Agatha Christie

[uilnslcoap]

Kathryn, I have yet to read any Tommy and Tuppence (my father never 
liked them really, and so he never really recommended them), but I 
will have a chance to change that in the near future.

Elkins wrote:

> Oooh, yes.  _And Then There Were None_ and _The Murder of Roger 
> Ackroyd_ would both *definitely* have to go on my top five list.  
I'm 
> also extremely fond of _Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the 
> Nile,_ and _Evil Under the Sun._
> 
> Of the somewhat lesser knowns, my favorites are _Three Little Pigs_
> (also known as _Murder In Retrospect_), _The Hollow,_ and _Towards 
> Zero._
> 
> Oh.  But that makes eight, doesn't it?  
> 
> I'm also extremely fond of _Sleeping Murder,_ because although I now
> consider it one of Christie's weaker efforts, it was the first one
> that I ever read, and I was young enough at the time that it really
> really *scared* me.
> 
> I'm not crazy about Tommy and Tuppence myself, but I found the 
> oft-decried _Postern of Fate_ utterly fascinating when read as a 
> novel about the onset of senile dementia.
> 
> Oh, dear.  You know, I *really* didn't mean for that to come out 
> sounding nearly as cruel as I suspect that it must have.  But 
> seriously, if you read Christie's autobiography, and then read 
> _Postern of Fate,_ it does form a very interesting picture of an 
> author struggling to describe what is happening to the state of her 
> mind as she ages.

You know, I have an English paper due in three hours, so I'm taking 
time out of my very busy schedule to reply to this.  (*inwardly 
cursing self*)

Oh, and Anna, yes, And Then There Were None is fantastic and deserves 
a good movie version (the really old one from the 30s comes closest, 
but we need a version that embraces the REAL ending--and what an 
ending!).  I always pictured Lesley Ann Warren as Vera Claythorne, 
but she's a tad old for the job now.

Elkins, are you sure it was called Three Little Pigs?  I thought it 
was Five Little Pigs (and I remember that being also called Murder in 
Retrospect), about that artist fellow who was thought to be murdered 
by his wife Caroline, yes?  That is a very good one, if we are 
thinking of the same novel.  Death on the Nile is EXCELLENT, and The 
Hollow and Towards Zero are both well above average on my scale.  I 
regret not having read either Postern of Fate or Evil Under the Sun 
at this point.  I never cared for Murder on the Orient Express 
because it's the only Christie I figured out before the solution came 
out.  It felt pat to me, but never mind, never mind.

It's definitely telling that Marple holds little or no weight in my 
favorites (I'd pick The Moving Finger--I think that's what it's 
called--as my favorite Marple, it's good but not quite ranking among 
the Poirots).

I'll tell you a couple of lesser-knowns I love: Cards on the Table 
because it's the only Christie where EVERY suspect was realistically 
red-herringed up till the very end.  Three Act Tragedy for reasons 
that concern the solution and which I will not divulge here.  I also 
like The ABC Murders, but I couldn't tell you why right now.

Here's the Christie (aside from perhaps And Then There Were None) 
that I think deserves a place in literary, and not just mystery, 
history: Endless Night.  That book is SO well-written.  The murder 
occurs so far in and what drives the book instead is atmosphere and 
tension.  All the while, I shivered, thinking "Something is not 
right, something is rotten here."  Pay-off came with a vengeance.  
That book is marvelously constructed and written, and I think would 
stand literary analysis.  "In my end is my beginning."  "Some are 
born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night." *shudder*

Here's why Thirteen at Dinner is my favorite: 1) I find the 
characters more believable than usual.  2) I felt if I'd only 
wrestled a little longer, I would have had the solution, yet it 
satisfied me when I heard it to no end.  3) It is the only Poirot 
mystery where he, Poirot, is mystified almost the entire time.  He 
runs about like a chicken with his head cut off, losing his cool at 
Hastings not a few times.  In just about every Poirot mystery, Poirot 
ambles about self-satisfiedly certain he will come out at the 
answer.  In Thirteen at Dinner, he almost drives himself crazy.  He 
is saved by coincidence (as is revealed early in the book).  In fact, 
Hastings reveals in the first couple of pages that Poirot considers 
the case one of his failures because it was only through chance that 
he arrived at the solution.  Of course, it's necessary to have read 
about 10 Poirot novles before this to understand how utterly 
unbelievable it is to see Poirot at a loss for so long.

And I can't remember who asked this, but yes, David Suchet is the 
only man who should play Poirot, ever.  The Murder on the Orient 
Express fellow was oddly manic and just off-putting and Ustinov (in a 
QUITE GOOD adaptation of Death on the Nile) was just too stolid, not 
energetic enough.  Suchet is so prim, and yet obviously alive and 
involved and active.  He's the best representation I've seen (even if 
the A&E Thirteen at Dinner and Murder of Roger Ackroyd adaptations 
disappointed me).  A&E's Marple is quite good, too, though I don't 
remember her name.