Dress Down Sunday: N or M? by Agatha Christie

published 1941 chapter 2

LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES

[Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are working undercover and discussing their noms de guerre]

[Tommy said] ‘But why Blenkensop?’

‘Why not?’

‘It seems such an odd name to choose.’

‘It was the first one I thought of and it’s handy for underclothes.’

‘What do you mean, Tuppence?’

‘B, you idiot. B for Beresford. B for Blenkensop. Embroidered on my camiknickers. Patricia Blenkensop. Prudence Beresford. Why did you choose Meadowes? It’s a silly name.’

‘To begin with,’ said Tommy, ‘I don’t have large B’s embroidered on my pants. And to continue, I didn’t choose it. I was told to call myself Meadowes. Mr Meadowes is a gentleman with a respectable past–all of which I’ve learnt by heart.’

‘Very nice,’ said Tuppence. ‘Are you married or single?’

‘I’m a widower,’ said Tommy with dignity. ‘My wife died ten years ago at Singapore.’

observations: Last week Clothes in Books was wondering about step ins - ‘as opposed to what?’ we wondered. One of the blog’s favourite followers, the knowledgeable costume expert Ken Nye (contributed to Anne Boleyn, Shepperton Babylon, Nijinsky, and Doris Keane…) spoke up: as opposed to camiknickers, ‘which would have dropped over the head and buttoned between the legs.’ It’s obvious when it’s pointed out.

Robert Barnard rightly describes Tommy and Tuppence as everyone’s least-favourite Christie sleuths (at one point Tuppence says ‘Sometimes I feel that we never were any use,’ and the reader nods sagely). Here they are looking for spies in a seaside resort during the Second World War – see this earlier entry for the strange story of how the book brought Christie under suspicion herself.

Tuppence is described as having ‘twittered’ in the book, though this means her annoying talking – she would no doubt claim she has put it on for cover, but the reader knows better. She does, however, tell someone

Cut out the compliments…I’m admiring myself a good deal, so there’s no need for you to chime in.

---and her daughter at one point is nervous that her mother is going to be unfaithful to the dreary Tommy, doing something described as ‘off weekending with someone’. If only.

At one point she is threatened with torture by dental instruments, just like Marathon Man, only 30 years earlier.

It is interesting and surprising that her underwear is monogrammed – books of the time often mention laundry marks, but this is something more fancy. The American etiquette writer Miss Manners says that if you are a housemaid who marries a Duke then you can have his crest embroidered on your underwear.

Links on the blog: Anne Boleyn wore a B round her neck. In an entry on Death on the Nile, we commented on Christie’s use of a Biblical story – this time there is David’s son Solomon, and a very reasonable conclusion for Tuppence to draw, eventually….

With thanks to JS (again) for language detail.

The young woman is from the Clover Vintage Tumblr, the other picture is the Royal monogram of Princess Beatrice of Battenburg, a daughter of Queen Victoria.

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

published 1966   Jennifer in the 1960s

Jennifer returned to New York the first week in January. Senator Adams was detained in Washington for a few days, and Anne went with her as she bought her trousseau.

‘Everything must be different,’ she insisted. ‘Striking, but – you know – subdued. You’ve got to help me, Anne.’

They were in the fitting room at Bergdorf’s when Jennifer suddenly leaned against the wall. ‘Anne … have you an aspirin?’

She was ashen and the pupils of her eyes were dilated. The fitter rushed for the aspirin. Jennifer sat down…

Jennifer lit a cigarette. ‘It’s passed now. But that pain – it was a real bonecrusher…’

The fitter returned with the aspirin and the head saleslady came rushing in, visibly concerned..

Jennifer selected three dresses. The salesgirl thanked her, got her autograph for her niece and wished her luck.

observations: The news is not going to be good for Jennifer when she does have a checkup.

Poor Jennifer – the kindest and most harmless of the girls in the book – is a moviestar, with all the outward signs of success, but her body is abused by the people around her in the most blatant way. It’s not symbolic or a metaphor, it’s just factual: she has a facelift, and hormone shots for her breasts, she undergoes a sleep cure to lose weight (all organized by someone else), and in a chilling moment she tells Anne that of course she will be able to have children, because she has had seven abortions, so must be fertile. The ending Susann chooses for her is awful.

All this is related by Susann in her flat, weirdly non-judgmental style: she doesn’t blame male oppression for what happens to the women, nor does she judge the women for what would have been seen then as bad behaviour. Julie Burchill claims the book for a feminist tract in her 2003 introduction to a Virago edition – it’s more that the facts are all there, and the reader can make of them what she wants. Susann just seems to be shrugging her shoulders.

A moviestar today might have more control over her life.

This book has featured before, and is seen by me as a (rare) Clothes in Books failure. The picture, take a look here, is very nice, but it is not right for the text, which features Jennifer again. So I am taking the opportunity to offer two other pictures:

which would suit the description better. Both show dresses by Jean Patou, and are from the Dovina is Devine ll photostream. The top picture is from another great resource, the Clover Vintage Tumblr.

The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson

published 2007   chapter 11

Xenophon emphasizes that [Spartan] Boys had one cloak which they wore throughout the year, even in summer, the better to prepare them ‘also for summer heats [thalpe]’. Plutarch says tunics were banned from Twelve, they had one cloak for the year, and boys did not bathe or anoint themselves, except on certain days of the year. All of this seems perfectly consistent: Spartan Boys, like Cretan Boys, kept their kit on. Now also perhaps we can understand why the legend of the EarthquakeTomb makes such a play of the Cadets having stripped off and run out to exercise all covered in oil. That ‘stripping off’ and ‘running out’ must, as in Crete, have been the ceremony of leaving boyhood and entering into adulthood, just like the ephebes of Athens at the Panathenaea running naked from the altar of Eros to the altar in the city, carrying torches.

observations: Even James Davidson (who seems absolutely lovely) perhaps doesn’t quite know who this book is aimed at. Near the beginning there is a footnote to explain what the subject and object of a verb are. That’s on page 12. On page 3 there is a quotation from an unnamed ancient author. If you look up the footnote to see who wrote it, you are told ‘Arr.’, and nowhere in the book is there any possibility of finding out what that means – because, apparently, it is a standard abbreviation. I can’t really believe that anyone who knows what ‘Arr.’ means (Arrian) also needs to be told about grammatical cases…

But who cares? This is a fabulous book about the ancient world, beautiful to look at with fascinating illustrations, a joy to read, and very informative. Obviously it is primarily about Greek homosexuality (a subject on which there seems to be little academic consensus) but it also takes in everything else about Greek life. It is serious and scholarly, of course, and Davidson plainly has an extraordinary depth of knowledge, and an easy familiarity (apparently) with every aspect of the ancient Greek world – you’d know that from his previous, wonderful, book, Courtesans and Fishcakes (which even manages to persuade you that the title isn’t just whimsy). But you by no means have to be an academic to read it: you just need to be willing to be pulled into something strange and extraordinary, with a beautiful phrase, a surprising anecdote, or a memorable image on every page. His writing style is easy and accessible, and also inventive: you have to read the book to find out what doing the do, homosex (guess!) and archaeologicable mean.

The picture is of a sculpture of a Spartan officer from the Wadsworth Museum in Connecticut.

Links on the blog: More of the ancient world in Herodotus here and here, and Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy (which contains quite a lot of doing the do).

One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens

Published 1939   chapter 4   set in the 1930s

[The narrator is working for a dress designer]

When I took in the tea the drawing-room was draped in lengths of material of all colours, and the three of them were flinging themselves among it, holding up a piece here and there and exclaiming ecstatically. I put the tea-tray down on a vacant stool and was just going out when Martin Parrish rushed at me with a bit of gold lamé, and, commanding me to stand still, draped it swiftly and skilfully round my form. He stepped back with clasped hands, surveying with his head on one side, and I stood there feeling like one of those improbable-looking effigies in shop windows. ‘Look!’ he cried, calling upon the other two to admire. ‘Quite perfect for that blonde type – the whole effect in gold could be too marvellous. Take a note, Kenneth; what’s the number of the stuff? Oh, yes. Here – avoid any contrasts with BX 17 – accessories, etc., unbroken line important to carry on colour effect…’

‘No, don’t go away, I haven’t finished,’ said my employer irritably as he advanced on me with a length of black taffeta which he bunched round me…

observations: In the days before Young Adult books were invented, there was a kind of grown-up book felt to be suitable and appropriate for the libraries of girls’ schools: light but edifying reading. Books like this one – a jolly, supposedly true account of someone’s life as they tried out a career, full of anecdotes but also giving you a clue as to what life was like. Nursing featured a lot: this one is about being a cook.

Monica Dickens was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, and so rather posh: her selling point is the hilarity of a young woman of her background going into something so menial as cooking. (She also wrote more of her true-life adventures – nursing again - various novels, and the Follyfoot children’s books.)

Online friend Lucy Fisher (guested on Lark on the Wing, see also  her blog) pointed out this scene to me, and while I loved this bit, when I reread the book I was disappointed – I had remembered it from my own girls’ school years as being quite good. Now, I find it snobbish, mean-minded and tiresome: Dickens is plainly dreadful at the job most of the time, but is very put out if the people paying her get cross about her bad food, clumsiness and carelessness. It’s not clear if she’s being ironic here -

I must have struck it unlucky - most of the people I went to never wanted to see me again…

- but it’s very believable.

The top photo - from the Library of Congress - is of actress Winifred Bryson. The other woman in a gold dress was used on the blog to illustrate Jane Gardam’s Long Way From Verona, a YA book that would make for much better reading for a modern teenager.

Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

published 1950   chapter 12

[Investigator and lawyer Henry Bohun has a part-time job as a nightwatchman at a warehouse]

The door opened softly and a young man came in. They all look so alike, thought Bohun. Young, tough, white, boxer’s face. Black hair, white silk scarf, old battledress. This one carried a gun and looked as if he knew how to use it.

Bohun let him get three paces in the room before he kicked the switch. A steel shutter came down across the door, thudding softly home across its counter-balance. Bohun got cautiously to his feet and said with almost ludicrous earnestness:

“Think before you do anything rash. I’m certain you wouldn’t like the police to find you locked in here with a dead body.”

“Open that unprintable door,” said the young man.

observations: Margot Kinberg (at her terrific Confessions of a Mystery Writer blog) was talking about memorable scenes and characters in murder stories, and I put this one forward: Bohun and the burglar will chat in a good-humoured way while waiting for the police to arrive, and he asks the burglar about something that’s puzzling him. The burglar gives him a helpful answer, a clue, and our hero – well, he doesn’t let him escape but he helps minimize the crime. We don’t ever find out the burglar’s name, and he doesn’t appear again, but it’s a scene that sticks in the mind. And there is another memorable minor character, the taxi driver: How did he know his fare was a lawyer? “Norways tell a lawyer” said Mr Ringer. Plus the young woman who has just been proposed to: “I shall make a rampaging wife!” she says - something we can all aspire to.

Michael Gilbert’s books had very varied settings, from a Cathedral Close (Close Quarters) and the solicitors’ office in Smallbone, to a prisoner-of-war camp and the HQ of a political party - but action scenes weren’t particularly his line. This is a very traditional Golden Age story: it includes a floorplan of the offices, and that magic moment when a character is scared by noises, opens the door and says ‘Heavens it’s you!’ in great relief....New chapter.

There is also very solid, satisfying clue-ing: what’s the implication of that letter addressed Dear Mr Horniman? Why is it meaningful that one of the secretaries is near the office on her day off - might she not be just doing her shopping?

Lawyers feature hugely in detective stories, but usually because they are in charge of the will, though in this crime story there is an anagrammatic, husbandly secret.

The picture is from an army surplus site – the white silk scarf was too big an ask, life has got harsher in the intervening years.

Penelope by Rebecca Harrington

published 2012  chapters 1 & 2

A handsome man with chin-length blond hair was walking past… wearing a three-piece linen suit and laughing into a cell phone, like the regent of a tiny, unpronounceable European principality. Penelope wondered if he was drifting toward the registration desk. It seemed as though he was going to.

Penelope thought about the man in the rumpled linen suit. It was possible he lived in her dorm – but she doubted it…

The trees did not move, the sun was too yellow. The Yard looked stately if remote. No one was playing touch football on it, that was for sure. Maybe the man wearing the rumpled linen suit at registration had actually been a mirage. He looked like what she had thought Harvard men were going to look like before she went here, although now that she was here, none of the students looked remotely like that.

observations: Doing the rounds of the internet right now is a truly hilarious aticle about living like Gwyneth Paltrow (pointed out to me by my friend Riona MacNamara). It didn’t at all make me want to read the GP book It’s All Good, but I immediately downloaded this novel by the article’s author, Rebecca Harrington.

Penelope is new to Harvard, socially inept, a naïve provincial girl who seems to know nothing about the place (it is hard to imagine how she got in) - the book follows her first year. She is completely deadpan, something of an empty vessel. You have to just go with this; she is not going to change and develop over the year, and neither are the horrible people around her. The style is odd, very flat and almost childish. The effect is weird but obviously deliberate: this book is satirical and not meant to be taken seriously, nor to be judged on its fine writing. But it is very very funny, laugh-out loud funny. (Though not for everyone – the reviews online are evenly divided, and many people find the style distancing and boring.)

The Paltrow article, and others by Harrington, seem to be written entirely in the persona of Penelope. But is the author herself quite different? There are spectacularly off-putting acknowledgements at the end of the book. Penelope might be a hopeless person, but you sincerely doubt that she would ever write ‘He is the best!...I feel so lucky to have met her…Thank you so much for being there for me every step of the way. What would I do without all of you in my life?’

She uses the words gamut, amuck and throngs wrongly in the book, similarly the word annals in the article… strange? Deliberate? How about those wonderful editors she’s busy thanking?

BUT – any book this funny gets a free pass. It is brilliant, and I would read another book by her in a minute.

Links on the blog: More undergraduate stories here and here and here.

The picture is from an old fashion magazine and shows designer Katherine Hamnett and a male model.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

published 2013   part 2

At the warehouse, we rifled through racks and bins of all kinds – vast shapeless nylon granny dresses, shrunken, felted woolen dresses, polyester stretch pants, sheets and blankets, sequined netting, iridescent organza, animal print plush jersey jackets, bolts of corduroy in extraordinary shades of plum and puce and pear. Sirena fingered everything with her eyes closed, as if the garments had messages in braille upon them – ‘It’s to know if I can work with this,’ she explained, when I teased her. ‘Some fabrics, the synthetics, the fake ones, like some people, is this’ – and she mimed scraping her fingernails on a blackboard.

‘Are there people you don’t like, then?’ I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me before.

‘Nora!’ She shook her head incredulously. ‘Aren’t there people you don’t like?’

‘So many of them.’

‘I can’t work with people I don’t choose, not in this way. For me, life’s too short. Yes? Life is too short. When they’ – she mimed the fingernails – ‘then they must go. Like the fabric, I don’t take it home; so with the people, they’re the same. Not for me!’ 

observations: Nora – a primary-school teacher in the Boston area - makes friends with a foreign family whose child she teaches. She and the mother are both artists, and they share a studio space for one happy year – here Sirena is looking for materials for a huge installation she is making. (Nora, of course, makes tiny little shoe-box sized art – between that and her first name you couldn’t doubt Messud’s commitment to obvious symbolism.)

The book starts out with Nora looking back on this time, very angry, so, obv, something is going to happen, right at the end of the book, which is going to make her so (this is a Messudian structure and number of commas for a sentence).  I so was hoping to be surprised, but the betrayal seemed easy to see coming, there were fairly blatant clues, it was predictable.

Claire Messud did a nice job at creating a voice, Nora was a rounded character. But – the book seems to be claiming that The Woman Upstairs is a trope, that she’s recognizable, that there are a lot of women like that. But she didn’t seem at all recognizable, she didn’t match anything I see in the world. She resembled plenty of other book people though:

- the obsessive teacher in Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal 

- Charles Ryder falling love with the whole family in Brideshead Revisited, 

- the heroine of a rather good but forgotten Stella Gibbons book called Westwood, who is completely exploited by a grand theatrical family.

... and some of the cast of a very obscure play by NC Hunter called Waters of the Moon.

Claire Messud got very cross with an interviewer who said ‘I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you? Her outlook on life is unbearably grim.’ A lot of authors are snooty about readers who want to find characters to like – a question for another day – but here Nora didn’t climb up out of the pages enough, or become real enough, to feel that strongly about her.

The pictures are from the Smithsonian Institute’s collection – on the left, sculptor and designer Gwen Lux, on the right, painter Lucile Branch. The other photo is the studio of a Hungarian artist, Zelma Baylos, who worked in New York in the early 20th century.’

Links on the blog: Sirena's installation is linked with Alice in Wonderland, who popped up in Saturday's entry. Claire Messud is married to James Wood, who wrote The Book Against God.