Issues: Name and description (New crowner 1/12/12): Christie Time

Christie Time has issues. There's (as it says) a well-known external term for it, the Interbellum. It's underused for such a common trope, too. Oh, and the name is just wrong — as it says, Agatha Christie's novels actually cover a very long timeframe.

More than that, though, and most importantly by far: Is this supposed to be a mystery-genre-only trope? The description says no, this is just our article on the Interbellum with a wacky name, but most of the examples are mystery stories, from a glance over it, but I don't accept at all the implicit assertion that this time period is used more for mysteries than any other sort of story, certainly not to the extent that the examples here show. My assumption would be that the bad name is making some people treat it as a mystery-story-only trope. (There are exceptions, but the list is very weighted.)

The obvious next question is: Should this be a mystery story only trope? Should we redefine it, or rename it, or what?

edited 7th Sep '11 6:36:00 PM by Aquillion

The description also says, "There may well be a case for calling this Wodehouse Time", which seems to defeat the hypothesis that it's related to mysteries in any way. I suspect the dominance of mystery story examples comes from the misleading name.

Christie Time found in: 95 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 138 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

Considering the number of works set in this era, I'd call that a strong case for a rename.

Definitely shouldn't be a mysteries-only trope.

Also support a rename. When I first saw it, I Thought It Meant expensive period stuff you could buy at Christie's. I admittedly haven't read many Agatha Christie books, but I don't particularly associate them with this era.

I say rename. "Christie Time" to me, as an avid Agatha Christie reader, calls to mind the peculiar passing of time with respect to Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple - for the uninitiated: they do age, but at a very slow pace, because the characters were pretty old when they were introduced, and then were used by Christie over decades (an issue not unrelated to Comic Book Time). I don't particularly associate the name of Christie with the 1920s and 1930s.

Ugh, literary periods being given a completely obscure Trope Namer. Is this actually a trope? If so, it needs a better name pronto!

Is "Interbellum" an established enough term to work here? Because that seems like the obvious choice to me.

This isn't about any interbellum anywhere. This isn't even necessarily about the Real Life Interbellum time period between WWI and WWII. This is more of a general way in which certain aspects of British and (to a much lesser degreee) WASPy Upperclass American life are potrayed in certain types of fiction.

The Roaring '20s and The Great Depression, for example take place during the same Real Life time period, but are distinct from Christie Time.

So, maybe this should be renamed, but simply calling it Interbellum is not the way to go.

And no, this is not a mystery only setting, nor does it claim to be.

—

An unspecified (usually) date somewhere between the end of World War One in 1918 and the commencement of World War Two in 1939. A time of women in evening gowns and gents in dinner jackets mingling at well-to-do cocktail parties, maids with noticeable cockney accents, rich tweed-clad country gentlemen and World War I-refugee detectives. Lots of action takes place in big country houses and small surrounding villages in the English countryside, often involving (depending on the author/genre) either wacky romantic misunderstandings or cold-blooded acts of murder, both of which evolve around complex, labyrinthian schemes. In the more urban areas, there's lots of Art Deco around. While The Roaring Twenties and then The Great Depression both took place around this period, the rather conservative and patrician milieu of Christie Time tends to keep the era's real-world social, cultural, and political upheavals somewhat at arm's length.

—-

edited 14th Oct '11 9:40:56 AM by Auxdarastrix

Any particular reason why Christie serves as the trope namer here? Much of the setting of her novels has very little to do with the English countryside.

• The Murder on the Links (1923) takes place in France.
• The Man in the Brown Suit (1924) in South Africa.
• The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) in France.
• Murder on the Orient Express (1934) in the Balkans.
• Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) in Iraq.
• Death on the Nile (1937) in Egypt.
• Appointment with Death (1938) in Palestine.

I can see how the name might be confusing; it made sense to me, but probably only because I read mysteries. However, I'm not really convinced that The Interbellum is much better. Yeah, it's a preexisting term, but how many people are familiar with it? I would think more people have heard of Agatha Christie than have heard the term Interbellum used to describe that time period. I could be wrong, though.

It's about an author named Christie? Okay, did you mean the American poet of the 1990s, the British playwright of the 1950s, the Canadian filmmaker of the 1910s, or the 18th-century historian?

Thought I was kidding? That Other Wiki lists over a hundred famous people named "Christie". Yes, this fails the One Mario Limit big time. This is not a good trope name, let's rename it.

At a minimum it should have been called Agatha Christie Time.

The Mousetrap

The world’s longest-running stage production, now in its 52nd year but freshened-up with an annual change of cast, owes its provenance to the late Queen Mary who demanded ‘an Agatha Christie play’ to celebrate her 80th birthday. BBC radio obliged with a 30-minute thriller entitled Three Blind Mice, which eventually became The Mousetrap, stretched to fill two hours on the stage and attracting hundreds of tourists and out-of-towners every week as part of the London experience. The setting is the Great Hall of Monkswell Manor in deepest Berkshire, owing its Jacobethan decor to the Inigo Jones revival, soon to be cut off from the world by fast falling snow. The time is ‘Agatha Christie time’ as the programme puts it, corned beef is on the menu and there are no mobile phones or television.

Theater Notes: Murder in Monmouth

Still, what of it? Under the direction of Ar Loecke and Monmouth Players president Paul Renick, the game cast (led by British native and recent Jersey transplant Kay Martines as the indefatigable Miss Marple) has fun with this dusty but still delectable petit-four; a confection so conventionally Christie (the program describes the story's setting as "Agatha Christie time") as to take place in not one but two conjoined drawing- rooms; equipped with secret door, even. A standout in the show's most comical role is Rachel M. Scalzo as the contrary Russian cook Mitzi, a turn that won this young Players veteran the biggest cheers from the opening-night crowd.

A Murder is Announced

The action takes place in two drawing-rooms in an early Victorian house in Chipping Cleghorn, which have been made into one room...

Time: Agatha Christie time

Decked]

Despite the contemporary setting, it might as well be 1938—Agatha Christie time—aboard the Queen Guinivere, where p.i. Regan Reilly has been persuaded to travel to New York with dotty old Lady Veronica Exner. Both Regan and Lady Exner are recovering from a jolt: Just before they shipped out, the body of Regan's ten-years'-missing college roommate, Athena Popolous, was discovered during a reunion.

3:00 a.m. Eternal

Thanks very much! It's very Agatha Christie time with the summation in Saloon,...

Poirot to be completed

The Christie adaptations are set in a nebulous "Agatha Christie Time", mid 30s-mearly 50s.

Wycliffe Drama Group

It is a surprise to Miss Blacklock when an announcement appears in the local paper’s personal column announcing a murder that evening, at her home. (I suspect that today’s reporters at the “Mail” would have immediately investigated such an ad, but this was set in “Agatha Christie time” where people did things differently).

Also, weren't a good deal of her novels set after the period in question? Her last book was published in the mid-Seventies, after all.

Sorry for being late to this topic, but there is now a single proposition rename crowner for this trope here.

Upper Class Interbellum Setting?

This at least makes it clear that it's a Setting as opposed to "Time" which doesn't exactly specify a setting per se (as pointed out above by Ospero). This gets in the posh country house element by specifying upper class. The only other way I can think of off hand is Upper Class Between The Wars Setting which is a bit unwieldy, but perhaps more clear.

Sigh... I suppose I could get behind that if we have to rename. Interbellum is better than "between the wars" though.

I know it's not the best name ever but it's kind of an awkward trope to name.

Also, "Posh" or "Genteel" might work better than "Upper Class". Both those words carry stronger cultural conotations than the more generic and technical "upper class".

Agree. I like "posh." Can't think of anything good, though.

That was what I liked about Christie Time. True, it was nonindicative unless you were a mystery fan, but to anyone familiar with Golden Age detective novels, it immediately conjured up a certain social milieu. Since it really is a milieu rather than just a time period that's at stake, it's a hard concept to put into just a few words.

I'd say "Genteel" rather than "Posh". Posh is luxurious. Genteel is middle-class and above. Just within the Christie canon, Poirot stories tended to be in Posh Settings, but Tommy and Tuppence were middle-class, and Miss Marple could be either.

Auxdarastrix,

If we end up having an alternative titles crowner, you could suggest Agatha Christie Time as a kind of compromise rename. I am not sure everyone would go for it, but that is an option.

edited 5th Jan '12 2:02:32 PM by LouieW

It looks like we have consensus to rename, but there have been only 11 votes so far. Should we give it more time, or call it?

I think it's time we called this.

Alright, calling the crowner, 5:1 in favour of a rename.

Wait, so this ISN'T about NJ Governor Chris Christie?