, isn't it? So, it's not a book to read again and again, but it was a pleasant enough read nonetheless.
The end.
What always surprises me is how useless Markham is. I mean, sergeant Heath does the police work, Vance does all the investigating-interrogating-making of important decisions, but Markham does nothing at all. It's sweet how they all care about Vance, and I like the Markham-Vance friendship, but I find annoying how he always doubts Vance, gets angry at his slow methods, and would always accept the easy solution that criminals set for him. Vance is a good character, without him the whole thing would be really boring.
ITA sequestro di persona
The story is quite simple, and the solution didn't shock me at all. It starts with Kaspar Kenting being kidnapped from his home, but Vance is from the start quite sure that he's probably already dead. The other characters are: Kaspar's brother Kenyon, a good and responsible man, not like his stupid brother or his even worse father. Kaspar's wife Madeleine, her brother Frayn and her mother Mrs Falloway. Plus Mr Flees, the family lawyer who 'controls' their money. A first attempt of paying the ransom fails and Madeleine is kidnapped too, while Kaspar is found dead (and has been dead for a long time, like Vance feared). In the end Vance, Van Dine who refuses to leave him alone, and sergeant Heath find the house where she's kept and free Madeleine. Vance reveals that, in a desperate need of money after having played and lost the Kenting's money, Fleel had planned everything. Incidentally Vance manages to save Heath's life: he kills three men, Madeleine's kidnappers, who were all wanted by the police so now Vance is "threatened with a medal" and plans to go abroad to avoid all the fuss :-)
We learn that in time Madeleine will marry Kenyon and Mrs Falloway will follow Vance's advice and have her son cured by the doctor whose name was given to her by Vance. All's well that ends well, isn't it? So, it's not a book to read again and again, but it was a pleasant enough read nonetheless.
The end.
What always surprises me is how useless Markham is. I mean, sergeant Heath does the police work, Vance does all the investigating-interrogating-making of important decisions, but Markham does nothing at all. It's sweet how they all care about Vance, and I like the Markham-Vance friendship, but I find annoying how he always doubts Vance, gets angry at his slow methods, and would always accept the easy solution that criminals set for him. Vance is a good character, without him the whole thing would be really boring.
ITA sequestro di persona
The green rust by Edgar wallace
Well, it wasn't bad but it was too long. Two stories mixed together. A girl who doesn't know she's an heiress must be protected from fortune-hunters, and a criminal plans to destroy the world's fields of wheat to make it dependent on Germany's supply. I did not like the comments on "Germans are..." same way as I never like that kind of comments (exchange name and adjectives and at all ages people say things like that, as if people of the same Country were all the same, which is so wrong and unreal, come on) but of course this book dates 1919, so I guess the sentiment is understandable somehow.
There's Oliva (:-D) Cresswell, the young heiress: Mr Kitson is her secret guardian and Mr Beale the man he brought from America to London to protect her. While doing so, Beale discovers a much bigger scheme and threat than a simple fortune-hunter. Doctor Van Heerden had killed old Milliborn to learn the heiress secret identity, and had set himself to pursue her, marry her and get legally access to all her fortune in order to finance his criminal plan. He's German and he hates England and America and he has employed all his resources to ruin them, as well as the rest of the world. He is preparing big quantity of this "green rust", that once released on a wheat field it will spread and destroy it all for ten years, so the world will face starvation and will be forced to buy from Germany at whatever price. Beale prevents Van Heerden from marrying Oliva by marrying her first, then he prevents the disaster by catching him before he's had a chance to communicate with his men around the world, to order them to start the destruction. Jolly good, but what's not clear to me is why he was producing green rust here (well, in London) if his 'agents' around the globe already had it, and if they did not have it, how did he send so much abroad, while he was being watched, and had planned to use pidgeons to send his orders?
Conclusion, not a bad book, it is a pleasant enough read, alright, although not one of his best.
ITA la ruggine verde
There's Oliva (:-D) Cresswell, the young heiress: Mr Kitson is her secret guardian and Mr Beale the man he brought from America to London to protect her. While doing so, Beale discovers a much bigger scheme and threat than a simple fortune-hunter. Doctor Van Heerden had killed old Milliborn to learn the heiress secret identity, and had set himself to pursue her, marry her and get legally access to all her fortune in order to finance his criminal plan. He's German and he hates England and America and he has employed all his resources to ruin them, as well as the rest of the world. He is preparing big quantity of this "green rust", that once released on a wheat field it will spread and destroy it all for ten years, so the world will face starvation and will be forced to buy from Germany at whatever price. Beale prevents Van Heerden from marrying Oliva by marrying her first, then he prevents the disaster by catching him before he's had a chance to communicate with his men around the world, to order them to start the destruction. Jolly good, but what's not clear to me is why he was producing green rust here (well, in London) if his 'agents' around the globe already had it, and if they did not have it, how did he send so much abroad, while he was being watched, and had planned to use pidgeons to send his orders?
Conclusion, not a bad book, it is a pleasant enough read, alright, although not one of his best.
ITA la ruggine verde
Big time operator by Jay Richards
A very short story, only five pages, but nice. From Dave's point of view. He's about to have his cousin Eddie killed. Dave is a gang boss, and Eddie dared bother his woman Karen, so she called two killer from outside: Dave is now waiting for Eddie, then he'll point him to the killers and they'll shoot him dead, but things don't go as 'he' had planned. When Eddie arrives, the killers join him and they follow Dave! Betrayal! Karen and Eddie together had planned to kill him! He runs, but can't find anywhere to hide (how nice that a gang boss would not try to hide among the crowd to avoid putting them in danger...) until he sees a phone box. He thinks 'I'll call the police, for once' but he's a man who always wanted to be great and hated coins, stuff for poor people, he never kept coins, he never took the change when he bought something, he even hated touching the coins, so now he can't make his call. He has lots of dollar bills in his pockets that are perfectly useless. The three men reach him and shoot him and he dies holding the useless bills in his hands...
ITA in grande stile
ITA in grande stile
The scarlet box by Patrick Quentin
Not bad, 58 pages in my book, pretty simple story but pleasant to read. Set in Rome, it's the story of an American painter, Robert Miller, who finds himself involved in a murder case. He meets young American Emily Layden and takes her to meet famous director Andy Prussing. They know each other and he leaves them alone but when he comes back Andy's dead, murdered. He finds there Gabriella Celano, an Italian princess (oh my) but he believes her innocence and explanation and lets her go with a scarlet box containing her love letters to Andy. Robert doesn't tell the Italian police of either Gabriella or Emily, but eventually Emily's name comes out and Robert is determined to save her because he's in love with her already. He speaks to Gabriella's father, to her fiancée, to Betsy the famous actress who had a relationship with Andy, and with Kate, Andy's secretary. Thanks to a secret compartment in the box he finds out Andy was blackmailing Betsy, but when he finds Andy's letter to her hidden in his painting he discovers that the idea was Kate's, and she killed him because he was now in love with Betsy and wanted to come clean. Robert confronts Kate but she has a gun. Betsy helps him quick, and they stop Kate and call the police. Emily is now free and the two of them are happily in love, in Rome :-) happy ending :-)
See, a simple little story, but it was nice.
ITA la scatola scarlatta
See, a simple little story, but it was nice.
ITA la scatola scarlatta
Gone tomorrow by Lee Child
One of the books about Jack Reacher; not my kind of thing, I must say, not bad but sort of boring: too much following his random thoughts and too much description of New York streets, and much less action than I thought. The story is written in the first person, from Jack's point of view. It is interesting, because you learn a piece of it after another along with him, until the whole thing is (more or less) clear. It starts with Reacher on a train, noticing a woman. She has all the 'twelve signs' of a female suicide bomber, and Reacher approaches her, but she has no bomb, only a gun that she uses to kill herself in front of him. He is obviously approached by NYPD, but also by some federals who refuse to identify themselves and by some other men working for a mysterious figure he doesn't yet know. They are all interested in Susan Mark, the dead woman, and in what she might have told or given him before her death. So many questions and mysteries keep him interested and he keeps investigating. The men were sent by Lila Hoth. She pretends to be a victim, with her mother Svetlana, but actually she's a psycopath and a terrorist, they both are. They had kidnapped Susan's son, and had her steal a picture from the Government. A national security secret. I can't talk about this book without revealing everything at once. So:
an ex military officer now running for senator is involved. It's a picture of him with Bin Laden during a secret mission, in Reagan's time. Reacher thinks the woman want the picture because it might be a problem to them more than it might damage Sansom's career or the US Government, but we're never told what details were in that picture, so neither Reacher or us will ever know this.
Anyway, Susan was bringing them the picture, but she got stuck in traffic for hours and couldn't meet the deadline, so the Hoth women (probably, this is all Reacher's reconstruction of what happened) sent her proof that her son Peter had been killed (and in a horrible way). Desperate but unable to do anything, still stuck on the road, she slowly thought of vengeance. She had a gun, she prepared herself for a sort of suicide mission, because she had no chance of coming out of there alive. The Hoth women had twenty men with them: 22 against 1. But maybe she could have been able to kill Lila if Reacher had not approached her that night.
Reacher has a bit of help from a cop, Theresa Lee (who of course will sleep with him, as usual there can be no story with a man and a woman without sex, how boring) and also from Sansom and his loyal man and ex military Springfield. Reacher is determined to take them out personally and by himself, so he goes alone. After all the men are neutralized or killed, Reacher has the last fight with the two women assassins. They all have knives. Reacher kills old Svetlana first, then Lila gives him a bad wound, cutting him in the stomach, then he kills her. Of course.
He has other books to fill, he can't die like this, right?
The end. Reacher is helped by Springfield and Lee and brought to a hospital. He gives Sansom indication of where he would find the picture-file, then he thinks back and regrets his approaching Susan. She would have died anyway, but maybe if she had killed Lila she would have died happy (well, less desperate because glad of having avenged Peter's murder). It ends with Lee telling him that "apparently" the file was destroyed; of course that's politics, no chance he could really see it; he spends some time thinking about it, about the reason the Hoths wanted it so much, but after a month, bored and tired of making conjectures he forgets the whole thing and moves on.
Personally I found it rather boring, this book had so many pages not because there were lots of things to say but because he showed us every corner of every street and even informed us on the color of his shirts anytime he buys a new one. Still, it wasn't bad, just boring.
I liked Springfield, though.
ITA i dodici segni
an ex military officer now running for senator is involved. It's a picture of him with Bin Laden during a secret mission, in Reagan's time. Reacher thinks the woman want the picture because it might be a problem to them more than it might damage Sansom's career or the US Government, but we're never told what details were in that picture, so neither Reacher or us will ever know this.
Anyway, Susan was bringing them the picture, but she got stuck in traffic for hours and couldn't meet the deadline, so the Hoth women (probably, this is all Reacher's reconstruction of what happened) sent her proof that her son Peter had been killed (and in a horrible way). Desperate but unable to do anything, still stuck on the road, she slowly thought of vengeance. She had a gun, she prepared herself for a sort of suicide mission, because she had no chance of coming out of there alive. The Hoth women had twenty men with them: 22 against 1. But maybe she could have been able to kill Lila if Reacher had not approached her that night.
Reacher has a bit of help from a cop, Theresa Lee (who of course will sleep with him, as usual there can be no story with a man and a woman without sex, how boring) and also from Sansom and his loyal man and ex military Springfield. Reacher is determined to take them out personally and by himself, so he goes alone. After all the men are neutralized or killed, Reacher has the last fight with the two women assassins. They all have knives. Reacher kills old Svetlana first, then Lila gives him a bad wound, cutting him in the stomach, then he kills her. Of course.
He has other books to fill, he can't die like this, right?
The end. Reacher is helped by Springfield and Lee and brought to a hospital. He gives Sansom indication of where he would find the picture-file, then he thinks back and regrets his approaching Susan. She would have died anyway, but maybe if she had killed Lila she would have died happy (well, less desperate because glad of having avenged Peter's murder). It ends with Lee telling him that "apparently" the file was destroyed; of course that's politics, no chance he could really see it; he spends some time thinking about it, about the reason the Hoths wanted it so much, but after a month, bored and tired of making conjectures he forgets the whole thing and moves on.
Personally I found it rather boring, this book had so many pages not because there were lots of things to say but because he showed us every corner of every street and even informed us on the color of his shirts anytime he buys a new one. Still, it wasn't bad, just boring.
I liked Springfield, though.
ITA i dodici segni
Jul 5, 2016
Open season on cops by Michael Avallone
Nice, a short story of no more than thirty pages that would have made a nice episode up until the 80s, maybe 90s. A cop, Joe Kling, is dead, killed by robbers. his son Tony is determined to find them, so he investigates by himself and finds all the information he needs: young members of a gang. With the help of Joe's friend, p.i. Eddy Noon, and the police, they catch the gang members. One of them tries to run away, Noon follows and stops him in time before he kills another agent. Seeing him from behind, Eddy shouts "Tony! No!" and maybe the readers will have thought "is that why Joe didn't shoot, because he saw his own son?" But no, Tony found them, Tony is already a policeman at heart, but yes, Joe didn't shoot immediately because for a moment he saw a teenager of the same age, built and height of his son...
ITA una gara è aperta
ITA una gara è aperta
She'll hate me tomorrow by Richard Deming
Not bad, I liked it enough. I don't understand the title though, its connection to the story. This is not a mystery, there's nothing to investigate and the police have but a very, very small role in it. It starts with a secretary, Stella. She works for lawyer Vegas, in Chicago. Dangerous criminal Whitey Cord is, or was, his client. The two of them have a fight, and Vegas knows that his life is in danger. He has Stella write a letter that would put Cord in jail if the police had it, but he doesn't send it. He puts it in his safe, and tells her to send it if he were to be killed. Pretty silly move, I'd say, lawyers should be more intelligent than to keep it in their own office. That same night someone breaks into the office and steals the letter. After that, Vegas and two men that he mentioned in the letter as present the night that Cord killed another man who was about to testify against him are killed. After Stella learns what happens, she understands she's now in danger. She knows everything because she wrote the letter! So she runs away before they can get to her. She takes the first bus, going to St. Stephen, a 12-hour journey, so it's not so strange that they thought of looking for her there..
She doesn't trust the police to protect her, so she goes away saying nothing to anyone (she has no family or friends). Once there, she looks for a job and finds one. Sam Black runs a night club and young, attractive Clancy Ross hires her for the club upstairs (a gambling place). It doesn't take long for them to find her; she's ready to leave but Ross won't let her go. He wants to show that nobody can even harm his employees and get away with it, so he protects her, but by doing so he attracts troubles upon himself. He starts a war with local gangster Bix Lawson, who has been ordered by dangerous Cord to get the girl. Ross replies to every move: you blow up my place, I blow up three of yours. You send killers to shoot me, I send your men to the bottom of a pond, forever. Stuff like that.
Last try, knowing that Cord has sent his woman to get him into a trap, he goes prepared and manages to kill Whitey Cord and his two killers. At that point, the war with Lawson can end, and everything goes back as it was before. Plus, he has Stella.
Now, the title could be related to the fact that he sleeps with Stella but has no trouble in doing so with other women, not caring if she knows, at least at first, but it has very little to do with the story itself.
ITA e... dopo?
She doesn't trust the police to protect her, so she goes away saying nothing to anyone (she has no family or friends). Once there, she looks for a job and finds one. Sam Black runs a night club and young, attractive Clancy Ross hires her for the club upstairs (a gambling place). It doesn't take long for them to find her; she's ready to leave but Ross won't let her go. He wants to show that nobody can even harm his employees and get away with it, so he protects her, but by doing so he attracts troubles upon himself. He starts a war with local gangster Bix Lawson, who has been ordered by dangerous Cord to get the girl. Ross replies to every move: you blow up my place, I blow up three of yours. You send killers to shoot me, I send your men to the bottom of a pond, forever. Stuff like that.
Last try, knowing that Cord has sent his woman to get him into a trap, he goes prepared and manages to kill Whitey Cord and his two killers. At that point, the war with Lawson can end, and everything goes back as it was before. Plus, he has Stella.
Now, the title could be related to the fact that he sleeps with Stella but has no trouble in doing so with other women, not caring if she knows, at least at first, but it has very little to do with the story itself.
ITA e... dopo?
Temptress by Hal Ellson
A nice, very short story (eight pages) but very obvious indeed, nowadays. Of course that's to be expected, crime stories hardly keep with the time, specially after the huge amount of books/series/movies on the subject. This is nicely written but not at all a surprise. John promised his wife to quit drinking, but he hasn't. When his wife goes out shopping, a girl rings the doorbell. She goes door-to-door to do market research or something like that. He is very keen on not wanting to open the door, but she (Betty) rings insistently so he opens but he resists for a couple of times and does his best not to let her in, until one day he fails himself and invites her in.
It doesn't take long and he jumps on her, at first trying to rape her, then to strangle her when she resists. Luckily the police come. She's a cop herself, and he is accused of having murdered a girl that had tried to sell door-to-door like Betty. He remembers her, and says so, adding "that's why I wanted to prevent Betty from coming in..."
A psychological crime story, well written. Of course he's arrested.
ITA tentazione
It doesn't take long and he jumps on her, at first trying to rape her, then to strangle her when she resists. Luckily the police come. She's a cop herself, and he is accused of having murdered a girl that had tried to sell door-to-door like Betty. He remembers her, and says so, adding "that's why I wanted to prevent Betty from coming in..."
A psychological crime story, well written. Of course he's arrested.
ITA tentazione
In the three-ring circus by Brett Halliday
Nice but very simple and short: 36 pages. It's well written, well enough at least, but it's so short that as the investigation starts, it's already finished. Mike Shayne is a private investigator and he accepts a curious case: a circus might be under sabotage. Jolly the clown and Thumbo the dwarf own the circus, and Thumbo is sure that someone is trying to sabotage it. Shayne investigates. A lot of little accidents without serious consequences, until the old lion breaks loose and Thumbo almost has a heart attack. He has a weak heart, and this gives Shayne the idea that not the circus but Thumbo himself might be the intended victim. If Thumbo died, Jolly would be the only owner of the circus. Mike finds easily the proof he needs, and he can arrest Jolly and his accomplice, a girl who had written him love letters and would have liked to share with him the ownership. Thumbo is heartbroken but alive. That's it, nothing more. I found it in a collection of crime-stories, the only possible place for it.
ITA il circo a tre piste
ITA il circo a tre piste
Wasted effort by Belton Cobb
A very short story, no more than five pages, in which the bad guy wins. It wasn't bad, although I prefer stories where the bastards get what they deserve. Here we have Robert forced to call the police when he finds a dead body in his garden. It's of a man who was in love with Mary, Robert's wife, but she refused him and he committed suicide. When the police ask about Mary, Robert shows a letter that he himself wrote. The police believes that she left him and went away, nobody knows where but Robert. She's in the garden, six feet under...
ITA la lettera
ITA la lettera
Parking lot by R.C. Stimers jr
A very short story, no more than six pages. A man thinks he committed the perfect murder, but is immediately found out because he left his car in the parking lot all night, instead of going home as he told the police, so there's no trace of rain under his car. Probably a good enough switch at the time but nowadays quite common. It could have been a good start of a Columbo episode, but nothing more.
ITA parcheggio
ITA parcheggio
The casino murder case by SS Van Dine
Another Philo Vance book; not bad, the plot was a bit more interesting than 'the dragon murder case' but here there was no character that touched my heart. My curiosity on Van Dine was satisfied, though, in a few lines where I could learn that Van Dine and Vance were at University together and great friends too, so Van happily left his job in his father's firm (Van Dine, Davis and Van Dine) to go working for Vance, as a sort of secretary-lawyer-accountant..
The plot is..well, I must start from the end and explain everything right away, or it'll take me pages. So, rich Lynn Llewellyn lives with his wife Virginia, his mother and sister, his uncle Kincaid who owns the casino. The facts are: Vance is involved from the start because of a letter warning him that something will happen. During a night at Kincaid's casino Lynn feels sick and is brought to the hospital, because he's been poisoned. That same night his wife dies, poisoned. Shortly after, his sister is poisoned too, but like Lynn she gets well rather quickly. Every step seem to point at Kincaid, but Vance knows from the start that he's being framed, because of the letter. The final showdown shows Lynn threatening Vance, Van Dine and Markham with a gun, confessing everything. Honestly I wasn't all that surprised: when a wife dies, first thing to do in an investigation is: suspect the husband! He put poison in his wife's eyedrops, but he used something different and less dangerous to poison himself. At the end he wanted to shoot them inside Kincaid's casino, because he wanted Kincaid arrested for murder. Vance had sergeant Heath record the confession, and Kincaid's himself came to help, previously called by Vance. Honestly Markham doesn't seem all that much to me: brave and strong, yes, but not intelligent at all, always hasty in accepting the simple (and wrong) solution that is presented to him, and always impatient. I like more sergeant Heath. What surprises me every time is that Vance does everything: the interrogations, the investigation, he gives orders to everyone and they all obey him, and Markham does nothing but follow him waiting impatiently for his solution of the case. Pretty useless I'd say.
The plot is..well, I must start from the end and explain everything right away, or it'll take me pages. So, rich Lynn Llewellyn lives with his wife Virginia, his mother and sister, his uncle Kincaid who owns the casino. The facts are: Vance is involved from the start because of a letter warning him that something will happen. During a night at Kincaid's casino Lynn feels sick and is brought to the hospital, because he's been poisoned. That same night his wife dies, poisoned. Shortly after, his sister is poisoned too, but like Lynn she gets well rather quickly. Every step seem to point at Kincaid, but Vance knows from the start that he's being framed, because of the letter. The final showdown shows Lynn threatening Vance, Van Dine and Markham with a gun, confessing everything. Honestly I wasn't all that surprised: when a wife dies, first thing to do in an investigation is: suspect the husband! He put poison in his wife's eyedrops, but he used something different and less dangerous to poison himself. At the end he wanted to shoot them inside Kincaid's casino, because he wanted Kincaid arrested for murder. Vance had sergeant Heath record the confession, and Kincaid's himself came to help, previously called by Vance. Honestly Markham doesn't seem all that much to me: brave and strong, yes, but not intelligent at all, always hasty in accepting the simple (and wrong) solution that is presented to him, and always impatient. I like more sergeant Heath. What surprises me every time is that Vance does everything: the interrogations, the investigation, he gives orders to everyone and they all obey him, and Markham does nothing but follow him waiting impatiently for his solution of the case. Pretty useless I'd say.
The dragon murder case by SS Van Dine
This book is quite old, 1933, but I liked it and it didn't 'feel' old. There is no action in this book, but I didn't miss it. There are good characters and a good ending, and that I liked a lot. It's not easy to write a good ending, so often a bad ending has ruined an otherwise decent book or movie, and the ending is the most important thing! How it ends is much more important to me than how it starts, and this book was at times a bit boring (due mostly to its age and all the 'sergeant, call the butler and tell him to call Miss Stamm' things, and also to the descriptions of the locations and murder scene, very detailed to give us readers all the information we need, but totally wasted on me because I couldn't picture it in my head at all), but at the very end I closed it satisfied, with the feeling of having read a good book, and that is a good ending's clever trick.
It starts slowly, without a clear crime as such. Sergeant Heath received a call from Mr Leland, and he involved D.A. Markham (I think that's the right title, but I'm not 100% sure because unfortunately I didn't have this in English) and Philo Vance (and therefore Vance's friend Van Dine, the man that writes his stories :-D). Once on site they learn all the facts. At Mr Stamm's house there are various guests, along with his sister Bernice Stamm and their old, crazy mother. One of the guests, Montague, went to swim in the lake and never came out, so Mr Leland called the police, insisting for an investigation. All the guests, Leland included, had reasons to dislike Montague, but Markham is deeply annoyed because there's no proof of any crime yet. They keep investigating because Vance is very much interested in the mystery and sure enough Montague's body is eventually found, rather distant from the lake and not drowned but clearly murdered, and soon enough another guest will have the same fate. The title is due to a legend that puts a dragon in that lake, and the old woman believing the dragon protects her family against its enemies. Basically the book consists of Vance interrogating everyone then going to personally watch the 'crime scene' then coming back to interrogate some more , and so on, back and forth. It moves on very slowly, and yet the characters are well written, I could 'feel' their character and I really liked Leland, so quiet, intelligent, but with a beating heart.. :-)
He could not be the murderer, it would have been absurd, but since I liked him I feared for him, but luckily the explanation makes sense. On with the spoilers on the ending!
The murderer was Mr Stamm himself, using his diving suit and experience, and both Leland and Bernice had known it, but could not say it. All the time Leland had been torn in two between his love for Bernice and his sense of duty in front of a murder. He had decided to call the police out of duty without expressing his suspicions, hoping they would find out by themselves. Near the end, after Vance had discovered everything, Stamm died in an accident, which made things easier for everyone. The book ends with Vance fully explaining the events, plus a note or two on what happened next: Leland married Bernice and Stamm's butler, who shared his passion for exotic and rare fish, went working in a tropical fish shop :-) I found all this quite nice, because it's sweet that he didn't forget about the characters involved, like so often happens :-)
ITA il mistero del drago
It starts slowly, without a clear crime as such. Sergeant Heath received a call from Mr Leland, and he involved D.A. Markham (I think that's the right title, but I'm not 100% sure because unfortunately I didn't have this in English) and Philo Vance (and therefore Vance's friend Van Dine, the man that writes his stories :-D). Once on site they learn all the facts. At Mr Stamm's house there are various guests, along with his sister Bernice Stamm and their old, crazy mother. One of the guests, Montague, went to swim in the lake and never came out, so Mr Leland called the police, insisting for an investigation. All the guests, Leland included, had reasons to dislike Montague, but Markham is deeply annoyed because there's no proof of any crime yet. They keep investigating because Vance is very much interested in the mystery and sure enough Montague's body is eventually found, rather distant from the lake and not drowned but clearly murdered, and soon enough another guest will have the same fate. The title is due to a legend that puts a dragon in that lake, and the old woman believing the dragon protects her family against its enemies. Basically the book consists of Vance interrogating everyone then going to personally watch the 'crime scene' then coming back to interrogate some more , and so on, back and forth. It moves on very slowly, and yet the characters are well written, I could 'feel' their character and I really liked Leland, so quiet, intelligent, but with a beating heart.. :-)
He could not be the murderer, it would have been absurd, but since I liked him I feared for him, but luckily the explanation makes sense. On with the spoilers on the ending!
The murderer was Mr Stamm himself, using his diving suit and experience, and both Leland and Bernice had known it, but could not say it. All the time Leland had been torn in two between his love for Bernice and his sense of duty in front of a murder. He had decided to call the police out of duty without expressing his suspicions, hoping they would find out by themselves. Near the end, after Vance had discovered everything, Stamm died in an accident, which made things easier for everyone. The book ends with Vance fully explaining the events, plus a note or two on what happened next: Leland married Bernice and Stamm's butler, who shared his passion for exotic and rare fish, went working in a tropical fish shop :-) I found all this quite nice, because it's sweet that he didn't forget about the characters involved, like so often happens :-)
ITA il mistero del drago
Has anyone here seen Kelly? by Bryce Walton
A very short story taken from a 1954 science-fiction magazine. A very strange one, but interesting in a way. It speaks of a group of people on a spaceship, not exactly knowing what they were looking for or where they were headed, just that "they had come into space because that was how it was with those who fought their way up to being the dominate life form of whatever world they had lived on and grown and died on. If you were the kind who went into space, you went because space was there. Who needed a better reason than that?".
Aboard this ship there are: Kelly, human, and four aliens: Kew, Lakrit, Lijub, and Urdaz. They all got along quite well, but they were very different life-forms and the journey was extremely long, so they worked out a way of survival. Their bodies hibernated in the bunkroom could last longer, their consciousness merged in a "big glob of protoplasm in the tank". This way they could easily communicate and relate: being part of the Crew was actually very "comforting and cozy" and they had lived like that for fifty years now, but Kelly couldn't be satisfied by that only. He was the ship's engineer, he ought to take care of the ship, not vice-versa, and he also feared the danger of apathy; they felt so comfortable that had no interest in getting out and into their bodies again, so Kelly had a plan. He returned to his body and set a manual course towards a planet. There's nothing there, but he's not really interested in the planet itself. His plan is to crash the ship, to damage it enough to force the Crew to return to their alien bodies in order to repair it, a they once used to do. His plan goes awry when the ship crashes and the impact is so strong it destroys it. Kelly is desperate: the planet is dead, there's no life anywhere nor there can be, and his friends are now all dead. He wanders a bit, so he's not inside when the ship explodes destroying every food and record in it. Nobody would ever know, now. When the wind brought him the Crew's voices "has anybody here seen Kelly?" he thinks he's going mad and hearing their voices in his head, but then the voices reply to him, saying they didn't die in the crash or in the explosion. They are alive and waiting for him. I liked this bizarre revelation: "there was a kind of dull glow in it, a faint hint of warmth in the rock" - "this is the life here, Kelly. Perhaps there is life everywhere in the most impossible seeming places [...] Here, this rock is life, and it has taken us in, it has been here a long time. And it will be here for a much longer time" They have forgiven him for what he's done, he was trying to do the right thing, and they want him back, so Kelly joins them again. Perhaps one day someone will come here and find the rocks and find the Crew...
A very bizarre story but nice. Its shortness was a good thing: no time wasted with boring details, it'd have ruined it.
Aboard this ship there are: Kelly, human, and four aliens: Kew, Lakrit, Lijub, and Urdaz. They all got along quite well, but they were very different life-forms and the journey was extremely long, so they worked out a way of survival. Their bodies hibernated in the bunkroom could last longer, their consciousness merged in a "big glob of protoplasm in the tank". This way they could easily communicate and relate: being part of the Crew was actually very "comforting and cozy" and they had lived like that for fifty years now, but Kelly couldn't be satisfied by that only. He was the ship's engineer, he ought to take care of the ship, not vice-versa, and he also feared the danger of apathy; they felt so comfortable that had no interest in getting out and into their bodies again, so Kelly had a plan. He returned to his body and set a manual course towards a planet. There's nothing there, but he's not really interested in the planet itself. His plan is to crash the ship, to damage it enough to force the Crew to return to their alien bodies in order to repair it, a they once used to do. His plan goes awry when the ship crashes and the impact is so strong it destroys it. Kelly is desperate: the planet is dead, there's no life anywhere nor there can be, and his friends are now all dead. He wanders a bit, so he's not inside when the ship explodes destroying every food and record in it. Nobody would ever know, now. When the wind brought him the Crew's voices "has anybody here seen Kelly?" he thinks he's going mad and hearing their voices in his head, but then the voices reply to him, saying they didn't die in the crash or in the explosion. They are alive and waiting for him. I liked this bizarre revelation: "there was a kind of dull glow in it, a faint hint of warmth in the rock" - "this is the life here, Kelly. Perhaps there is life everywhere in the most impossible seeming places [...] Here, this rock is life, and it has taken us in, it has been here a long time. And it will be here for a much longer time" They have forgiven him for what he's done, he was trying to do the right thing, and they want him back, so Kelly joins them again. Perhaps one day someone will come here and find the rocks and find the Crew...
A very bizarre story but nice. Its shortness was a good thing: no time wasted with boring details, it'd have ruined it.
Jun 27, 2016
An ideal husband by Oscar Wilde
I really love Wilde's writing :-)
Sir Robert Chiltern has a good position in society and in politics, and he is the ideal man and husband at his wife Gertrude's eyes. Mrs Cheveley (Laura) brings trouble into it. She has proof (a letter) that he once sold a state private information for money, on which he built his wealth and career. She blackmails him into voting against his judgement to favor her interests. He would accept to save his reputation, but his wife has him refuse, so Mrs Cheveley tells her everything. Gertrude's shocked and Robert thinks he has lost her love. They both ask for Lord Goring's help, their dearest friend. He manages to get that letter from Mrs Cheveley because he has proof that she's a thief ( he once gave a diamond brooch to his cousin Lady Berkshire, brooch that is now in her possession). Goring then proposes to Robert's sister Mabel who accepts him in this way:
- Mabel I have told you that I love you. Can't you love me a little in return?
-You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about.. anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Every one in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you.
:-D
At first Robert doesn't consent to the marriage because he say Mrs Cheveley in Goring's house the night before, but after Gertrude's explanation all is settled and everyone's happy. :-)
The lines I'd like to remember:
Mabel Chiltern - Oh I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.
Mrs Cheveley - Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women...merely adored.
Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are (so it was Wilde who said it, not Lee Van Cleef!! :-p )
You know what a woman's curiosity is. Almost as great as a man's.
Lord Goring - I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.
Sir Robert Chiltern has a good position in society and in politics, and he is the ideal man and husband at his wife Gertrude's eyes. Mrs Cheveley (Laura) brings trouble into it. She has proof (a letter) that he once sold a state private information for money, on which he built his wealth and career. She blackmails him into voting against his judgement to favor her interests. He would accept to save his reputation, but his wife has him refuse, so Mrs Cheveley tells her everything. Gertrude's shocked and Robert thinks he has lost her love. They both ask for Lord Goring's help, their dearest friend. He manages to get that letter from Mrs Cheveley because he has proof that she's a thief ( he once gave a diamond brooch to his cousin Lady Berkshire, brooch that is now in her possession). Goring then proposes to Robert's sister Mabel who accepts him in this way:
- Mabel I have told you that I love you. Can't you love me a little in return?
-You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about.. anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Every one in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you.
:-D
At first Robert doesn't consent to the marriage because he say Mrs Cheveley in Goring's house the night before, but after Gertrude's explanation all is settled and everyone's happy. :-)
The lines I'd like to remember:
Mabel Chiltern - Oh I love London Society! I think it has immensely improved. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be.
Mrs Cheveley - Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women...merely adored.
Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are (so it was Wilde who said it, not Lee Van Cleef!! :-p )
You know what a woman's curiosity is. Almost as great as a man's.
Lord Goring - I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.
If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.
A woman of no importance by Oscar Wilde
I liked it a lot. Wilde's stories are always interesting, though this one is more melancholic than his other plays. It is a four-act play, with various characters of 'society' plus the protagonists that really matter to the story. A young American girl is among the guests and tells them and us how English Society is "shallow, selfish, foolish". Hester says "you rich people don't know how you are living. You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure" and much more. There is also young Gerald, who has no father and is quite poor, therefore he didn't have a good education. There's Lord Illingworth, who has great sympathy for the boy and just made him his personal secretary, a wonderful position for a man like Gerald. The title of this story comes from his own words. After seeing Mrs Arbuthnot's calligraphy, he says it reminds him of someone he knew. When asked who that person is, he replies "oh! No one. No one in particular. A woman of no importance". At the end, this answer will come again under different circumstances, and this time it will be just and true and it'll leave a smile on the reader's face.
The women call for Gerald's mother, Mrs Arbuthnot, to join them to rejoice on the promotion, but when she comes a bad surprise awaits. She recognizes in lord Illingworth the man that twenty years ago seduced her, made her fall in love, promised her to love and marry her, but that refused to do so when she informed him that she was pregnant. She had begged him, for the child's sake, but he would not, so she left him and he never saw her or the child again. Now, upon seeing her, he understands that Gerald is his own son and is more eager than ever to have him along, but now she won't let her son go with him. She tries everything to convince Gerald not to go with him, to stay with her, but he speaks very hardly and she's about to give up when Hester comes running for help. Lord Illingworth had tried to kiss her, and Gerald who is in love with her instantly rises to her defense, declaring he would kill him for insulting her as he did. Mrs Arbuthnot shouts for him to stop, but he only stops when she reveals the truth about him being his own father. The next and final act sees Gerald writing a letter to him, to decline the offer and insist that it's his duty to marry her (the little idiot *sigh*). Mrs Arbuthnot is shocked and refuses the idea with great decision, of course. He insists, but she's not allowing even the idea of it. "Mother, you must"-"I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement possible. I am disgraced: he is not. That is all. It is the usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The man goes free"
Gerald can't understand until Hester comes in and hearing their words she throws herself in her arms, crying that she must not do such a thing. She then confesses she loves Gerald too, and that there are other places they can go to where Mrs Arbuthnot's past will no longer be important. Hester is rich, and quite happy to share it with Gerald, but she doesn't just want to go away with him, she wants her to go with them and count her as a daughter. While the young ones wait in the garden, lord Illingworth comes to say he wants his son, but she only wants him to go. He reads Gerald's letter, sill on the table, and although he doesn't feel it is his 'duty', he is ready to marry her to have his son, but to his surprise she strongly refuses. When he understands that Gerald and Hester are to get married, he also understands that his money is useless and he can not convince her. Before going he says "it's been an amusing experience to have meet amongst people of one's own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one's mistress, and one's..." but he can't go on because she slaps his face with his own glove, the disgusting man. After he goes away, Gerald and Hester come looking for her. They see the glove on the floor and ask about the visitor. "Who was it?" - "Oh! No one. No one in particular. A man of no importance" Yeah, none at all!!
Let me tell you how annoying it was to 'hear' Illingworth talk of Gerald as 'our son' or 'my son'.. as if he had any claim on him. He doesn't. He had his chance and he refused. I guess people would say 'he's still his father' but I do not like those stories. I don't like them because it's too easy to run away from the responsibility and the hard moments and then easily come back when everything's done and taken care of, and all he has to do is spend some money. I despise that. Love doesn't come from blood alone, love comes from love, from respect, admiration, devotion, and stuff like that.
Nobody should try to buy it with money. Nobody should call himself a man and be so pathetic. They should earn love, not buy it. They should try earning it, giving time and attention and care, not giving mere money.
Wilde's lines I'd like to remember:
Mrs Arbuthnot - When a man is old enough to do wrong, he should be old enough to do right also.
- You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions and for them, if you will. I have two passions, lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other
Lord Illingworth - if you want to know what a woman really means - which by the way is always a dangerous thing to do - look at her, don't listen to her.
Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.
Mrs Allonby - Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being?
The women call for Gerald's mother, Mrs Arbuthnot, to join them to rejoice on the promotion, but when she comes a bad surprise awaits. She recognizes in lord Illingworth the man that twenty years ago seduced her, made her fall in love, promised her to love and marry her, but that refused to do so when she informed him that she was pregnant. She had begged him, for the child's sake, but he would not, so she left him and he never saw her or the child again. Now, upon seeing her, he understands that Gerald is his own son and is more eager than ever to have him along, but now she won't let her son go with him. She tries everything to convince Gerald not to go with him, to stay with her, but he speaks very hardly and she's about to give up when Hester comes running for help. Lord Illingworth had tried to kiss her, and Gerald who is in love with her instantly rises to her defense, declaring he would kill him for insulting her as he did. Mrs Arbuthnot shouts for him to stop, but he only stops when she reveals the truth about him being his own father. The next and final act sees Gerald writing a letter to him, to decline the offer and insist that it's his duty to marry her (the little idiot *sigh*). Mrs Arbuthnot is shocked and refuses the idea with great decision, of course. He insists, but she's not allowing even the idea of it. "Mother, you must"-"I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement possible. I am disgraced: he is not. That is all. It is the usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The man goes free"
Gerald can't understand until Hester comes in and hearing their words she throws herself in her arms, crying that she must not do such a thing. She then confesses she loves Gerald too, and that there are other places they can go to where Mrs Arbuthnot's past will no longer be important. Hester is rich, and quite happy to share it with Gerald, but she doesn't just want to go away with him, she wants her to go with them and count her as a daughter. While the young ones wait in the garden, lord Illingworth comes to say he wants his son, but she only wants him to go. He reads Gerald's letter, sill on the table, and although he doesn't feel it is his 'duty', he is ready to marry her to have his son, but to his surprise she strongly refuses. When he understands that Gerald and Hester are to get married, he also understands that his money is useless and he can not convince her. Before going he says "it's been an amusing experience to have meet amongst people of one's own rank, and treated quite seriously too, one's mistress, and one's..." but he can't go on because she slaps his face with his own glove, the disgusting man. After he goes away, Gerald and Hester come looking for her. They see the glove on the floor and ask about the visitor. "Who was it?" - "Oh! No one. No one in particular. A man of no importance" Yeah, none at all!!
Let me tell you how annoying it was to 'hear' Illingworth talk of Gerald as 'our son' or 'my son'.. as if he had any claim on him. He doesn't. He had his chance and he refused. I guess people would say 'he's still his father' but I do not like those stories. I don't like them because it's too easy to run away from the responsibility and the hard moments and then easily come back when everything's done and taken care of, and all he has to do is spend some money. I despise that. Love doesn't come from blood alone, love comes from love, from respect, admiration, devotion, and stuff like that.
Nobody should try to buy it with money. Nobody should call himself a man and be so pathetic. They should earn love, not buy it. They should try earning it, giving time and attention and care, not giving mere money.
Wilde's lines I'd like to remember:
Mrs Arbuthnot - When a man is old enough to do wrong, he should be old enough to do right also.
- You are right. We women live by our emotions and for them. By our passions and for them, if you will. I have two passions, lord Illingworth: my love of him, my hate of you. You cannot kill those. They feed each other
Lord Illingworth - if you want to know what a woman really means - which by the way is always a dangerous thing to do - look at her, don't listen to her.
Talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.
One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.
Mrs Allonby - Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly rational being?
The hound of death by Agatha Christie
A collection of short stories with a common theme: the occult.
The first, The hound of death (ITA il segugio della morte) is less than twenty pages long. There is a nun, Marie Angelique, who is in a confused state of mind. A moment she's coherent, the next she's talking about the Six Signs, the Hound of Death, telepathy and the power of death...
Mr Anstruther comes across her story by chance and meets her twice, in the company of dottor Rose that has taken a personal interest in helping her but his mention of 'power' makes the reader doubt him, and with reason. The story ends with Mr Anstruther receiving two letters. In the first the nun asks for his help, telling him the doctor wants to learn from her the sixth sign, the sign of death; the second letter comes from his sister. She tells him a rather sinister story about the doctor's and the nun's deaths. The doctor's uncle died, struck by lightning. After that, all his money were to go to the doctor, but he died too, along with the nun, when his house was destroyed. Mr Anstruther thinks that maybe the doctor used the sign of death on his uncle, but he made the mistake of 'completing the circle' and death had come back, to him, but then, in a very British way, he discards the whole thing as nonsense, certain things don't exist, everything must have a perfectly rational explanation.
The red signal (ITA il segnale rosso) story n. 2. This is about premonition, intuition, sixth sense, and spiritism. A dinner at Jack and Claire Trent's house. Among the guests: rich psychiatrist Sir Alington West and his only relative Dermot West. Dermot has experienced before some kind of premonition, a 'signal' inside him, a 'red signal' that means danger. A couple of times already this red signal saved his life. Tonight he feels the same. He's madly in love with Claire, his best friend's wife, and because of this he can't think straight. When Sir Alington speaks of madness and how it is ereditary, Claire is very nervous and Dermot believes he's talking about her. During a séance there's a strange warning: "don't go home". Dermot thinks it's for him, so he's not worried when Sir Alington wants to talk to him at his house. They arrive at Sir Alington's and when the doctor tells him he's absolutely sure that it's a grave case of madness, homicidal madness, that needs seclusion, Dermot goes out of his mind. Not doubting for a second that he's talking about Claire, they fight. Dermot shouts that he'll run away with her and will protect her at all costs, and the butler hears them shout: "if you do that I'll change my will and you'll have nothing"_"I don't care, say a word against her and I'll kill you". Dermot won't listen when Sir Alington tries to talk to him some more, instead he goes away, he meets Claire who tells him that she loves him but there's no hope for them, oh it's so horrible, and then he goes home to find a gun in his drawer and the police at his door. He learns that Sir Alington has been killed and everything is against him. At Jack's house, while Dermot tries to make sense of it all, Jack starts laughing and confesses everything. The house is locked, Dermot can't escape. Jack will call the police because he wants Dermot to be hanged. Jack killed Sir Alington because he had understood everything, including his intention of killing Claire with a knife. Luckily for Dermot, Claire is there with a police inspector and he hears everything, so he's safe. The happy ending is given by the fact that now Jack will probably be hanged, thus freeing Claire. When she said 'horrible' and Sir Alington had spoken of no hope, they meant that by law Claire could not divorce a 'mad' husband, and therefore could never be free. The 'red signal' was right again, and also the 'don't go home' warning was right, but not just for one person!
Story 3- The fourth man (ITA Il quarto uomo) A doctor, a lawyer and a priest talk on a train about the extraordinary case of Felicie Bault and her four personalities and her "impossible death" when the fourth man joins in the conversation, telling them what they don't know, because he grew up with Felicie. They grew up in a house for orphans (but not an orphanage): there was Felicie, whose father had strangled her mother, and Annette: her mother was a "fille de joie" and died of tubercolosis after her father abandoned them. Annette is full of life and beautiful and wants to become famous. Felicie is very slow, everyone thinks she's stupid, but she's very strong and her health is perfect. Annette mocks and humiliates Felicie, and once she even hypnotized her into eating a candle in front of all the other laughing kids. Felicie hates her but for some reason (fascination or forced obedience) she follows her everywhere and obeys everything she tells her to do. As time goes by Annette becomes a singer, she loves the theatre and being a famous artist, but her health is not good and she'll have to leave it all and go back to the house. She's so sick everybody thinks she'll die but she insists that her will is stronger than her body and she'll live. She repeats that until the day she dies. After that day, Felicie starts acting weird, sometimes she's like another person, someone who plays the piano and can act very well, and other moments she remembers nothing about it and is the old stupid self again, until one day she says that she can hear Annette inside her head, trying to take over, to drive her out, and she's terrorized but still says that if that day will ever come, she'll use on her all the strength of her hands... Months or years later she was found dead, strangled by her own hands.
The gipsy (ITA la zingara) Dickie has always been scared of gipsies because every time one gives him a warning, something bad happens to him, until he dies after an operation. His friend McFarlane goes to talk to a gipsy who knew him, and learns that she has the gift/curse of seeing things. She married Maurice because she sensed a great danger over him and hoped to save him, but the next day she dies because in the dark he gave her the wrong thing to drink... she couldn't save him after all, and this was Fate's cruel joke. About Dickie, he was simply an idiot: every time a gipsy warned him of something, he was terrified of the woman but always ran and did exactly what she warned him against. What a genius...
The ramp (ITA la lanterna) An old house is said to be haunted. Once a man and a child lived there; he was a criminal and one day killed himself to avoid prison. The child was left alone, scared, and without food, until he died. Now Mrs Lancaster moves in with her dad and her son Geoff. She can't sense anything, but her old father often hears desperate crying, and Geoff even sees the child, so lonely and so desperate that Geoff wants to help him. Geoff is weak and one day he gets sick, and the doctors have no hope, but Geoff is happy he'll finally be able to help his little friend. When he dies, his spirit joins the other one and now there is the noise of 'two' pair of feet and of laughter instead of crying. The children leave the house together, I guess to go 'to the other side'.
Wireless (la radio) An old, rich woman, Mrs Harter, has a weak heart and her doctor says she must live a quiet, peaceful life, and to his nephew Charles he clearly said that strong emotions could be the end of her. Mrs Harter is very rich and she had tried to find an heir among nieces and nephews. Miriam had been a disappointment because she was young and reckless and easily bored in her company, and had married a man that she didn't like, so she had tried with Charles. He was polite, kind, listened to her stories with interest and would tell her compliments many times a day. Mrs Hartner had therefore changed her will leaving everything to Charles. Now he convinced her that she needed a radio to keep her mind occupied. At first she wasn't happy but she soon got used to it and liked to listen to concerts or other local programs. When Charles was out, she started hearing strange things. From time to time the music would stop and a voice would call her, telling her he was her dead husband coming to get her. She was a brave woman and when the last message said : Friday night , she asked for her will to be sent to her, to check what she had written. She thought what she had left to her maid was not enough, so she gave her some more (she had left her 50, she gave her another 50 to make it 100). She waited, that night, for her late husband; she had prepared everything for her demise, and when she saw a man with a long beard coming in, her heart failed her and she died. Charles was now quite happy of his little plan. He was careful to burn the fake beard and take care of everything that might lead to him. He was in deep trouble and needed a lot of money or he could go to jail, and now he did, he had a lot. He asked for his aunt's will, but it could not be found, and in the end he remembers seeing her with something in her hand, that night, a piece of paper that fell on the fire... without it, it will be valid the old will, the one before this, which stated that everything would go to Miriam, who now has four children. Good, I say, but Charles didn't feel the same way. As if that wasn't enough, the doctor told him Mrs Harter's health was worse than he had imagined, and would not have lived more than one or two months... ah, the irony!
The witness of the prosecution (ITA testimone d'accusa) I liked this, a crime story, quite interesting. The crime has already happened. Leonard is very poor. He meets an old woman, very rich. He is kind to her and she likes having him around. They spend time together. One night she is brutally killed and Leonard is charged with murder. This is the story of his lawyer Mayherne trying to save him. Mayherne believes his words of innocence, but everything is against him. Leonard is optimistic though, because his wife loves him very much and will testify that he was at home. Mayherne is not so optimistic because he doubts the words of a woman madly in love will be able to save him. Mayherne will have many surprises though. The woman, beautiful Romaine, says he's not her husband but they live together (she's married to a madman and therefore can't divorce), but she hates him and will testify that he confessed the murder to her. Mayherne then meets an old, disfigured woman that can prove Romaine is lying. She has letters that prove she loves someone else and wants him hanged. During the trial things go according to Mayherne's plan, and once Romaine is discredited, all the jury is in Leonard's side, and he is found 'not guilty'. After thinking about habits and how Romaine moves her hands, Mayherne realizes she was the old woman. At the end of the story Mayherne meets Romaine again, but we are not told where. I guess she spent some time in jail for lying in court, but maybe she's already out, it is not said. Romaine conferms Mayherne's belief: yes, it was her, the letters were fake, she never loved anyone else and she deeply loved Leonard and had to save him, and the jury would not have believed the words of a woman in love, so she thought of a plan that would have worked, and it ends with the most important line: Romaine knew he was guilty!
The mistery of the blue jar (ITA il mistero del vaso azzurro) This was kind of fun, in a way. Jack loves to go golfing every morning before work. One morning he hears a woman's voice yelling Help and Murder; he runs and he meets a girl who says she heard nothing. The same thing happens again and again, always in the morning. He seems to be the only one hearing it, and that beautiful girl looks at him as if he's insane. He tries going to the same place with another person, again he hears the yell but Dr Lavington appears to have heard nothing. He thinks he's going mad but the doctor tells him he's not, he's probably 'feeling' something, and offers to investigate together. He tells Jack that nobody has ever seen again the woman that lived there before beautiful Felise came. To confirm this, Felise herself comes to tell them of her dreams of a woman yelling the same words, a woman with a blue jar. In Felise's dreams, this jar had apparently a great importance, and Lavington suggested to try a sort of seance. That jar was bought by Jack's uncle, so Jack goes home and takes the jar. He goes to Felise's cottage with Dr Lavington, drinks a cup of coffee there, and then wait in the dark for something to happen. He wakes up the next day but he's no more in the cottage, and can't find them. He meets his uncle and tells him everything, also adding how worried he is for his two friends, when his uncle asks about the jar. What happened to the jar? It was Ming, best piece of his collection, he already had an offer for 10.000 £... Jack tried again to find Lavington but only found a letter. Poor stupid Jack, I say. Felise was so beautiful he never even thought of doubting her words, and he was so relieved Lavington didn't think him mad that he made a hero out of him, again never doubting him for a second, and gave them the precious jar without a moment of hesitation.
The strange case of Sir Arthur Carmichael (ITA lo strano caso di Sir Arthur Carmichael) A strange story. After his father's death, young Sir Arthur lives with his father's second wife and her son. Arthur is now engaged to Phyllis, when something happens to him. He moves in a strange way, only drinks milk and doesn't speak. Doctor Settle calls for the help of his friend Dr Carstairs. As he arrives to the house, he witness this: he sees and hears a cat that is not there, while Arthur behaves like a cat himself. Carstairs learns that there was a cat once, but Lady Carmichael had to 'put him to sleep', if I can use this expression, with hydrocyanic acid. The spirit of the cat is furious with lady Carmichael and almost kills her once, then Arthur falls on into the pond. Phyllis says he can swim very well, but the two doctors have reasons to fear and run to him. They try to get him out and help him, but it looks like it's too late. Phyllis throws herself on him crying desperately "come back to me! come back to me!" and Arthur came back to life, and he was his old self again, with no memory at all of the last month. When she saw him, lady Carmichael died of shock. Carstairs thinks it's because she had killed Arthur with the acid...
How romantic was Agatha, having Arthur come back to life at the sound of Phyllis voice :-)
The call of wings (Il richiamo delle ali) What a strange story, I don't know what to think of it. It's the story of rich Silas Hamer. Once poor, he became very rich and is now a happy man; not interested in power, he loves the comforts that money can buy. One day he witnesses an accident, a poor man under a bus. A man tells him not to feel guilty, nothing he could have done, but he's not feeling guilty, he's feeling scared, terrorized at the thought of death that comes for everyone, the poor and the rich alike. This is because he loves his life now, with all the comforts he can afford. Going home, he meets a man (who will later reveal to be Pan): he's playing a strange, beautiful music, and Hamer is captured by it and shows it. He will hear the same music at night, and every time it'll be better and more addicting. He feels like he's flying, free, a wonderful sensation, but the end of it every time is more difficult and painful; he feels trapped in his home, by the walls, by all the things that he cherished. He realizes talking to a friend that he'll never feel completely free until he has his money and all the things that made his life so enjoyable before. He arranges to leave everything to a priest (or whatever) that will use it to help the poor, and feels finally free. Worried about his future, the cold, the hunger, but in a way feeling that it was important because nothing can compare to that wonderful sensation he felt hearing the mystic music. He takes the train to go to the park (the tube I think) and sees a young man losing his balance and fall. In a second many thoughts dwell inside him, he's the only one who can help, it's dangerous but he can save him if he wants, and in a way this time there's nothing to stop him and he jumps. He saves the guy, but can't save himself, but he had no more fear, the material world he lived in has no more grip on him, he was free, and he felt now those wings that many nights he had felt were calling him, around him.
Now, I can understand the symbolism and the good message and everything, but I still think it's sad: if every story regarding self-improvement, conscience, soul, end with death, it's no wonder if so many people are bastards but alive.
The last seance (ITA l'ultima seduta) This was terrible, I knew what was going to happen and it was hard to read it. A young medium, Simone, is the real thing and her seance are spectacular, always a great success. She's engaged to Raoul, who is very proud of her, so much I feel in him pride is bigger than love. Simone's maid tells him of how ill Simone is, how bad all this is for her, then Simone tells him she's scared, terrorized, feeling something bad is going to happen to her. She cries more than once that she doesn't wanna do it anymore, that he had promised her, but he reminds her she has an appointment for that same day. Madame Exe paid a fortune for that seance. Raoul had been present the last time, and he had seen clearly the child, more than an image, she was solid, flesh and blood, he had touched her but realizing he hurt Simone he forbade Madame Exe to touch her. Today Simone begs Raoul to stop it, she doesn't want to do it, but he makes her feel guilty, the idiot: "as a woman you should understand the pain of a mother that has lost her child" so Simone accepts - seems to me she totally understood that, but he didn't, he did not understand such pain, and the effect of the word 'mum' and what a mother would do to get her child back. When Madame Exe arrives, she has a rope with her. She says she wants to be sure there are no tricks and Raoul is all Sure, tie me up tight, there are no tricks here, Simone is a real wonder! So when the child appears, more real and complete than ever, calling her 'maman', Raoul can't do nothing but shout. Madame Exe touches the child, ignoring Simone's pain. Raoul shouts again, but the woman tells him she doesn't care about the medium at all, she only cares about her child come back to life. She hugs her little child and takes her out of the house. When Raoul manages to free himself, he can see Simone is dead, and her body is half her usual size.
S.O.S. (Ita. S.O.S.) A story kind of like the movie 'The Shining'. A secluded place, a lonely house where many years before a man had killed his wife. The Dinsmead family goes to live in this house. Mortimer Cleveland knocks at their door one night by mere chance: his car has abandoned him. He notices the strange atmosphere and later on he finds the letters s.o.s. written in the dust. Who wrote it and why? Exactly like Poirot, Cleveland will stop and think until he has the solution. Mather and father had told him that Magdalene was adopted and about to inherit a nice amount of money, but Cleveland noticed that Charlotte looks nothing like her mother, and that the tea that was thrown away when he arrived was still hot, not cold at all... he finds out the truth and is able to stop the tragedy. Magdalene was the real daughter, Charlotte the adopted one. The man wanted his daughter to inherit but for this he needed Charlotte to disappear... so he had poisoned her tea. Cleveland saved her though. It is said that they acted like that because of the influence of the house.
The end, no more stories.
The first, The hound of death (ITA il segugio della morte) is less than twenty pages long. There is a nun, Marie Angelique, who is in a confused state of mind. A moment she's coherent, the next she's talking about the Six Signs, the Hound of Death, telepathy and the power of death...
Mr Anstruther comes across her story by chance and meets her twice, in the company of dottor Rose that has taken a personal interest in helping her but his mention of 'power' makes the reader doubt him, and with reason. The story ends with Mr Anstruther receiving two letters. In the first the nun asks for his help, telling him the doctor wants to learn from her the sixth sign, the sign of death; the second letter comes from his sister. She tells him a rather sinister story about the doctor's and the nun's deaths. The doctor's uncle died, struck by lightning. After that, all his money were to go to the doctor, but he died too, along with the nun, when his house was destroyed. Mr Anstruther thinks that maybe the doctor used the sign of death on his uncle, but he made the mistake of 'completing the circle' and death had come back, to him, but then, in a very British way, he discards the whole thing as nonsense, certain things don't exist, everything must have a perfectly rational explanation.
The red signal (ITA il segnale rosso) story n. 2. This is about premonition, intuition, sixth sense, and spiritism. A dinner at Jack and Claire Trent's house. Among the guests: rich psychiatrist Sir Alington West and his only relative Dermot West. Dermot has experienced before some kind of premonition, a 'signal' inside him, a 'red signal' that means danger. A couple of times already this red signal saved his life. Tonight he feels the same. He's madly in love with Claire, his best friend's wife, and because of this he can't think straight. When Sir Alington speaks of madness and how it is ereditary, Claire is very nervous and Dermot believes he's talking about her. During a séance there's a strange warning: "don't go home". Dermot thinks it's for him, so he's not worried when Sir Alington wants to talk to him at his house. They arrive at Sir Alington's and when the doctor tells him he's absolutely sure that it's a grave case of madness, homicidal madness, that needs seclusion, Dermot goes out of his mind. Not doubting for a second that he's talking about Claire, they fight. Dermot shouts that he'll run away with her and will protect her at all costs, and the butler hears them shout: "if you do that I'll change my will and you'll have nothing"_"I don't care, say a word against her and I'll kill you". Dermot won't listen when Sir Alington tries to talk to him some more, instead he goes away, he meets Claire who tells him that she loves him but there's no hope for them, oh it's so horrible, and then he goes home to find a gun in his drawer and the police at his door. He learns that Sir Alington has been killed and everything is against him. At Jack's house, while Dermot tries to make sense of it all, Jack starts laughing and confesses everything. The house is locked, Dermot can't escape. Jack will call the police because he wants Dermot to be hanged. Jack killed Sir Alington because he had understood everything, including his intention of killing Claire with a knife. Luckily for Dermot, Claire is there with a police inspector and he hears everything, so he's safe. The happy ending is given by the fact that now Jack will probably be hanged, thus freeing Claire. When she said 'horrible' and Sir Alington had spoken of no hope, they meant that by law Claire could not divorce a 'mad' husband, and therefore could never be free. The 'red signal' was right again, and also the 'don't go home' warning was right, but not just for one person!
Story 3- The fourth man (ITA Il quarto uomo) A doctor, a lawyer and a priest talk on a train about the extraordinary case of Felicie Bault and her four personalities and her "impossible death" when the fourth man joins in the conversation, telling them what they don't know, because he grew up with Felicie. They grew up in a house for orphans (but not an orphanage): there was Felicie, whose father had strangled her mother, and Annette: her mother was a "fille de joie" and died of tubercolosis after her father abandoned them. Annette is full of life and beautiful and wants to become famous. Felicie is very slow, everyone thinks she's stupid, but she's very strong and her health is perfect. Annette mocks and humiliates Felicie, and once she even hypnotized her into eating a candle in front of all the other laughing kids. Felicie hates her but for some reason (fascination or forced obedience) she follows her everywhere and obeys everything she tells her to do. As time goes by Annette becomes a singer, she loves the theatre and being a famous artist, but her health is not good and she'll have to leave it all and go back to the house. She's so sick everybody thinks she'll die but she insists that her will is stronger than her body and she'll live. She repeats that until the day she dies. After that day, Felicie starts acting weird, sometimes she's like another person, someone who plays the piano and can act very well, and other moments she remembers nothing about it and is the old stupid self again, until one day she says that she can hear Annette inside her head, trying to take over, to drive her out, and she's terrorized but still says that if that day will ever come, she'll use on her all the strength of her hands... Months or years later she was found dead, strangled by her own hands.
The gipsy (ITA la zingara) Dickie has always been scared of gipsies because every time one gives him a warning, something bad happens to him, until he dies after an operation. His friend McFarlane goes to talk to a gipsy who knew him, and learns that she has the gift/curse of seeing things. She married Maurice because she sensed a great danger over him and hoped to save him, but the next day she dies because in the dark he gave her the wrong thing to drink... she couldn't save him after all, and this was Fate's cruel joke. About Dickie, he was simply an idiot: every time a gipsy warned him of something, he was terrified of the woman but always ran and did exactly what she warned him against. What a genius...
The ramp (ITA la lanterna) An old house is said to be haunted. Once a man and a child lived there; he was a criminal and one day killed himself to avoid prison. The child was left alone, scared, and without food, until he died. Now Mrs Lancaster moves in with her dad and her son Geoff. She can't sense anything, but her old father often hears desperate crying, and Geoff even sees the child, so lonely and so desperate that Geoff wants to help him. Geoff is weak and one day he gets sick, and the doctors have no hope, but Geoff is happy he'll finally be able to help his little friend. When he dies, his spirit joins the other one and now there is the noise of 'two' pair of feet and of laughter instead of crying. The children leave the house together, I guess to go 'to the other side'.
Wireless (la radio) An old, rich woman, Mrs Harter, has a weak heart and her doctor says she must live a quiet, peaceful life, and to his nephew Charles he clearly said that strong emotions could be the end of her. Mrs Harter is very rich and she had tried to find an heir among nieces and nephews. Miriam had been a disappointment because she was young and reckless and easily bored in her company, and had married a man that she didn't like, so she had tried with Charles. He was polite, kind, listened to her stories with interest and would tell her compliments many times a day. Mrs Hartner had therefore changed her will leaving everything to Charles. Now he convinced her that she needed a radio to keep her mind occupied. At first she wasn't happy but she soon got used to it and liked to listen to concerts or other local programs. When Charles was out, she started hearing strange things. From time to time the music would stop and a voice would call her, telling her he was her dead husband coming to get her. She was a brave woman and when the last message said : Friday night , she asked for her will to be sent to her, to check what she had written. She thought what she had left to her maid was not enough, so she gave her some more (she had left her 50, she gave her another 50 to make it 100). She waited, that night, for her late husband; she had prepared everything for her demise, and when she saw a man with a long beard coming in, her heart failed her and she died. Charles was now quite happy of his little plan. He was careful to burn the fake beard and take care of everything that might lead to him. He was in deep trouble and needed a lot of money or he could go to jail, and now he did, he had a lot. He asked for his aunt's will, but it could not be found, and in the end he remembers seeing her with something in her hand, that night, a piece of paper that fell on the fire... without it, it will be valid the old will, the one before this, which stated that everything would go to Miriam, who now has four children. Good, I say, but Charles didn't feel the same way. As if that wasn't enough, the doctor told him Mrs Harter's health was worse than he had imagined, and would not have lived more than one or two months... ah, the irony!
The witness of the prosecution (ITA testimone d'accusa) I liked this, a crime story, quite interesting. The crime has already happened. Leonard is very poor. He meets an old woman, very rich. He is kind to her and she likes having him around. They spend time together. One night she is brutally killed and Leonard is charged with murder. This is the story of his lawyer Mayherne trying to save him. Mayherne believes his words of innocence, but everything is against him. Leonard is optimistic though, because his wife loves him very much and will testify that he was at home. Mayherne is not so optimistic because he doubts the words of a woman madly in love will be able to save him. Mayherne will have many surprises though. The woman, beautiful Romaine, says he's not her husband but they live together (she's married to a madman and therefore can't divorce), but she hates him and will testify that he confessed the murder to her. Mayherne then meets an old, disfigured woman that can prove Romaine is lying. She has letters that prove she loves someone else and wants him hanged. During the trial things go according to Mayherne's plan, and once Romaine is discredited, all the jury is in Leonard's side, and he is found 'not guilty'. After thinking about habits and how Romaine moves her hands, Mayherne realizes she was the old woman. At the end of the story Mayherne meets Romaine again, but we are not told where. I guess she spent some time in jail for lying in court, but maybe she's already out, it is not said. Romaine conferms Mayherne's belief: yes, it was her, the letters were fake, she never loved anyone else and she deeply loved Leonard and had to save him, and the jury would not have believed the words of a woman in love, so she thought of a plan that would have worked, and it ends with the most important line: Romaine knew he was guilty!
The mistery of the blue jar (ITA il mistero del vaso azzurro) This was kind of fun, in a way. Jack loves to go golfing every morning before work. One morning he hears a woman's voice yelling Help and Murder; he runs and he meets a girl who says she heard nothing. The same thing happens again and again, always in the morning. He seems to be the only one hearing it, and that beautiful girl looks at him as if he's insane. He tries going to the same place with another person, again he hears the yell but Dr Lavington appears to have heard nothing. He thinks he's going mad but the doctor tells him he's not, he's probably 'feeling' something, and offers to investigate together. He tells Jack that nobody has ever seen again the woman that lived there before beautiful Felise came. To confirm this, Felise herself comes to tell them of her dreams of a woman yelling the same words, a woman with a blue jar. In Felise's dreams, this jar had apparently a great importance, and Lavington suggested to try a sort of seance. That jar was bought by Jack's uncle, so Jack goes home and takes the jar. He goes to Felise's cottage with Dr Lavington, drinks a cup of coffee there, and then wait in the dark for something to happen. He wakes up the next day but he's no more in the cottage, and can't find them. He meets his uncle and tells him everything, also adding how worried he is for his two friends, when his uncle asks about the jar. What happened to the jar? It was Ming, best piece of his collection, he already had an offer for 10.000 £... Jack tried again to find Lavington but only found a letter. Poor stupid Jack, I say. Felise was so beautiful he never even thought of doubting her words, and he was so relieved Lavington didn't think him mad that he made a hero out of him, again never doubting him for a second, and gave them the precious jar without a moment of hesitation.
The strange case of Sir Arthur Carmichael (ITA lo strano caso di Sir Arthur Carmichael) A strange story. After his father's death, young Sir Arthur lives with his father's second wife and her son. Arthur is now engaged to Phyllis, when something happens to him. He moves in a strange way, only drinks milk and doesn't speak. Doctor Settle calls for the help of his friend Dr Carstairs. As he arrives to the house, he witness this: he sees and hears a cat that is not there, while Arthur behaves like a cat himself. Carstairs learns that there was a cat once, but Lady Carmichael had to 'put him to sleep', if I can use this expression, with hydrocyanic acid. The spirit of the cat is furious with lady Carmichael and almost kills her once, then Arthur falls on into the pond. Phyllis says he can swim very well, but the two doctors have reasons to fear and run to him. They try to get him out and help him, but it looks like it's too late. Phyllis throws herself on him crying desperately "come back to me! come back to me!" and Arthur came back to life, and he was his old self again, with no memory at all of the last month. When she saw him, lady Carmichael died of shock. Carstairs thinks it's because she had killed Arthur with the acid...
How romantic was Agatha, having Arthur come back to life at the sound of Phyllis voice :-)
The call of wings (Il richiamo delle ali) What a strange story, I don't know what to think of it. It's the story of rich Silas Hamer. Once poor, he became very rich and is now a happy man; not interested in power, he loves the comforts that money can buy. One day he witnesses an accident, a poor man under a bus. A man tells him not to feel guilty, nothing he could have done, but he's not feeling guilty, he's feeling scared, terrorized at the thought of death that comes for everyone, the poor and the rich alike. This is because he loves his life now, with all the comforts he can afford. Going home, he meets a man (who will later reveal to be Pan): he's playing a strange, beautiful music, and Hamer is captured by it and shows it. He will hear the same music at night, and every time it'll be better and more addicting. He feels like he's flying, free, a wonderful sensation, but the end of it every time is more difficult and painful; he feels trapped in his home, by the walls, by all the things that he cherished. He realizes talking to a friend that he'll never feel completely free until he has his money and all the things that made his life so enjoyable before. He arranges to leave everything to a priest (or whatever) that will use it to help the poor, and feels finally free. Worried about his future, the cold, the hunger, but in a way feeling that it was important because nothing can compare to that wonderful sensation he felt hearing the mystic music. He takes the train to go to the park (the tube I think) and sees a young man losing his balance and fall. In a second many thoughts dwell inside him, he's the only one who can help, it's dangerous but he can save him if he wants, and in a way this time there's nothing to stop him and he jumps. He saves the guy, but can't save himself, but he had no more fear, the material world he lived in has no more grip on him, he was free, and he felt now those wings that many nights he had felt were calling him, around him.
Now, I can understand the symbolism and the good message and everything, but I still think it's sad: if every story regarding self-improvement, conscience, soul, end with death, it's no wonder if so many people are bastards but alive.
The last seance (ITA l'ultima seduta) This was terrible, I knew what was going to happen and it was hard to read it. A young medium, Simone, is the real thing and her seance are spectacular, always a great success. She's engaged to Raoul, who is very proud of her, so much I feel in him pride is bigger than love. Simone's maid tells him of how ill Simone is, how bad all this is for her, then Simone tells him she's scared, terrorized, feeling something bad is going to happen to her. She cries more than once that she doesn't wanna do it anymore, that he had promised her, but he reminds her she has an appointment for that same day. Madame Exe paid a fortune for that seance. Raoul had been present the last time, and he had seen clearly the child, more than an image, she was solid, flesh and blood, he had touched her but realizing he hurt Simone he forbade Madame Exe to touch her. Today Simone begs Raoul to stop it, she doesn't want to do it, but he makes her feel guilty, the idiot: "as a woman you should understand the pain of a mother that has lost her child" so Simone accepts - seems to me she totally understood that, but he didn't, he did not understand such pain, and the effect of the word 'mum' and what a mother would do to get her child back. When Madame Exe arrives, she has a rope with her. She says she wants to be sure there are no tricks and Raoul is all Sure, tie me up tight, there are no tricks here, Simone is a real wonder! So when the child appears, more real and complete than ever, calling her 'maman', Raoul can't do nothing but shout. Madame Exe touches the child, ignoring Simone's pain. Raoul shouts again, but the woman tells him she doesn't care about the medium at all, she only cares about her child come back to life. She hugs her little child and takes her out of the house. When Raoul manages to free himself, he can see Simone is dead, and her body is half her usual size.
S.O.S. (Ita. S.O.S.) A story kind of like the movie 'The Shining'. A secluded place, a lonely house where many years before a man had killed his wife. The Dinsmead family goes to live in this house. Mortimer Cleveland knocks at their door one night by mere chance: his car has abandoned him. He notices the strange atmosphere and later on he finds the letters s.o.s. written in the dust. Who wrote it and why? Exactly like Poirot, Cleveland will stop and think until he has the solution. Mather and father had told him that Magdalene was adopted and about to inherit a nice amount of money, but Cleveland noticed that Charlotte looks nothing like her mother, and that the tea that was thrown away when he arrived was still hot, not cold at all... he finds out the truth and is able to stop the tragedy. Magdalene was the real daughter, Charlotte the adopted one. The man wanted his daughter to inherit but for this he needed Charlotte to disappear... so he had poisoned her tea. Cleveland saved her though. It is said that they acted like that because of the influence of the house.
The end, no more stories.
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