I've only seen this film, but I really want to know how the book ends.
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TheLittleSongbird — 16 years ago(August 23, 2009 01:33 PM)
"Music comes from within, from your heart, and from your soul"
It is basically a chapter with a confession from the murderer in document form, saying why he did it, how he did it, and what he intends to do after the note is found(spoiler: in the book he shoots himself). Can't really say much more without spoiling it for you, unless you want me to tell you exactly what happened. -
TheLittleSongbird — 16 years ago(August 24, 2009 02:52 AM)
"Music comes from within, from your heart, and from your soul"
It pretty much reads like this:
The police find the bodies and are puzzling who committed the crime and what order they occurred. The last chapter is a document with the murderer's (the judge) confession. He details how he lured the people to the island, so that he could committ the perfect crime. The gramophone record accuses them all of a crime they had committed in the past, and the remainder of the book tells of the murders, revolving around a sinister nursery rhyme and the truth behind the crimes. The first murder occurs by cyanide poisoning, and then Mrs Rogers is killed not long afterward, after the judge puts I think was chloral in her brandy. The same morning the general is killed, it's a long time since I read the book, but I believe he was killed from behind with a blunt instrument. (As the murders happen, there are staues representing the victims that get broken, hence the significance of the nursery rhyme)Rogers is murdered the next morning, followed by Emily Brent from cyanide poisoning. Then the judge fakes his own death(and thus starts the confusion for the police about when people were killed, because only the first four or five murders were taken note of), meets the doctor who was in on his plan and pushes him off the cliff. He kills Blore with a marble bear statue, by pushing it out of Vera Claythorne's window. Vera kills Lombard, then hangs herself. The judge after writing the document, and moving the chair that Vera kicks away when she kills herself, shoots himself, so it is thought he was the sixth victim, when actually he committed five murders after that.
Sorry, it's not as accurate as I would have liked, but this is the general idea. -
djpretender — 16 years ago(September 04, 2009 04:53 PM)
I agree with you.
The book's ending is much better than the movie's ending.
Everybody should read the real ending (starting as you said at the beach where Vera and Philip Lombard are facing each other).
I loved the book! -
Rontrigger — 16 years ago(January 07, 2010 02:27 PM)
There was a mention in another thread of Agatha Christie's reason for the alternate ending of her play, which ending has been used for all the film versions.
Apparently she felt that war-weary audiences wouldn't stand for no survivors, so she came up with (I agree with most people on this) a less intellectually satisfying, but more crowd-pleasing, denouement.
Unfortunate, I think, but perhaps understandable.
"You can't have Ennis without Jack."Annie Proulx -
potsi-1 — 16 years ago(January 17, 2010 09:24 PM)
I agree, at the time they weren't ready for the real ending But it's so dumb that Hollywood isn't remaking this eventhough they are remaking all kinds of things that really don't need a remake.When I read the book I had chills all over my bodyI was constantly feeling that someone is looking at me
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Rontrigger — 11 years ago(January 17, 2015 09:59 PM)
In her 1976 book
An Agatha Christie Chronology
, Nancy Blue Wynne comments as follows: "Agatha Christie's mysteries, though thrilling, exciting, entertaining, and many other good things, are rarely frightening.
And Then There Were None
is an exception. Definitely not for reading alone late at night!"
"You can't have Ennis without Jack."Annie Proulx