Giant's Bread is the story that lies behind the revolutionary musical composition, the human suffering it entails, and the life story of the composer - his childhood with his father and mother in the ancestral home that he loves devotedly all his life and the two women who influence his life: the woman he loves, and the woman who loves him.
At last he had to make a final and tragic decision with no time to count the cost. So comes to him the power to create what will be hailed a masterpiece.
Was the price too great to pay? Giant's Bread does not answer that question - it is left to the reader to make his own decision.
My Review:
Giant's Bread by Mary Westmacott has got to be the best Agatha Christie novel I've read thus far. It's in turns thoughtful, straightforward and metaphoric.
A strong prologue really sets up the story. It provides just enough of a sneak peek into the plot of the novel to keep the reader going when the plot hits a dull point. For me that point was when the focus was on music and composition.
The plot (minus the musical and artistic interest) and characters are very Jane-Austen-ish. A various turns I half expected Mr. Darcy to appear as a dinner guest. I was really surprised by the amount of metaphors for man's development throughout the novel. I had never thought of Agatha Christie as being the type of novelist to pull-off metaphors, yet in this novel she does so in a very comfortable and lucid manner.
The novel centres around Vernon Deyre's development. From his childhood at his ancestral home, Abbots Puissant, to the death of his father in the Boer War, his overcoming his hatred of music to discovers that he wants to become a composer, to his love affair and eventual marriage to his childhood friend, Nell, and finally to the tragic decision he makes that frees and inspires him to create his masterpiece.
I can't wait to read the other novels Agatha Christie has written under the pen name Mary Westmacott.
5/5
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