Agatha Christie gets a lot of flack for the creation of Tommy and Tuppence, two young stand-ins for herself and her husband Archie (get it, Archie and Agatha? Alliteration?). Tommy was a wounded warrior in WWI, Tuppence was a nurse, which is basically the Christie life story. I suppose critics think T&T to be indulgent, or just silly, and no doubt they are. But they are a relief from dealing with Hercule Poirot and especially Hastings. Tommy is the "dumb one," but he's just dumb enough to solve the mystery. Tuppence is the intuitive one, but she's not so intuitive we can't follow her train of thought.
The story kicks off with the two meeting after the war, broke and a little depressed, deciding to form a "Young Adventurers" agency, no "unreasonable offer refused." Detecting! It's a lark! They get caught up in international intrigue when Tuppence is declined their first case because she falsely gives herself the name "Jane Finn," a name Tommy overheard at a restaurant and considers supremely ridiculous (really? THIS is a ridiculous name? Compared to, I dunno, Tuppence?). I suppose the ridiculousness of "Jane Finn" doesn't translate to today.
Curious, T&T advertise for more information about "Jane Finn" in "the papers." They are then contacted by a man from a British intelligence agency and an American millionaire (a jewish guy whose dad made a killing in the steel industry, and of whom Tommy ignorantly remarks on his "unfortunate ancestry." Apparently Christie was kind of a bigtime anti-semite, according to a recollection from a book in a letter to the New Yorker that I can't link to) who is Finn's cousin. Finn was on the Lusitania, and was apparently asked to take a packet from an American that contained some sort of treaty that now, five years later, will have major negative impacts on the British government. Which is why they suspect that a certain "Mr. Brown," head of some kind of Commie group, wants it. So he can bring down the government with an overly-kind-to-Germany treaty that was never enacted. How touchy were people back then? "You tried to avoid war with Germany? That's it! I'm going communist!"
And yes, Christie hates commies.
I suppose what is so interesting about this book, besides the fact that T&T get a millionaire to give them money to do detective work that they've never done in their life, is that in spite of the fact that the government is on the precipice of failure, the parlor aspect of this thriller keeps it claustrophobic. It's like Christie has this sense of space that is collapsed. Very little happens outdoors, and when the treaty is apparently hidden outside it is in a tiny crevice that is easily identified along an easily-found path. T&T are always meeting the millionaire at the Ritz, eating in a deli called the Picadilly, and going to Marguerite Vandemeyer's apartment. Even a co-conspirator of T&T's, a little lift boy named Albert, works in an elevator. Even when Tuppence is shepherding Jane Finn to safety along a street, when Christie is finally dealing with a kind of open space, it is supposed to be menacing because they are surrounded by bolshevists.
When Mr. Brown is finally revealed, yeah, it's a surprise. I got fooled, I'll admit it.
But I can't really read a 300-page book waiting for the surprise ending. I need a little more than that, and the scope is both claustrophobic and yet not much psychologically is going on. Christie has been given a lot of benefit of the doubt for knowing "how people work" with their murderous impulses in a quiet setting. But she's a racist, an anti-semite, her writing depends on caricatures and her "good" people are kind of boring. Maybe pessimists like what they see, but I'm wondering if I'll make it through another few books without giving up.
Showing posts with label Agatha Christie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agatha Christie. Show all posts
Friday, October 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Big Four
A Chinese dude, a French lady, an American multi-millionaire and an English actor walk into a bar ....
No no no no no. This is not a joke. This is an Agatha Christie novel. Specifically, "The Big Four."
"The Big Four" kicks off in an odd way. Poirot announces to Hastings that through his amazing brainpower, he is certain that the whole world is controlled by four people (referenced above.) These people kill a bunch of little people who know their secret. Rather than having a long, novelized mystery, we get a kind of ... thriller? ... here. It's a fairly hilarious one, with a French lady scientist who allegedly dwarfs Marie Curie, a big-talking American with money to burn (literally), an inscrutable Chinaman (Christie's choice of words) who may be Number One in the Big Four, but doesn't seem to be too active, and the enforcer, who is an English actor so skilled he becomes whoever he acts as, except for retaining a murderous impulse. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what he's good for.
If the whole thing sounds a bit James Bond-y, at the end there is a fortress built into a mountainside with a labyrinth to its entrance.
I am going to have to give it up to Christie for the fact that this thriller is not only a piece of work of its time, what with its stereotypes and such, but it is ahead of its time with its sheer corn-pone thrills, chills and setups. Never before has Hastings knowingly walked into dangers, and never before has Hercule Poirot faked his own death (then pretended to be Achille Poirot, his "brother"). This is some stretching for her, and it shows her to be a master campiste before camp was a thing.
The only thing that is missing is sex. But hey, she's English. Breaks must be given.
No no no no no. This is not a joke. This is an Agatha Christie novel. Specifically, "The Big Four."
"The Big Four" kicks off in an odd way. Poirot announces to Hastings that through his amazing brainpower, he is certain that the whole world is controlled by four people (referenced above.) These people kill a bunch of little people who know their secret. Rather than having a long, novelized mystery, we get a kind of ... thriller? ... here. It's a fairly hilarious one, with a French lady scientist who allegedly dwarfs Marie Curie, a big-talking American with money to burn (literally), an inscrutable Chinaman (Christie's choice of words) who may be Number One in the Big Four, but doesn't seem to be too active, and the enforcer, who is an English actor so skilled he becomes whoever he acts as, except for retaining a murderous impulse. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what he's good for.
If the whole thing sounds a bit James Bond-y, at the end there is a fortress built into a mountainside with a labyrinth to its entrance.
I am going to have to give it up to Christie for the fact that this thriller is not only a piece of work of its time, what with its stereotypes and such, but it is ahead of its time with its sheer corn-pone thrills, chills and setups. Never before has Hastings knowingly walked into dangers, and never before has Hercule Poirot faked his own death (then pretended to be Achille Poirot, his "brother"). This is some stretching for her, and it shows her to be a master campiste before camp was a thing.
The only thing that is missing is sex. But hey, she's English. Breaks must be given.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
I can't believe I've gotten this far! Four books in!
Okay, so this is so far the best of the books I've read, and no doubt it is in part because Hastings is taking a break from Hercule Poirot's confusing methods of solving mysteries. Instead, we get a mild-mannered country doctor telling the tale. This was also the only time I've called the murderer early on in the book (is it because Dr. Sheppard is a better narrator? Mmmmmaaayyyyybbeee).
The characters are still total cliches, but act less cliched than in previous books. We've got a tart-tongued gossip, Dr. Sheppard's sister. We've also got a strange undercurrent of English upperclass interbreeding, in that the nephew and ward? Stepsomething? of the murdered man are expected to announce their engagement any day as the book opens. These are way more interesting than a "girl with nervous eyes" to my mind.
At any rate, the good doctor describes his last night seeing his great friend, Roger Ackroyd, as the book kicks off. Roger's wife has killed herself, and revealed in a letter who it is that has been blackmailing her over an old secret she's been carrying, but Roger, darn it, just won't finish the letter in front of the doctor. In fact, he puts the letter in his desk before he even sees the name. The next morning, he is found dead, stabbed with a piece of unnecessarily dagger-like cutlery from the silver chest.
Who killed him? Could it be his prodigal nephew who could use a few quid? His efficient and handsome secretary who has debts to pay off? His sister, who is generally intolerable? Her gorgeous daughter, who hates her dependency on her uncle? One of the creepy, secretive servants who haunt the house?
Or someone else entirely?
But I want to get across that this was so far the most readable, the most enjoyable and most subtle of the books of Agatha's I've read so far. Hercule Poirot's frenchisms are kept to a minimum (sort of), and while Agatha uses characteristically broad strokes to create her characters, she's wielding her paint brush a little more carefully than in past books. It was almost a pleasure! And it reminded me of the good time I had reading her books at my grandmommy's house on summer vacations.
In memory of my grandmommy Ruth, I just leaned back in my chair, put my arms on the arm rests, clasped my hands and rocked a little using my feet on the ottoman. That's just how she rolled. I think she and I shared the attitude that, while we were reading, we'd develop theories about whodunnit, but ultimately, the story was going where it was going to go and we just enjoyed the ride. And with "Ackroyd," I was able to do that instead of get caught up in the clunkerishness of Christie.
This, I have to say, was the first mystery where all the clues ultimately made sense at the end, at least for me. And it was nice having a non-Hastings narrator, even if he (spoiler alert!) dies at the end.
Up next: The Big Four.
Okay, so this is so far the best of the books I've read, and no doubt it is in part because Hastings is taking a break from Hercule Poirot's confusing methods of solving mysteries. Instead, we get a mild-mannered country doctor telling the tale. This was also the only time I've called the murderer early on in the book (is it because Dr. Sheppard is a better narrator? Mmmmmaaayyyyybbeee).
The characters are still total cliches, but act less cliched than in previous books. We've got a tart-tongued gossip, Dr. Sheppard's sister. We've also got a strange undercurrent of English upperclass interbreeding, in that the nephew and ward? Stepsomething? of the murdered man are expected to announce their engagement any day as the book opens. These are way more interesting than a "girl with nervous eyes" to my mind.
At any rate, the good doctor describes his last night seeing his great friend, Roger Ackroyd, as the book kicks off. Roger's wife has killed herself, and revealed in a letter who it is that has been blackmailing her over an old secret she's been carrying, but Roger, darn it, just won't finish the letter in front of the doctor. In fact, he puts the letter in his desk before he even sees the name. The next morning, he is found dead, stabbed with a piece of unnecessarily dagger-like cutlery from the silver chest.
Who killed him? Could it be his prodigal nephew who could use a few quid? His efficient and handsome secretary who has debts to pay off? His sister, who is generally intolerable? Her gorgeous daughter, who hates her dependency on her uncle? One of the creepy, secretive servants who haunt the house?
Or someone else entirely?
But I want to get across that this was so far the most readable, the most enjoyable and most subtle of the books of Agatha's I've read so far. Hercule Poirot's frenchisms are kept to a minimum (sort of), and while Agatha uses characteristically broad strokes to create her characters, she's wielding her paint brush a little more carefully than in past books. It was almost a pleasure! And it reminded me of the good time I had reading her books at my grandmommy's house on summer vacations.
In memory of my grandmommy Ruth, I just leaned back in my chair, put my arms on the arm rests, clasped my hands and rocked a little using my feet on the ottoman. That's just how she rolled. I think she and I shared the attitude that, while we were reading, we'd develop theories about whodunnit, but ultimately, the story was going where it was going to go and we just enjoyed the ride. And with "Ackroyd," I was able to do that instead of get caught up in the clunkerishness of Christie.
This, I have to say, was the first mystery where all the clues ultimately made sense at the end, at least for me. And it was nice having a non-Hastings narrator, even if he (spoiler alert!) dies at the end.
Up next: The Big Four.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
short bits
So a while back Slate ran a story about how Agatha Christie used multiple (and I mean a lot) notebooks through which she scattered notes about various plots and characters and wrote multiple variations of each mystery (so there might be different endings). The article acts totally shocked that she might not have known who the murderer is when she started writing each book. I think it's an intricate writer who can set out multiple possibilities and, as they are weaving their plots, pick the ending they believe fits best.
However, we are talking about novels here. Apparently Christie had such a bounty of ideas that even before she wrote novel #3 she published a book of short stories, "Poirot Investigates." Many of these stories don't involve murder and, let's face it, jewel thievery is just not as compelling as cold blooded murder. So I'll give her credit for dumping them into a book of short stories. And I would imagine she used a method of just scratching out her stories based on her ideas that she couldn't stretch out into a novel, with characters who don't stretch out much, either.
And there's the key, right there. The things that make Christie's books problematic are all in each of the stories -- the thin characters, the elaborate set-up, this actual quote: " 'Well isn't that most queer,' I ejaculated" -- without the things that redeem her novels in such great measure -- the twisted psychology and the meditation on place.
I have to admit that I couldn't finish "Poirot Investigates." Too much Hastings (which book #4, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" keeps in London while Poirot heads to the country. A kindly elderly doctor plays the Hastings role, and it is his sister, who is very into the town gossip, who provides any sense of depth of place that the narrator, well, lacks. But more on that later), too much surface flash.
I feel a little dejected in not finishing it, but it was putting me to sleep. I am really hoping I will get a break with some Miss Marple. I remember her as being awesome. I hope Christie comes up with her relatively soon in my journey.
However, we are talking about novels here. Apparently Christie had such a bounty of ideas that even before she wrote novel #3 she published a book of short stories, "Poirot Investigates." Many of these stories don't involve murder and, let's face it, jewel thievery is just not as compelling as cold blooded murder. So I'll give her credit for dumping them into a book of short stories. And I would imagine she used a method of just scratching out her stories based on her ideas that she couldn't stretch out into a novel, with characters who don't stretch out much, either.
And there's the key, right there. The things that make Christie's books problematic are all in each of the stories -- the thin characters, the elaborate set-up, this actual quote: " 'Well isn't that most queer,' I ejaculated" -- without the things that redeem her novels in such great measure -- the twisted psychology and the meditation on place.
I have to admit that I couldn't finish "Poirot Investigates." Too much Hastings (which book #4, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" keeps in London while Poirot heads to the country. A kindly elderly doctor plays the Hastings role, and it is his sister, who is very into the town gossip, who provides any sense of depth of place that the narrator, well, lacks. But more on that later), too much surface flash.
I feel a little dejected in not finishing it, but it was putting me to sleep. I am really hoping I will get a break with some Miss Marple. I remember her as being awesome. I hope Christie comes up with her relatively soon in my journey.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Golf, the deadliest game
Not.
"The Murder on the Links" is Agatha Christie's second published book. Now, a million years ago in the 90s when I was a college student I spent a summer working in a bookstore. An enormous one in a former Wal-Mart in Little Rock. I thought it would be rough because there would be so many amazing, awesome books inside that I'd want to read them. HA! Guess again! We had about a million copies of "Who Moved My Cheese," and they were displayed in these elaborate pinwheels that rose from the floor. We did this with basically all the bestsellers. The genre sections were also quite large. And as I was an uptight, snooty college student, I did not then care too much to read completely brain-dead books, so I was basically out of luck when it came to inspiring reading material there.
What I'm getting around to saying is this: There was a whole corner of the store dedicated to golfing junk. "A Good Walk Spoiled" was another floor-based pinwheel of a book, but there were clearly a lot of golf-based titles that had been rushed to press and tons of golfy knick-knacks in this area, which was almost as big as the Bible and flanker Bible section, which in Arkansas is saying something. There are entire mystery series dedicated to golf (tired of those links yet?).
And Agatha Christie seems to have figured this out as early as 1923, which is when "TMOTL" was first published. Christie also seems to realize how deadly golf actually is, in the sense that it will kill you of boredom, so besides the dead man being found on a golf course that is going up next door to his house, golf does not figure into this mystery. Indeed, of the construction of a golf course in smalltown France, one would think would make a kind of development-based mystery, because those things are expensive and often their cost is offset by building expensive, tacky homes (of the sort the French would revile) around the course. And what rich guy (like M. Renauld, the dead man) wants to live next to a bunch of nouveau riches! Incitement to murder, yes, I can see the motive now! But Christie was probably not used to that sort of development, the second half of the 20th Century not having happened at that time.
So Christie sets us up with a meet-cute on a train to Calais between Hastings and "Cinderella," a cute girl who is a tad too tart for Hastings. And by that I mean she's basically not going to faint into a dead swoon when he looks at her. Also, she's a stage performer -- the kind who sings and dances and (horrors!) does acrobatics in performances with her twin sister (raunchy!). And I believe this is still an age where copping to being a woman who performs onstage also basically means copping to taking money for sex.
Because if a woman enjoys attention that much, she must be a prostitute, right? Yeah, I don't follow the logic either.
But don't worry -- Hastings follows this "logic" completely because he is not about questioning the dominant paradigm. So when he gets back to the London apartment he is sharing with Hercule Poirot (like THAT doesn't sound suggestive, even though Hastings is very quick to mention he has a whole separate room, he's probably only doing it so he sounds rich, not like he's in love with Poirot), he believes a note that Poirot has received, begging the help of this famous detective by a rich man saying he needs help, is totally legit. But Poirot assures him that no, the handwritten, "For God's sake, come!" at the bottom is a calculated ploy. And calculation always gets Poirot's juices flowing.
So it is back to France for Hastings. On a rich man's dime. Lucky, silly Hastings.
Well, immediately on arrival Poirot and Hastings learn that the Renauld son (as they say in France, Renauld fils) has been cut out of the will because it looks like he wants to marry the penniless girl next door, whose mother might be Renauld's lover. Already, I can think of some "Lone Star"-y, "Chinatown"-y reasons this union might not be so eagerly desired, but to her credit (or something) Christie is not going to go there.
Dang it.
Okay, again, she gets in some nice twists, and even has Hastings kind of figuring out stuff a little (but not all the way, that is for Hercule to do), and underestimating women like mad. As I recall from childhood, Hastings' constant undervaluation of women's capacity to be smart, conniving and athletic leads him to not solving mysteries.
Before the book ends, marriages will be saved, others will be thwarted, identities will be revealed, the French police will look like fools and, of course, the golf is completely irrelevant.
But if Hercule Poirot is supposed to be so smart, why did he spend the 500 francs he wagered with the French policeman on a statue of a dog for his mantlepiece?
The mystery never ends. Ever.
"The Murder on the Links" is Agatha Christie's second published book. Now, a million years ago in the 90s when I was a college student I spent a summer working in a bookstore. An enormous one in a former Wal-Mart in Little Rock. I thought it would be rough because there would be so many amazing, awesome books inside that I'd want to read them. HA! Guess again! We had about a million copies of "Who Moved My Cheese," and they were displayed in these elaborate pinwheels that rose from the floor. We did this with basically all the bestsellers. The genre sections were also quite large. And as I was an uptight, snooty college student, I did not then care too much to read completely brain-dead books, so I was basically out of luck when it came to inspiring reading material there.
What I'm getting around to saying is this: There was a whole corner of the store dedicated to golfing junk. "A Good Walk Spoiled" was another floor-based pinwheel of a book, but there were clearly a lot of golf-based titles that had been rushed to press and tons of golfy knick-knacks in this area, which was almost as big as the Bible and flanker Bible section, which in Arkansas is saying something. There are entire mystery series dedicated to golf (tired of those links yet?).
And Agatha Christie seems to have figured this out as early as 1923, which is when "TMOTL" was first published. Christie also seems to realize how deadly golf actually is, in the sense that it will kill you of boredom, so besides the dead man being found on a golf course that is going up next door to his house, golf does not figure into this mystery. Indeed, of the construction of a golf course in smalltown France, one would think would make a kind of development-based mystery, because those things are expensive and often their cost is offset by building expensive, tacky homes (of the sort the French would revile) around the course. And what rich guy (like M. Renauld, the dead man) wants to live next to a bunch of nouveau riches! Incitement to murder, yes, I can see the motive now! But Christie was probably not used to that sort of development, the second half of the 20th Century not having happened at that time.
So Christie sets us up with a meet-cute on a train to Calais between Hastings and "Cinderella," a cute girl who is a tad too tart for Hastings. And by that I mean she's basically not going to faint into a dead swoon when he looks at her. Also, she's a stage performer -- the kind who sings and dances and (horrors!) does acrobatics in performances with her twin sister (raunchy!). And I believe this is still an age where copping to being a woman who performs onstage also basically means copping to taking money for sex.
Because if a woman enjoys attention that much, she must be a prostitute, right? Yeah, I don't follow the logic either.
But don't worry -- Hastings follows this "logic" completely because he is not about questioning the dominant paradigm. So when he gets back to the London apartment he is sharing with Hercule Poirot (like THAT doesn't sound suggestive, even though Hastings is very quick to mention he has a whole separate room, he's probably only doing it so he sounds rich, not like he's in love with Poirot), he believes a note that Poirot has received, begging the help of this famous detective by a rich man saying he needs help, is totally legit. But Poirot assures him that no, the handwritten, "For God's sake, come!" at the bottom is a calculated ploy. And calculation always gets Poirot's juices flowing.
So it is back to France for Hastings. On a rich man's dime. Lucky, silly Hastings.
Well, immediately on arrival Poirot and Hastings learn that the Renauld son (as they say in France, Renauld fils) has been cut out of the will because it looks like he wants to marry the penniless girl next door, whose mother might be Renauld's lover. Already, I can think of some "Lone Star"-y, "Chinatown"-y reasons this union might not be so eagerly desired, but to her credit (or something) Christie is not going to go there.
Dang it.
Okay, again, she gets in some nice twists, and even has Hastings kind of figuring out stuff a little (but not all the way, that is for Hercule to do), and underestimating women like mad. As I recall from childhood, Hastings' constant undervaluation of women's capacity to be smart, conniving and athletic leads him to not solving mysteries.
Before the book ends, marriages will be saved, others will be thwarted, identities will be revealed, the French police will look like fools and, of course, the golf is completely irrelevant.
But if Hercule Poirot is supposed to be so smart, why did he spend the 500 francs he wagered with the French policeman on a statue of a dog for his mantlepiece?
The mystery never ends. Ever.
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