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dina_b's review against another edition
4.0
Uma mulher viaja de Bagdade para Inglaterra, fica encalhada no deserto a espera do comboio que a levara de volta a casa. Não tendo ninguém para lhe fazer companhia e nada mais para a entreter, o silêncio do deserto obriga-a a olhar para momentos chave da sua vida e vê-los com outros olhos e sem filtros. Apercebe-se que sempre escolheu estar ocupada para não ver a sua vida familiar como ela é de verdade, preferiu sempre enganar-se a si própria para não alterar a sua cómoda vida social. Mas o silêncio do deserto obriga-a a ver que nunca conheceu o seu marido e filhos, que sempre soube certas verdades dolorosas mas preferiu fechar os olhos. Agora com a realidade nua e crua, ela decide mudar os seus modos, mas uma coisa é estar no deserto, outra bem diferente é quando regressamos a casa...
pallavi_sharma87's review against another edition
5.0
5 stars
I picked it up seeing the name of Agatha Christie and wrongly thinking it to be a mystery. But I am glad I picked it up.
Joan Scudamore is a woman who knows what is best for her as well as for her family ( it is her own opinion). But she is forced to a situation where she reevaluates her life, her assumptions on others. The effect of her behavior on her lawyer husband, her three kids (now grownups). She is faced with the reality that the life she had might not be as perfect as she thought. She is too terrified to face it when the truth is presented in front of her.
Excellent book on character study. Agatha Christie has written one of the best novels with not a mystery of death but the mystery of life. Amazingly written.
Happy Reading!!!
I picked it up seeing the name of Agatha Christie and wrongly thinking it to be a mystery. But I am glad I picked it up.
Joan Scudamore is a woman who knows what is best for her as well as for her family ( it is her own opinion). But she is forced to a situation where she reevaluates her life, her assumptions on others. The effect of her behavior on her lawyer husband, her three kids (now grownups). She is faced with the reality that the life she had might not be as perfect as she thought. She is too terrified to face it when the truth is presented in front of her.
Excellent book on character study. Agatha Christie has written one of the best novels with not a mystery of death but the mystery of life. Amazingly written.
Happy Reading!!!
stilkraft's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kyokokk's review against another edition
4.0
幸せな結婚、3人の子どもたちも巣立って、あーいい人生だわ、と思っていたのに、「私ってもしかして酷い親であり妻だった？」と気づいてしまう女性のお話。
アガサ・クリスティの意地悪な人間観察が堪能できる。
イギリス人って日本人に似た性質があるのかも？と思えたりして面白かった。
アガサ・クリスティの意地悪な人間観察が堪能できる。
イギリス人って日本人に似た性質があるのかも？と思えたりして面白かった。
laserl6tus's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
jenrm's review against another edition
5.0
Agatha Christie had a great gift of truly knowing and understanding human nature. In this book, the main character, Joan, is stranded in the desert with no one but herself to talk to. So there she is alone with her thoughts. And that's what is so frightening! At first, she fights the thoughts, makes excuses - not direct quotes but ideas like: "oh it's a fear of open spaces that makes me feel this way" or "oh, it's the heat that makes my mind play tricks on me" or "it must be a fever, that's it, I'm likely just ill"! Desperate for an excuse for what she is discovering about herself ... that she is not a likeable woman, that her children and her husband do not love her (though she does very much love them, she just has never acted like she has). She realizes how horrible and selfish and fake she has been all these years. That she's a picture of someone she'd admire but she's not really admirable. And then she has a conversion experience, something that a lady she met on the train home to England shows to her. Yet this lady looks at her doubtfully when she says that Joan has had a conversion experience, much like St. Paul and other apostles and great people of faith. And you wonder why this stranger is doubt-filled. What does she see that we, the reader, cannot see? Then Joan arrives home and she's faced with a choice: let her family see the change, start life fresh and seek forgiveness; or pretend nothing at all happened, pretend life is as it always was because that is what is comfortable and uncomplicated. And, as the reader, you're hopeful and you think, "She's going to do it! She's going to carry out what she wanted when she experienced this conversion! She'll seek forgiveness and they will start fresh! And they will live happily ever after!" But it doesn't happen that way. She chooses wrong and her miserable life continues and she chooses to live in the delusion that it is a good life.
readsewknit's review against another edition
5.0
When I was younger, I devoured Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie mysteries, and at some point, I learned of ABSENT IN THE SPRING, a book written by Agatha Christie under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. It's my favorite title of Christie's by far (and often lands in my top few titles of all time).
This is not a mystery and I find it on a different plane of writing skill. Much of this book is a solitary exercise into the mind and the past, as our flawed protagonist Joan Scudamore finds herself stranded at a rest house near a train station where there is little for entertainment and the servants who are there have minimal English. She is returning home after spending time with one of her daughters, and while she awaits the train, she is reflecting on her husband, her marriage, and her daughters.
To have a flawed narrator who is steadily communicating insights to the reader while remaining oblivious for so long takes a deft hand; this is a heartbreaking read, and I get so caught up in what was and what could have been. It's just brilliant.
This is not a mystery and I find it on a different plane of writing skill. Much of this book is a solitary exercise into the mind and the past, as our flawed protagonist Joan Scudamore finds herself stranded at a rest house near a train station where there is little for entertainment and the servants who are there have minimal English. She is returning home after spending time with one of her daughters, and while she awaits the train, she is reflecting on her husband, her marriage, and her daughters.
To have a flawed narrator who is steadily communicating insights to the reader while remaining oblivious for so long takes a deft hand; this is a heartbreaking read, and I get so caught up in what was and what could have been. It's just brilliant.
blaire_evan's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
spookysoto's review against another edition
4.0
4.5/5
Es un libro distinto al género que me más gusta, el políciaco, a pesar de haber sido escrito por Agatha Christie (bajo un pseudonimo); sin embargo, me hizo pensar en cómo vemos el mundo, cómo el mundo nos ve y como esas dos versiones no coinciden en muchas ocasiones. Es un libro simple, pero muy profundo, sin ser pretencioso, que demuestra el gran conocimiento de la autora de la naturaleza humana. Es ágil a pesar de prácticamente tener una sola protagonista y no llega a cansar. Me sorprendió gratamente.
Lo recomiendo.
Es un libro distinto al género que me más gusta, el políciaco, a pesar de haber sido escrito por Agatha Christie (bajo un pseudonimo); sin embargo, me hizo pensar en cómo vemos el mundo, cómo el mundo nos ve y como esas dos versiones no coinciden en muchas ocasiones. Es un libro simple, pero muy profundo, sin ser pretencioso, que demuestra el gran conocimiento de la autora de la naturaleza humana. Es ágil a pesar de prácticamente tener una sola protagonista y no llega a cansar. Me sorprendió gratamente.
Lo recomiendo.