Absent in the Spring

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An early encounter with a former schoolmate provided a foreshadowing for the major part of the novel: ‘If you had nothing to do but think about yourself for days and days, you might find out about yourself. Blanche however feels quite satisfied with her life, even if she did travel on a very long and rocky road to get to her current destination. Looking back over the years, Joan painfully re-examines her attitudes, relationships and actions and becomes increasingly uneasy about the person who is revealed to her.

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. I saw a couple of the covers and assumed they were fluffy romance novels and was only slightly interested. She was still writing to great acclaim until her death, and her books have now sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. It had been quite easy to fill her life with unimportant trivialities that left her no time for self-knowledge. These novels (I think MW did 6) are not murder mysteries, not anything like what is so popular from AC.Her meeting with Blanche, her childhood friend, before being stranded puts her in a contemplative mood. Joan begins to suspect that others have not always seen her as she sees herself and resolves to behave differently once she gets home. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The style is leisurely, intimate and very stream-of-consciousness as Joan becomes increasingly plagued by self-doubt.

Like a desert mirage, the truth of who she’s been and what she’s done is hazy, and her realization feels a little drawn out and obvious.

The main character is a smug woman who has detached herself from the realities in her life because she just doesn't want to deal with it. Pero me encantó todo el viaje, y Agatha Christie comprende y retrata tan bien comportamiento humano que me deslumbra.

Joan Scudamore, traveling back to London from Baghdad after a visit to her grown daughter, encounters bad weather and misses her train, which leaves her stranded in the desert for a few days that feel more like weeks. You also might be tempted to reach out to someone you love afterwards, to tell them just how much you appreciate and love them.The question, however, that keeps the story quite tense is whether Joan will realise this by the end of the book. We hear Joan’s thoughts about her husband, her three children, her marriage, raising the children, and a little about people in their lives. Agatha's first husband left her for another woman which allegedly caused her to have a nervous breakdown that was related to her famous mysterious 1926 eleven day disappearance. it was melancholy because the whole time you just knew something awful was going to happen; and it wasn't really that awful, it just wasn't the picture-perfect story it could have been, but still it seems sad.

Dame Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, masterfully follows the unfolding of Joan Scudamore's self realization.Joan’s insistence on her views, her lack of sensitivity, compassion and insight have caused a lot of harm to her relationships, to which she is completely unaware. Having read so many Agatha Christie novels - I have not (untill now) read any of the Mary Westmacott books. She’s always been a planner and people manager, and when faced with nothing to do for the first time in her life, she begins to deal with painful memories. More particularly, can she come to see how her children don’t care for her at all and her husband has been in love with another woman? To relieve her boredom, she takes walks in the desert, in real danger of losing her way back to the rest house.