Which of WG's other non-Poldark books have you read ? - The Winston Graham & Poldark Literary Society

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

RE: Which of WG's other non-Poldark books have you read ?

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

"Take my Life" film thread now transferred to....

http://poldark.activeboard.com/t1964958/f1-films-take-my-life-1947-uk/

Hollyhock · Status: Offline

Ross wrote:

Any thoughts and views yet on the film "Take My Life"....?

I stumbled on the movie during the summer when I was watching films noir, saw it was based on a WG book and watched. It's not Spellbound (which it vaguely resembles) but has enough Hitchcockian twists and turns to make it quite suspenseful and well worth watching. (Couldn't help but imagine Robert Montgomery in the lead role, Hugh Williams is kind of stiff.) I found the prosecutor compelling and the murderer convincingly creepy (especially in the piano scene). Loved Greta Gynt as the heroine; she gives a great performance, is believably tenacious, and does an excellent job of patching clues together. As a huge fan of suspense movies, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Of the Poldark world I saw little resemblance except possibly in the characters. Philippa's (the heroine) loyalty for her husband reminds me of Caroline's fierce loyalty to Dwight. The prosecutor has Rev. Halse-like traits. But most revealing for me was that in the murderer I saw the possibility of a Paul Kellow. Let me hasten to add that I don't think Paul is based on the murderer in this movie, but that the movie helped me see that Paul wasn't just some bizarre aberration. I wondered, in another topic, if WG had dreamed up the psychotic Paul after watching too many late night B movies. But this movie helped me see that the potential for Paul was always there, just waiting for a chance to escape (like Butto) and wreak havoc on Cornwall.

Stella Poldark · Status: Offline

Ross Poldark wrote:
You can also check against the list of all his books in his bibliography on the old website....
http://web.archive.org/web/20071015004741/http://www.poldark.org.uk/bibliography.html
1. Regarding this thread....
http://poldark.activeboard.com/t1027718/11-my-turn-next-1942/
http://poldark.activeboard.com/t52416184/32-cameo-1988/
2. Finally there's a sub forum for all his books and films on this forum here....
http://poldark.activeboard.com/f69739/winston-grahams-books-amp-films/

-- Edited by Ross Poldark on Tuesday 12th of September 2017 05:14:34 PM

Ross - thank you for these links which look very useful.

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

No they're two separate books altogether My Turn Next and Cameo. You can also check against the list of all his books in his bibliography on the old website....

http://web.archive.org/web/20071015004741/http://www.poldark.org.uk/bibliography.html

1. Regarding this thread....

http://poldark.activeboard.com/t1027718/11-my-turn-next-1942/

http://poldark.activeboard.com/t52416184/32-cameo-1988/

2. Finally there's a sub forum for all his books and films on this forum here....

http://poldark.activeboard.com/f69739/winston-grahams-books-amp-films/

-- Edited by Ross Poldark on Tuesday 12th of September 2017 05:14:34 PM

Stella Poldark · Status: Offline

Ross Poldark wrote:
Ross Poldark wrote:
Yes more or less my own thoughts as well, but I remember thinking beforehand that because it was also printed in 1945 just before RP later in that same year that it should also have the same degree of involvement too, so very surprised that both books were so different. One inspired with the reader immediately living in the depths of the Poldark world, the other with little to no involvement at all. As if he was two different people.
Yet with his film "Take My Life" produced in 1947 in the link below I became really involved compared to the book having watched it several times since. Very much shades of Marnie in there too....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VROx5F6yzxI
Any thoughts and views yet on the film "Take My Life"....?

Ross - I shall make time to watch the video but am unclear if you are saying that the film 'Take My Life' is based on 'The Forgotten Story'.

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

Ross Poldark wrote:
Yes more or less my own thoughts as well, but I remember thinking beforehand that because it was also printed in 1945 just before RP later in that same year that it should also have the same degree of involvement too, so very surprised that both books were so different. One inspired with the reader immediately living in the depths of the Poldark world, the other with little to no involvement at all. As if he was two different people.
Yet with his film "Take My Life" produced in 1947 in the link below I became really involved compared to the book having watched it several times since. Very much shades of Marnie in there too....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VROx5F6yzxI

Any thoughts and views yet on the film "Take My Life"....?

Stella Poldark · Status: Offline

It's good to branch out so I have decided that I shall read 'The Forgotten Story', mainly because it is set in Cornwall. I have read 'Memoirs of a Quiet Man' one of WG's autobiographical books which is well worth reading. Other novels that I know of which are set in Cornwall are The Grove of Eagles set in the times of the Armada, and The Ugly Sister. I have copies of both but haven't yet read either. With Winter approaching it could be an ideal time to do some extra reading.

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

Yes more or less my own thoughts as well, but I remember thinking beforehand that because it was also printed in 1945 just before RP later in that same year that it should also have the same degree of involvement too, so very surprised that both books were so different. One inspired with the reader immediately living in the depths of the Poldark world, the other with little to no involvement at all. As if he was two different people.

Yet with his film "Take My Life" produced in 1947 in the link below I became really involved compared to the book having watched it several times since. Very much shades of Marnie in there too....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VROx5F6yzxI

Mrs Gimlett · Status: Offline

I have read The Forgotten Story - in fact re-read it a few years ago. It has a slight flavour of Poldark in it, in so far as it's set in Falmouth and therefore Cornwall is in the mix. Other than that, it is nothing like our Poldarks. I did find it quite a page turner but wasn't prepared for the ending - quite brutal. Don't want to give anything away to those yet to read it, but I think it deserves a reading.

Have looked on Amazon and an edition is now available in paperback format from Bello, a subsidiary of PanMacMillan. Also available as an e-book.

When I first read it, I was full of hope it might be a bit Poldarkian, as there is a mention of Sawle, but that was soon dispelled, especially when I read 1898.

Who else has read this rather strange book?

One thing it does contain is an Epilogue. Now there's a thing we could have done with at the end of Bella P!

Ross Poldark · Status: Offline

Now that the nights are drawing in and with a few months to go yet before the next Poldark series, which of WG's other non-Poldark books have you read or would like to read ?

Bearing in mind WG's statement much later on that he effectively turned his back on all his pre-war books and because some of them including a few in the early Fifties are occasionally available on ebay, I've found it hard having read quite a few that with one or two exceptions where the stories are set in Cornwall that they were written by WG at all.

Certainly many of his pre-war books and even early postwar ones before, during and even after the first four Poldark books were very much into suspense, intrigue, spying, murder and mysteries leaving one with the feeling that he was almost two different people, as he perhaps tantalisingly reveals when talking about writing Poldark in his autobiography "Memoirs of a Private Man" on Page 84 second paragraph....

"I felt like a man driving a coach and four, roughly knowing the direction in which the coach would travel, but being pulled along by forces only just under his control. It was physically and mentally both exhausting and exhilarating. Every now and then after a long passage the coach, as it were, would lurch to a stop with a half-dozen possible roads opening ahead and no signposts. A day or two of agonizing indecision; then the road would be chosen and we would be off again...."

Then at the end of the first paragraph on P. 85 on his way home across the beach in the glimmering twilight across the wet sand ....

"....I was going back each evening to the real world, waiting to welcome me at home; but it is doubtful which to me just then was the more real. All I knew was that I was writing something out of my very guts, and that I was content."

Could it perhaps have been that Poldark might have awoken a hitherto unknown highly imaginative streak in him somewhere, revealing an intriguing and interesting contrast to all his other pre-war and postwar non-Poldark books....?

http://web.archive.org/web/20071015004741/http://www.poldark.org.uk/bibliography.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20071015004841/http://www.poldark.org.uk/films.html

So if you haven't read any of WG's early non Poldark books before why not choose two or three in the link above even a film of the period, as it would be interesting to hear everyone's views and comparisons about WG's other novels over the months ahead.... smile