Strong Poison - SPOILER thread

[Nadine]

How did he use her? She's a friend who has access to Bloomsbury type people and she takes him to meet people. how is that using her. And he has 30 days to save Harriet. Even though he does feel a bit of delicacy about asking her to help when it is a woman he is now in love with, he has no time for gentlemanly scruples. Besides, presumably Marj would not wish for H to hang if she's innocent, so why would she not want to help him?
Besides, it was portrayed in Bellona C as her having a bit of a fondness for him and offering him a light friendly affair, not as her having fallen in love with him..

[Susan]

I think the point is not necessarily about Peter using, or not using, her, but in how his character is perceived. I see it as his usual gentlemanly demeanour having an undercurrent of steel in order to get what he wants.

[Judy]

I felt he could be more aware of Marjorie's feelings - after all he is a master detective and usually sees below the surface. But, having said that, he is obviously preoccupied and aware that time is running out.

[Nadine]

I think it was just one of the unfortunate effects of Harriet on the stories.. She became a bit of a Mary Sue and Peter became over adored

[Susan]

Yet she doesn't feature in the next book at all - as we shall see next month!

[Nadine]

well according to Sayers because she had felt that she could not push Harriet and Peter into a love/marriage situaton..and that she had to develop P to a point where he and H could come together

[Damaskcat]

Pghfan wrote: "I agree; I always thought Peter was really not particularly considerate of Marjorie. Especially here, when he must have known he used her in Bellona and now is fine doing it again."

Sorry but I don't see either incident as using her - after all she could have refused. I see it as one friend asking another for help in what was really a matter of life and death

[Mark Pghfan]

My take is that she helped Peter in the hopes of spending time with him. I think she wanted more than friendship, but eventually understood that that was all she was going to get.

[Deborah]

Damaskcat wrote: "Pghfan wrote: "I agree; I always thought Peter was really not particularly considerate of Marjorie. Especially here, when he must have known he used her in Bellona and now is fine doing it again."
..."

I agree with you. That's how it came across to me too

[Nadine]

Damaskcat wrote: "P
..."
Quite so, Assuming M knows harriet, and beleives she' is innocent, I can't see ttht she would not be eager to help..

[Susan]

If she was really interested in Peter though, it must have hurt her a little though, to see him working so hard on her behalf.

I really did enjoy the scene where Peter went to ferret out Harriet's friends and acquaintances - all of the intense young writers and artists, sitting around discussing the world and putting it to rights. It did seem to perfectly capture that time.

[Nadine]

I did too. I loved the party, I remember when I was at parties like that and beleived you coudl put the world to rights. And RYland Vaughan and Peter's discussion about Boyes and his books

[Everyman]

Judy wrote: "I've just watched the first episode of the TV version and the sweet omelette looked horrible, like scrambled eggs with jam.

It belatedly struck me that I wasn't even sure what a sweet omelette is..."

As Julia Child makes it, and omelette is eggs cooked very thin in a very hot frying pan (well, they make special omelette pans, but I use a frying pan) and folded in half, with some filling put in before they are folded over (if you're good enough, as she is and I'm not, you can fold it over just by jerking the pan). Most omelettes are filled, I think, with things like cheese and bacon or sausage, but no reason why you can't fill them with jam just before folding them over.

[Everyman]

Everyman wrote: "Judy wrote: "I've just watched the first episode of the TV version and the sweet omelette looked horrible, like scrambled eggs with jam.

It belatedly struck me that I wasn't even sure what a swee..."

An added note: but these may be different. A Julia Child omelette requires three eggs. Two eggs would never be sufficient for two people. So I don't know what he was making.

[Susan]

Perhaps fresh eggs were harder to get then and so one egg each might have been seen as enough. We all eat more now, I think, than we did a few years back. In the sixties I only remember eggs coming in boxes of 6 and not the huge, supermarket plastic boxes you can get now - with perhaps 24 in each pack?

[Abigail]

I believe four eggs were used in the omelet, the cracked one plus three others. (There is a mention of eight eggs remaining from the dozen.) And for a dessert omelet for two people instead of one intended to make a full meal, surely two eggs per person is plenty?

[Susan]

Abigail, you have a great memory - it was that cracked egg which held the clue, obviously!

[Damaskcat]

Abigail wrote: "I believe four eggs were used in the omelet, the cracked one plus three others. (There is a mention of eight eggs remaining from the dozen.) And for a dessert omelet for two people instead of one i..."

I think people did eat bigger meals then anyway and two eggs each might seem a lot to us at the end of meal but to them it would have been normal.

[Mark Pghfan]

I also loved the bit where they discussed Boyes' books. And the Dowager Dutchess being grateful that the reviewers pointed out the "juicier bits" so people didn't have to buy the book to know them!

[Susan]

I totally agree, Pghfan, that was priceless! I love the Dowager Duchess - she seems so vague and flippant, but she is really sharp.

[Everyman]

Susan wrote: "I totally agree, Pghfan, that was priceless! I love the Dowager Duchess - she seems so vague and flippant, but she is really sharp."

Wait until you get to Busman's Honeymoon. She's glorious in that!

[Susan]

Yes, greatly looking forward to reading the rest of the books, Everyman. Can't believe we are already halfway through the year though...

[Judy]

The discussion of Harriet over in the Five Red Herrings thread got me thinking about her in this book... it strikes me she is rather hard on Philip. Even though he treats her badly, isn't it a bit odd that she isn't more upset about his death? I know she is frightened she will be wrongly convicted and hanged so maybe I'm being unfair, but this did strike me on this reread...

[Nadine]

To be fair, we dont see her immediately after his death, we see her first when she's on trial for his murder. However, I think her friends DO say that she was glad/releived that he was gone, perhaps relieved that he wasn't around to keep on pestering her...

[Judy]

Good point that we don't see her straight after he has died - I suppose quite a lot of time must have passed by the time she is on trial.

[Deborah]

Just my thoughts. I read a lot of 19th century literature as well as mysteries. It's important to keep the time period in which it was written in mind. Remember Harriet had a successful career before it was common to do so.

[Abigail]

I think Harriet had lost all respect for him, so while she was sorry he died in a horrible way as she would be if anyone died an untimely death, she had little feeling left for him. She strikes me as the kind of person who could not care much about someone she could not respect.

[Nadine]

I suppose that's true, but it is hard to see her as ever being really in love wth him. she says that she "gave him devotion", but we dont ever see that happening. However I suppose DLS didn't want to show her as having been too much in love with Philip, because she was not meant to be with him.. and yes I think you're right that she completed "chilled" on him when he offered her marriage, and went back on all he had said. She lost respect for him and got fed up with him pestering her...and so she had long stopped caring for him, when he died...

[Susan]

I didn't really see why she went so against him for proposing marriage to be honest. For her to go so against society and live with him, she must have loved him at some point. As Nadine says though, we need her to be unattached, so LP can head off in pursuit!

[Nadine]

It was because she felt that he had made a fool of her... He had said he didnt believe in marriage. She DID want marriage but when he told her he didn't believe in it, and problaby pestered her to be his live in girlfriend.. she yielded against her better judgement. So when he came along and said
"oh now that you've shown me you'll do anything for me, I thinlk you're good enough to be condescended to and married".. naturally she was angry..
I dont blame her for feeling humilaiated and annoyed. DLS was in the same situation as regards John Cournous. he woudn't marry her, he told her he did not beleive in it, and he did persuade her to some kind of sexual involvement,
Then later, he married someone, and a detecitve story writer at that and she felt like he had lied to her and made a fool of her.
Harriet does explain this in the book

[Judy]

I get all that, but it's odd that she then takes against him so completely - surely if you love someone then you couldn't switch off just like that? Also I think his friend suggests that Philip actually changed his mind about marriage because of his religious background.

But I agree that Harriet can't be shown as being too deeply in love with Philip because of Peter waiting in the wings.

[Susan]

Harriet, you do get a sense of DLS's personal feelings in that part of the novel. However, like Judy, I also feel you can't love a man so much you will go against society to be with him and then, suddenly, not care at all. Still, it's fiction. It works and we are analysing far more than the average reader here.

[Everyman]

Susan wrote: "I didn't really see why she went so against him for proposing marriage to be honest.."

Because of his dishonesty and manipulation. Those aren't love. He lied to her about not believing in marriage in order to get her into his bed, then when she proved to be a satisfactory bed and personal companion, he basically said okay, you passed the test, I'll marry you. She had too much respect to marry, or even continue to live with, someone who would lie to and manipulate her so blatantly.

[Everyman]

Judy wrote: surely if you love someone then you couldn't switch off just like that?"

I think you can turn it off if you find that a central aspect of what you cared about in the person turns out to be a lie.

If you meet a person who befriends you by befriending your beloved pet and says how much he or she loves animals, and then down the road when the person thinks you aren't looking they cruelly mistreat the animal and you realize they really hate animals and it was all pretense to get you into bed, I think you could fall out of love in an instant. At least, I would.

[Lady Clementina]

Everyman wrote: "Judy wrote: surely if you love someone then you couldn't switch off just like that?"

I think you can turn it off if you find that a central aspect of what you cared about in the person turns out t..."

I's have to agree about that- the animal example you gave is 100 per cent applicable to me (that's also why I never could or can like Heathcliff). But still, I wonder If one would or could be entirely oblivious either?

[Susan]

Hmmm, I can think of a few people I've known over the years who have fallen for men who seem to have utterly changed character the moment they moved in with them and mostly they made excuses for their behaviour, even to themselves! Still, fiction is not real life and it is easier to deal with these things in books than in the messy reality of life, I expect.

[Nadine]

I think it is very true Susan. I dont think it is "just for fiction". Marriages break up often becuase people DO act differently after a marriage than they did before. Yes sometimes people in love blind themselves to the signs that their partner isn't as nice as he wants to portray himself.. but equally people ARE capable of hiding their bad side and fooling their woudl be lover/partner until they are living iwht them full time and they then relax and let their more selfish side out...
Boyes is selfsh but he's not a wife beater or a drunk.. so I think that its entirely possible that during theier courtship and for a time after, Harriet could see his good side and felt she loved him.. ANd she probalby had litltte experience of men (as DLS Had liltte experience) so she didn't have much to compare him to. When they lived togethter at first he was probalby sitll charming and kindly, gradualy he got less so, perhaps but Harriet accepted it..
But when he proposed, in such a hurtful manner, making her feel like a ofifce boy on probation, she realised how unpleasant he could be and that his love for her was really him testing her to see how abject her love for him coudl be...And she just lost respect and affection for him.
And then he kept on pestering her, so as her friends said, she DID grow to dislike him, and while she did not wish him dead, she was a bit releived that he was now out of her life...

[Susan]

Yes, that all makes sense, Nadine. I had the same feeling - he was out of her life and she had just moved on and didn't want to be reminded about him.

[Karlyne]

Nadine wrote: "I think it is very true Susan. I dont think it is "just for fiction". Marriages break up often becuase people DO act differently after a marriage than they did before. Yes sometimes people in love ..."

I agree! Harriet was basically a strong person, and when she put him out of her life, relief was her uppermost feeling - now she could get on with her life.

[Helen]

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the rush to free Harriet. I had no idea you could build up a tolerance to arsenic, quite ingenious. What a fun mystery!

[Lesley]

Still behind on the DLS challenge, but I've finished Strong Poison, and really got hooked once I started it. I like the new characters introduced, Miss Murchison and Miss Climpson. Particularly enjoyed Miss Climpson's meeting with the nurse. I think they are getting better as we go along. I didn't guess who until the last two chapters either.

I've got to confess, because I'm behind in the challenge, I've not read the short stories yet, but I will before long.

[LovesMysteries]

Nadine wrote: "well according to Sayers because she had felt that she could not push Harriet and Peter into a love/marriage situation..and that she had to develop P to a point where he and H could come together"

I'm glad that Sayers didn't jump the gun with Harriet & Peter coming together and it's more realistic and convincing this way. I like the way Sayers spliced up the Wimsey/Vane books with those with just Lord Peter in them and then the next book returns with Harriet Vane but we still don't see Wimsey & Vane get together until Gaudy Night which culminates beautifully in marriage in Busman's Honeymoon

[Judy]

I've just come across an interesting article about the science in Strong Poison - it doesn't say whodunit but does contain important plot points, so I thought I'd better post it to the spoiler thread. It also mentions poisons in a couple of other books, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie.

http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscienc...

The most extraordinary thing about this article, though, is the colourful US pulp-style cover, where Harriet is a blonde bombshell in a revealing dress, beside a handsome man in a Bogart-style outfit - I take it this is supposed to be Philip rather than Peter! Looks like a scene from a classic film. Here's a link if you just want to see the cover!:

http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscienc...

I wonder if there were many of these editions of Sayers books in the US?

[Judy]

P.S., there is also a pulp-style cover from The Mysterious Affair at Styles in the same article - Poirot is nowhere in sight!

[Everyman]

Judy wrote: "The most extraordinary thing about this article, though, is the colourful US pulp-style cover, where Harriet is a blonde bombshell in a revealing dress, "

That cover is an absolute riot! But I hope Sayers died before it came out -- she would have hated it. (Or maybe not if it sold a lot of books!)

[Susan]

The cover is not awful, it is just NOT Harriet, but it's typical of its time. It certainly is eye catching and I doubt the illustrators ever read the books.

[Judy]

Eye-catching is right! I'd love to know what Sayers thought of it if she did see it.

[Susan]

She probably had little say in it and was just glad her book was available. After all, it was what happened between the covers that people would read and judge her on.