LIVING A LIFE IN BOOKS: HOLIDAYS

 

 

I have had some wonderful holidays in my life, and yet I am secretly always longing to jump into my favourite books and share a holiday there.

I once wrote a post about a destination resort with the title

There may be murderers, but no riff raff

which pretty much sums it up, right? Can you work out which trip-based book that was without checking?

I’m looking at these particular choices - not quite all based on crime books, but let's start with one of the best:

 

1)  A cruise on the Nile. Yes, even if the Richest Woman in England, Linnet Doyle, is going to be murdered, I want to be on the SS Karnak in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.  I even know which table I shall sit at in the dining-room: I want to be with Mrs Allerton for meals. I love so much the early scene in which she is looking round the dining room and identifying the other guests, matching them with her list, discussing people's clothes. I would have been her perfect companion in this and in all future chat sessions.

the richest woman in a 'simple'dress

Tip: watch out for your lipstick. Someone will pretend to be having a nice girly chat and put a gun in your bag

Now, you could do a whole blogpost on holidays in Agatha Christie, and guess what – I did

Tuesday Night Club: Choice holidays from Christie Tours

So you can read more, though I included bad holidays as well as good ones there.

 

2)  Some generic hotel in the French countryside, or maybe a nice small town in Italy or Greece – shutters at the window, a shady courtyard. A waiter will bring an aperitif as we sit outside under a vine or a tree. Who is that suspicious man in the corner? Only time will tell. Authors: Mary Stewart, Elizabeth Ferrars

Tip: take a compact, so you can use the mirror to spy on someone else while pretending to fix your makeup

 

3)  A Hotel in the South of France where the guests are all up in everyone else’s business. There is a tremendous Eric Ambler book – Epitaph for a Spy – which is an ur-text for this kind of thing. I love drinks on the terrace, spying on each other at mealtimes, playing billiards together. There is (obv) ‘an emaciated blonde in satin beach pyjamas and imitation pearl earrings the size of grapes’. Later she is ‘swathed in a semi-transparent pale blue peignoir, sitting on the bed manicuring her nails’.

Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler

 

Ambler hero looking relaxed and vacation-ish

Tip: Watch out for your roll of film. What a nostalgic idea that is! I may have to collect examples of rolls of film, prints and negatives (for example in Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit). All gone now, young people probably don’t even know what those film canisters looked like. (Who remembers the Guardian readers’ obsession with uses for a 35mm container?)

 

4)  A 1950s hotel that has posh people in it, but still has shared bathrooms (obviously I would hate this in real life). There’s an obscure book by John and Emory Bonnet, 1959, No Grave for a Lady

Tuesday Night Club: Holidays & How They Change

And I used it to look at what was taken for granted back then. This one is set in an imaginary Channel Island called Lyonesse, and is joy from start to finish. 

Tip: get to the bathroom early for hot water privileges

5) The key to a holiday hotel in the past was that it had a writing-room – in case you’re not sure, that’s a room where you go to write letters, as is essential on holiday. The two hotels at 3 and 4 both have them. Perhaps the last actual instance of this was in the wonderful

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell

It’s from 1981, and as I explained in the post, ‘Julia writes letters  to her friendsevery day, updating them on events (! Yes, you just have to suspend your disbelief. And believe us, any young people reading, this didn’t happen even then, in the days before email and mobile phone.

Tip: check your guide-books carefully

6)  A lovely package holiday with a wide collection of other guests: You can all get to know each other, fall in love, and keep watch as to who was sneaking out to the beach or back to the hotel.

Key example: Tour de force by Christianna Brand.

Tip: watch out for a tear in your bikini

7) A long journey by liner from the UK to New Zealand. Ngaio Marsh’s books are a chancy business, many of them do not stand up to contemporary scrutiny, but Singing in the Shrouds is a marvellous picture of an ocean voyage (it’s not really a holiday, more of a journey, but I’m counting it in). OK so there’s a serial killer on board, but there is also Mrs Dillington-Black, with her 'feather in her hat, her earrings, the orchids on her great bust and her furs.’

Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

 

Tip: Be careful of people who sing over you and break your necklace. Move away quickly

 

Then there are:

Holidays I do not want to go on in any circs: camping, hiking and sailing. Swallows and Amazons versions of that. The coach trip in Nemesis – it did not sound as luxurious as advertised by Agatha Christie, and in addition they seem to be forever moving and changing locations without actually getting anywhere or travelling very far. Bertram’s Hotel is cancelled for obvious reasons.

 

But…. The finest holiday in any book comes here

 

The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff

 

No notes, no questions taken, just read it if you never have. The post will tell you why.