I was almost completely uninterested in "whodunnit" mysteries until just a few years ago.
Apart from devouring Sherlock Holmes as a teenager, I think I had only read a volume of Simenon's Inspector Maigret, and a few of Dorothy L Sayers's Peter Wimsey novels (of which The Nine Tailors is much my favourite).
Then, as a family, we watched all of the Agatha Christie Poirot TV series starring David Suchet, and also the Miss Marple series starring Joan Hickman. These are both superb light entertainment, and I began to become curious as to the books themselves.
Lately I have read (or listened as audiobooks*) quite a few (albeit less than half) of the Christie volumes featuring Poirot and Marple; and some of the one-off books such as The Pale Horse, The Seven Dials, and Ordeal by Innocence.
Despite remembering from the TV adaptations who was the killer in most of these novels, I found them to be extremely enjoyable for their deft, varied and clearly-differentiated characterizations; and for the insight, wisdom, and goodness that lies behind them - and therefore apparently emanates from the author herself: Agatha Christie.
This goodness deserves comment, because few authors are able to depict good, interesting, and likeable characters - presumably because not many authors have enough such traits, or else they are too feeble!
My only significant criticism is understandable and indeed unavoidable; which is that many of the murders are unbelievably (to me) complicated.
This, I presume, arises because the simple plots with straightforward methods of killing were rapidly used-up by earlier Murder Mystery writers.
But while the methods are sometimes convoluted, the plots have a very sastifying economy and progression.
In a book like Ordeal by Innocence (and there are many others) Christie rapidly sets-up a "closed" situation with a finite number of characters; the implications of which then get unfolded step-by-step; exploring (what feels like) all possible personal permutations of the characters in terms of their interactions.
With the denouement, the intricate structure locks into place with a very satisfying sense of completeness.
Since Christie was so prolific, and kept a generally high standard of quality throughout, I anticipate a good deal of enjoyment yet to come.
*Hugh Fraser, as in the above picture; is a superb, indeed exemplary, audiobook reader of Christie.
11 comments:
Old people and their mystery novels!
I have essentially the same experience, only I started with Poe and still prefer him to Conan-Doyle. I almost brought up Agatha Christie on your prior post about work vs leisure. I love her quote that “the best time to write a novel is while washing dishes,” and I was going to ask you whether that was a sort of “woman thing,” because my experience is like that, I mean that I don’t feel this burden many male creatives seem to have where work or mundane life gets in the way of creativity. Rather it helps it. The few times I’ve tried to set aside weeks for creative work it’s rarely been productive.
@Mia - wrt working conditions. It is probably significant that - as a university academic - I never applied for a sabbatical. My best conditions were to have some regular but not too frequent teaching (etc) duties, with a "broad margin" every day or every few days, in which there was a chance for the creative thinking stuff to happen. I also walked to and from work, which was 30-40 mins each direction, and provided more opportunity for thinking.
It is notable that Christie did Not mention social interactions, or watching/ listening to media, as a good time to write a novel - because these are the worst kind of stimulus.
Continuous attention-grabbing perceptual input and, worse, social interaction, are both lethal to creativity.
On the other hand; too much unstructured and solitary time is depressing (or worse), or gets filled with mentally trivial routine - as happens to most people in monastic settings.
Human beings are neither flesh nor fowl, beast nor angel - but partake of both.
Could I recommend the French Maigret series from the 1990s starring Bruno Cremer. It's currently on Talking Pictures TV on Monday nights, I think. He's as good as Maigret as David Suchet is as Poirot and Joan Hickson is as Miss Marple, and the production of the whole series is excellent with a kind of gloomy 1950s feel.
@William - Your last recommendation (of Marple/ Hickson) was excellent, so I shall follow up on this one, if possible!
I find it interesting that the genre of murder mystery novels appeal mostly either to teenagers or to older people. I read a lot of novels by Agatha Christie (all the Poirots) and probably all Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a teenager, then I moved to other more "serious" stuff.
Nowadays I don't find the genre so interesting (I tried to re-read some Sherlock Holmes, I enjoyed the short stories, but found the longer novels a bit burdensome, especially since I already knew the resolution) but perhaps I am not old enough yet? My parents love to watch detective series such as Poirot, etc, or really anything that is an old-fashioned murder mystery (but they hate the more modern and grisly "serial killer" stuff).
I must admit I've always hated whodunnits, although I accept this is probably irrational. Chesterton loved them. Yeats loved them.
I think part of the reason is the one you mention: there's only so many plots, one would think.
@Zeno - My reading patterns seem extremely unusual compared with anyone I have ever encountered (for instance, I read very little fiction, and most of what I do read is a multiple-re-read); so I don't suppose general explanations of preferences apply to me.
@Mal - You have reminded me that another mystery writer I read in my twenties was Chesterton's Father Brown stories.
I am really not interested in the whodunnit aspects (I am indifferent to puzzles and games to a very extreme degree) - and would prefer the stories were Not based on murders or other violence.
But the Christie books I enjoyed have mostly been for other reasons such as character, humour, observation, deftness of style and structure...
i relate to this. but also to the 'mundane' tasks Mia mentioned. working in the garden is especially, but perhaps unsurprisingly, fruitful.
"I read very little fiction, and most of what I do read is a multiple-re-read"
That's me as well. Especially as I find very few (essentially no) fiction writers who are publishing new works today to be of interest. All my favorite fiction writers are dead, but I still get value and pleasure from periodic re-reading.
The fiction publishing industry has been captured by evil, and it's very difficult for non-evil works to get past the gatekeepers.
It always struck me as a conundrum in Divine Creation that wise and perceptive sleuths such as Poirot and Miss Marple are clearly something that *deserves* to exist… but in order to provide the occasion for them to develop and exercise their talent, someone must first be murdered, which seems unfair to the murder-victim. This is perhaps a function of human narrow-mindedness about what sort of thing feels Worth Investigating.
@JP - I agree with that analysis. Of course, this means that I don't keep an eye on new fiction any more, so am more likely to miss the odd speck of gold among the dross.
The most recent books I have most appreciated was the Harry Potter series (late 90s for a decade) and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (mid 2000s, but I didn't read it until 2015). These are now about 20 years old. Neither author wrote anything I value since these works.
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