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Monday, January 15, 2018

Danger At Beacon Cove Part 4



The image of Agatha Christie as a daredevil was not one I expected to find when I visited her hometown. It may well be I am overestimating the dangers of Beacon Cove. But without knowing more about this sheltered strand of beach filled with a plethora of rocks and boulders, and observing the way the ocean interacted with the shore at different times of the day, let alone in different seasons, I'd be leery of swimming there. Wouldn't you?

Agatha Christie wrote an astonishing number of books during her lifetime. 
When it comes to being a writer, and knowing what she was about, she totally nailed it. In terms of her storytelling ability, she got everything right. Her books and stories represent the epitome of the literary art form. She became, in every sense of the word, the author all others can only aspire to become. That's quite an accomplishment for a modest young woman to achieve in the male dominated 

Each day, Agatha Christie faced the daunting task of filling the empty page. In all likelihood, she started all those stories without knowing exactly what their final shape would be. Through braving each day's unknown dangers, she completed the rough drafts of those manuscripts. 

But she didn't stop there. Christie carried each and every story through the entire revision process. With each rewrite, she massaged and refined her stories into their ultimate, finished form. Then she battled her publishers to get her stories, told her way, into the hands of the public. 

All told, her publishing record suggests a life of constant struggle to create, to refine, and perfect. It tells of battles waged and won, and sometimes lost. Her vast, storytelling legacy paints a portrait of an exceptionally brave woman. 

Let others contest the dangerous waters of Beacon Cove. As for me, I'm content to remember the beauty I found there, and the pleasant afternoon I spent sketching what I saw. The memory of that experience, and how it colored my perception of her, will add greater depth and meaning the next time I open one of her books, and savor the results of the hard-won battles she fought over the final, finished pages. 

In fact, maybe I'll pick up one right now. How about you?

Dragon Dave

Monday, January 8, 2018

Danger at Beacon Cove Part 3

Standing up in the amphitheater, gazing down at Beacon Cove

There's a simplicity of style to Agatha Christie's books and short stories that belies the deep structure she built into her fiction. Sadly, that easy readability does not apply to her autobiography. Instead, Christie wanders along, relating reminiscences as she saw fit, whether they followed or backtracked in time. This is a real shame, as unlike her mysteries, it makes the narrative more difficult to follow. I started her autobiography a year ago, and enjoyed the portion I read. Then life through me a curveball, as it always does, knocked me out of the book for one reason or another, and I never came back.

Google "Agatha Christie Beacon Cove" and you'll find photos of this beautiful beach from a hundred years ago. Do a little digging, and you'll realize that Beacon Cove was a Women's Only beach during the author's childhood. She would have used one of those Victorian wheeled bathing machines to enter and exit the water! It's hard to imagine a bathing machine rolling up and down Beacon Cove without constantly breaking a wheel or axle on the boulders. Perhaps the city regularly trucked in sand to make the beach flatter back then. Either that, or Beacon Cove has suffered a great deal of erosion since Christie's childhood. But alas, that was over a century ago.

Do a little more online investigating, and you'll discover that, as a child, Christie didn't just wade into the water and squeal. She didn't just splash around with her friends. She liked to swim, really swim in the ocean. She saved her young nephew from drowning once, when he got into trouble at Beacon Cove. Later, during her world travels, she even took up surfing, and became one of the first British women to do so. When a particularly strong wave ripped off her swimsuit once, she crept out of the water when no one was looking. After she dressed, she went off to the shops, bought another swimsuit, and got back on her surfboard. 

I admire Christie for the way she wrote her fiction. Even if her autobiography has proven a  tougher sell, what I've learned online has made me want to delve back to it. She seems like a writer who didn't just sit back and observe life going on around her, but one who continually tested her limits. 

I wonder if she ever surfed at Beacon Cove?

Dragon Dave

Monday, January 1, 2018

Danger at Beacon Cove Part 2



According to the city of Torquay, Agatha Christie's hometown, Beacon Cove was one of the writer's favorite bathing spots. It's not hard to see why, given the beauty of the surrounding scenery. Nor on the afternoon we visited were we alone. A mother and her child joined us to share this quiet spot, sheltered by the wind, in tourist-popular Torquay. Like me, the woman sat on one of the large boulders, appreciating the scenery while her child played. Like my wife, the boy enjoyed exploring this rock hound's paradise.

Beacon Cove is no ordinary shingle beach. Round boulders and sharp rocks sit upon the shingle, or thrust up through the pebbles. Falling down, while walking over such an uneven surface, seems likely, especially after swimming, when your muscles are tired, and your sense of equilibrium has been weakened by all the motion of the waves.  Yet the city of Torquay has built an amphitheater here, so presumably Beacon Cove still proves popular with regulars and tourists alike.

But then, the Roman gladiatorial games were popular too. The masses crowded into amphitheaters to cheer on battles between strong and valiant souls. Inevitably, some of the competitors ended up being carried off the field during the course of their battles. So what could be more fitting than the city of Torquay building a concrete amphitheater where spectators can gather, and watch contestants brave the waves of Beacon Cove? Do modern crowds cheer when a swimmer emerges uninjured? Do the onlookers sigh or weep when a strong wave slams a swimmer into the rocks?

In her autobiography, and in the stories told about her by others, Agatha Christie seems like a level headed woman. The stories she constructed are charming and logical. Today they are regarded as paragons of the Cozy Mystery mini genre, in which violence is minimized, and a point of trauma is immediately followed by a scene in which the reader's sensibilities are soothed and comforted. 

Beacon Cove forms a strange contrast to the popular image of Christie as a woman of quiet, refined sensibilities. But perhaps she came here regularly to experience the thrill, and the danger, of swimming in this picturesque cove. Perhaps she learned how to comfort and sooth the reader by helping those injured by the waves and the rocks at Beacon Cove.

Does that image of Agatha Christie jar with your perception of her? Or does it gel with your knowledge of how adventurous she was, given the dangerous countries the writer visited in her travels, and the less-than-safe archeological digs Christie participated in with her second husband?

Dragon Dave