My first Agatha Christie was "Mrs McGinty's Dead" when I was 12 years old. I was introduced to the fascinating world of detective stories earlier through Arthur Conan Doyle’s pipe smoking, violin playing and cocaine consuming Holmes. But it took me no time to switch my loyalties over to the egg-shaped head and luxuriant moustache of the Belgian. Of course I completely bought into the idea which Christie propounded of the superiority of psychological detection using “little grey cells” over (what she disparagingly calls) the human hound-dog approach of sniffing out clues like the cigarette ash, fingerprints, witnesses, etc. But a larger part of the fascination lay in the gaiety of her books. Murder can hardly be gay..u say? Nevertheless that is the first word that comes to my mind when I think of the overall impression I have of her books. How does she manage to make all her books so lively with all those deaths and gruesome killers?
Her detectives were not bungling idiots relying upon mere chance to throw up a solution; indeed they were formidable in their own field (Except perhaps Tommy and Tuppence but there Christie steps into a different genre of adventure thrillers rather than the usual detective fiction). Yet at the same time there is always an absurd or comical touch to them. Whether it is Poirot with his vanity and fastidiousness, Miss Marple with her curiosity and love of village gossip or Superintendant Battle with his infuriating English stolidity, all her detectives evoke admiration tempered with a healthy irreverence for they are after all only too human. You are encouraged to not take them too seriously, cast an indulgent eye over their imperfections and you always end up being amazed in every story how those dear darlings are able to piece it all together!
I don’t remember anybody telling me about the strong vein of humour in Christie’s works. I wonder why it is so less spoken of. Many of her characters with their exaggerated traits are almost Wodehousian- no doubt he was one of her favourite authors! The woolly adorable English aristocrat, Lord Caterham, is a spitting image of Lord Emsworth and the profusion of aunts and cousins in her stories is veritably Woosterish. Yes, the resourceful butlers and helmet-pinching young men about town are missing but there are American millionaires, duchesses and poets/writers at least. One must take heart from that. What is remarkable is the way she juxtaposes these characters with a murder or scene of crime. So we have the apple munching Ariadne Olivier with her mismatched socks interviewing murder suspects in one story while an idle young aristocrat (who could well fit into the Drones Club) turns out to be the murderer in another!
And of course add to all this – a dash of romance. Very rarely have I come across any book of hers which does not have a budding romance or two…perhaps with a happy ending in jeopardy because of one of the partners is a suspect or a likely victim. By and large the more beautiful and likeable ladies are preserved till the end of the book in the interest of the love angle; but there are some notable exceptions- for instance, ‘Peril at End House’, ‘Death on the Nile’ or ‘Evil Under the Sun’.
What helps in this overall formula is of course the slightly detached look at death/demise. There is no undue misery or emotional upheaval when there is one. Mourning is quick and perfunctory if at all and quite a few people seem to benefit from the deaths. That I suppose is by design- there wouldn’t be multiple suspects otherwise! Never are the murders done by people whose point of view you genuinely empathise with or want to argue as justified. If at all there is an element of likeability in them or shades of grey in their character, then the writer mercifully lets them take the easier way out through suicide in the end…viz, ‘Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, ‘Death on the Nile’, ‘Murder in Mesopotamia’, etc. (‘Murder on the Orient Express’ being the only book where the murder is left unpunished in the end).
Christie makes murder so natural and devoid of darkness/evil that one can even contemplate the person sitting across the table drinking the morning cup of coffee committing one. I have always been fascinated by this whole idea of how a murder reveals things about the murderer and the victim. So I fantasized about how some of my relatives or friends would murder if they were to go about it (just a tickling academic exercise - before everybody disowns me). How would I murder-hmmm…let me see...:)) In a fit of rage probably…..someone I loved…the crime passionel....the weapon… a firearm (though Christie preferred poison for women) and the place…..beneath a pomegranate tree…..the witnesses…three grey kittens playing nearby with a broken plastic mug. What??? Is that so fantastic? Haven’t you ever thought about murdering someone? Oh come on…murder is gay. Almost festive. Cheers!
By,
Sharmishtha Dasgupta
2 comments:
I always thought Wodehouse mocked Christie in his novels with his multiple references to 'the butler did it' and such. Interesting to see your point of view on why Christie may have been a fan of Wodehouse. Looks like Wodehouse and Christie have been keeping everyone busy with general speculations.
Hi Anita. In fact in her dedication to Wodehouse in Halloween Party she writes,"To P. G. Wodehouse--whose books and stories have brightened my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books."
I think the admiration was kinda mutual. :)
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