Gilligan's Island: Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (1939)

And Then There Were None

How I loved Gilligan's Island as a child (not so much now: my threshold for humor has risen). But what I loved most about it wasn't the hijinks, it wasn't Jim Backus's line deliveries, or even Ginger's gowns. I loved how clear and iconic the cast of characters was. You know them, you remember them: there's Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire (and his wife), the Movie Star, the Professor, and Mary Ann. It couldn't be clearer. Before the show even began, there it was, the entire set lodged in your head.

As you watched the plot unfold you would see the Professor doing professorial things, the movie star appearing appropriately glamorous, and the Howells being out-of-touch with how the everyday person behaved. (Incidentally, my favourite episode was "The Producer", the one where they performed a musical by singing lyrics to old opera songs on an album the Howells had brought along with their record player, and incidentally a TV Guide pick for one of television's 100 greatest episodes),

When I pick up a new mystery, I silently pray for a Gilligan's Island cast, and sadly, often I'm let down, even by the great writers. Dorothy Sayers gave me Gaudy Night, set at the all-female Shrewsbury College, where every character was either a female student or teacher, and I got lost trying to keep track of who was who. On the anti-distaff side (apparently known as the "spear" side, though not by me), are umpteen mysteries written from the 1920s through the 1970s set in offices (accounting, advertising, lawyering, whatever) filled with middle-aged men with no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever except that one of them is a murderer and the others, presumably, are not. (See also Mystery, Oxford (or Cambridge), and Mystery, Ecclesiastical).

And that's the secret behind the enduring success of the murder-at-the-manor-house kind of cosy mystery that Agatha Christie excelled in. When handled correctly, it's easy to get all kinds of characters into your story. What's easier to keep track of, Stevenson, Smithson, Jameson, Trent, and Price, who work at the real estate firm of Stevenson & Price? Or Duchess Agatha, opera singer Christa VanFusse, wee Davey the gardener's boy, polo champion Dash Standish, and erotic-memoirs author Ivy LeSoeur? You know it's the second one, whether that kind of book is to your taste or not. You never have to spare any mental effort toward wondering "which one's wee Davey—is he the gardener's boy or the visiting opera diva?" But you (or at least I) spend many fruitless minutes wondering "is Stevenson the one with the dodgy alibi and the bedridden mother, or was that Trent? Or Price? Or any of the others?".

Christie wrote two masterpieces (in particular; she wrote many masterpieces, many great books, many good books, and some not-particularly outstanding books: she wrote a lot). I speak of Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None. Murder on the Orient Express is essentially Gilligan's Island on a train, and they're ̶s̶h̶i̶p̶w̶r̶e̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ snowbound and can't get off. The cast of characters includes a Hungarian Count & Countess, an English governess, a Greek physician, a Swedish missionary, and so on and so forth, distinct characters made even more distinct by nationality. We encounter some of them slightly, but our real introduction to each is made one at a time as detective Poirot interviews them, tidily one per chapter. It's impossible to get confused.

And Then There Were None is Gilligan's Island on an island, and they can't leave for much the same reason: no boat. (It dropped them off, but it's not coming back). The easy-to-distinguish characters include a pious elderly spinster, a retired WWI general, a soldier of fortune, a sports mistress, and so on. They're made very clear, more so because the story takes a bit of time to give each a back story, and the back stories are relevant and reinforce our identification of each person, e.g. the pious spinster's back story involves her deep religious faith, it's not some irrelevance about a fun time at the theatre with a cousin.

Agatha Christie has said that this was her most difficult book to write, which I don't doubt, but won't give away why in case you haven't read it. If so, you're somewhat alone: it's the best selling mystery of all time, and in the top 10 for any genre (including non-fiction). It's sold over 100 million copies: it's popular. You don't have to read it in any order, it's standalone.

And Then There Were None is the U.S. title; it received an unfortunate title at its first publication in the U.K. (Ten Little N_____s, yes, the N word, from a well-known minstrel song), and was updated to be Ten Little Indians, a slight improvement but not by much, so now it generally goes by the U.S. title, even abroad. Because the song is quoted in the book and matters to the plot, its lyrics have been adjusted as well, and nowadays refer to "ten little soldier boys". The song itself is a bit of a spoiler, so I won't quote it here.

If you think of Christie as old-fashioned and cosy, be warned: this is far-and-away her bleakest book, and it was a bit of a shock when I read it as a child. No detective, not really. Very little gathering of clues or interviewing suspects. Instead, and it's hardly a spoiler at this point, it's 10 people on an island and they start dying. Is it accident? Suicide? Or murder? Bleak, bleak, bleak.

I won't give too much away, but will just say Christie pulls this off with aplomb, and even manages to gift us an unexpected treat. She normally (in a Poirot book) will suggest a solution, then provide an alternate solution, before Poirot finally reveals the actual solution. She does much the same, here, despite massive practical impediments to her being able to do so. If she hadn't invented Hercule Poirot, she would still be remembered for this book. It's sales have only been surpassed by only the 1st Harry Potter, The Little Prince, The Alchemist, and A Tale of Two Cities.

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Notes and Links

And Then There Were None - the best-selling mystery of all time

The Cast of Gilligan's Island Performs "Hamlet the Musical" - best moments of the show

And Then There Were None - the (relatively) recent miniseries