In case you've never had a conversation with me
about books before, or you're a bit stupid, or you live under a rock,
or you've never met me, or for actually rather a large number of
reasons, you might not be aware of my slight preference for any book by
Agatha Christie. And, by slight preference, I actually mean total
obsession.
I was sitting around one night, watching PBS
(because we literally get one channel on my television), and suddenly a
show called "Agatha Christie's Poirot" comes on. And I start to watch
it, and I'm like, "Oh cool, this guy looks pretty interesting."
But
I didn't get to watch the whole thing. This process repeated a couple
of times, and finally one day I decided that I should read one of these
mysterious Agatha Christie books. So I went to the library and I checked
out the
ABC Murders. And pretty soon I started to barf rainbows.
In
case you don't know, (and also, ****SPOILER ALERT!*** Special thanks to
River Song) the ABC Murders is about a serial killer who sends a
detecteive, M. Hercule Poirot, a letter giving the exact day on which
someone will be murdered. He then proceeds to kill an old woman whose
first and last names begin with A and who lives in a town starting with
A, leaving behind an ABC Train guide as a clue. This happens four more
times, with a BB name in a B town and a CC name in a C Town, etc. The
whole time, you think it's this guy whose initials are ABC, who is just a
bit crazy, but actually it's the C victim's brother for a totally
normal reason.
The reason I fell in love with this
series is mostly because of the detective, Poirot. Hercule Poirot is
about sixtyish, so pretty old, and very Belgian. He worked for the
Belgian police force for a while, becoming something of a legend, before
he retired. (HE actually does this quite a lot). Now, Poirot basically
solves crimes as a private detective, working sometimes alongside the
police and Inspector James Japp, sometimes alongside his best friend
Captain Hastings, who has a thing for redheads and is a bit dull but has
a wild imagination that can often be vital to solvingt he mystery, and
sometimes alongside his slightly crazy author friend Ariadne Oliver, who
rights detective novels about a Finnish detective named Sven Hjerson.
She also likes apples.
Poirot isn't just cool because
of his tendnecy to speak french or his fantastic moustaches, but because
of the "little grey cells" of his brain and his belief in truth and
justice. Poirot will go about, find out evidence (although not like the
bloodhound who sniffs out clues), then sit back and study the psychology
of the case. He will literally solve the case while sitting at his
(square) home in his chair or building a card house. He also values the
trth of the case more than anything else, and if people try to call him
off or push him away, he'll still stay on the case just so that he will
discover the truth.
Sometimes, like the the
Murder on the Orient Express
(again, SPOILERS) he'll take it upon himself to protect the justice and
fairness of a case. In the Orient Express, 12 people each stab a man
who kidnapped and killed a little girl, Daisy Armstrong, because the
death of the girl affected them all in one way or another. The man was
put on trial, but he was acquitted and because of double jeopardy (he
was American), the man would no longer be able to be punished for his
crime. The idea is that the 12 people are like 12 jurors, and therefore
have determined his guilt and are punishing him in a fair, just way.
Once Poirot discovers the truth, he realizes that they were bringing
justice where the law had failed, so he let them get away with it.
Justice.
Poirot has flaws, too. He's actually a bit insufferable. He's
super, super arrogant (although for a good reason), only likes squares,
not circles, and can't abide disorder. He expects everyone to know who
he is because "There is but one Hercule Poirot and I am he." He lies and
pretends to be more foreign than he is to get people to admit things.
He loves food, especially foreign food (ie not English) and has to have
two perfectly symmetrical poached eggs every morning. and his moustaches
are elaborate.
I love him so much. Anyhow, that
summer, I read all the Poirot mysteries that both the Takoma Park and
Long Branch libraries had to offer, as well as a few on my kindle. All
of them are exquisite. The characters are so well thought out, so
brilliant, and the motives are real and simple but the mysteries are
hard to solve and Agatha Christie is a genius. I now have a sort of
Agatha Christie shrine in my room where I keep the thirteen books that I
physically own, the drawing of David Suchet as Poirot that I drew, and a
quote from one of his books, which I have written on the wall in chalk.
I'm cool.
Now, because I'm almost done with all of the
books about Poirot, I've decided to start reading about another one of
her detectives, Ms. Marple. Ms. Marple is a little old lady who lives
in a small English town who is brilliant and helps the police a bit. I
don't like her as much, but the books are SO GOOD, so I'll probably keep
reading them.
Anyways.
The point of
this sort-of-rant is that the other day, I saw this documentary about
Agatha Christie. It was brilliant. It talked aboutAgatha Christie's
life, and how she started writing, and why she did, and it was just the
best thing ever.I can't find it online, but otherwise I would link to
it.
Agatha Christie, born Agatha Mary Clarissa
Miller, was very close to her mother, Clara. She taught herself to read
and was pretty shy. She traveled a lot after her dad died, because her
mother lovr\ed to.
Agatha Christie had a love of
detective fiction, and even tried to write a few herself, but they were
never actually published in the magazines she sent them off to.
When
Agatha started to grow up, she went to lots of dances to hang out with
her friends, and, of course, meet guys. She met her future husband,
Archie Christie, at one of these dances. He was a pilot, and he was
handsome, but he was also very poor, so her family didn't really
approve. They got engaged anyways.
During WWI, he had to
go be in the army, so Agatha was left on her own. She decided to work as
a nurse, helping people. She loved it. She also started to write a real
detective novel, and sent it off to get published. When her husband
got back, they got married, and they had a little girl. Agatha didn't
even think about her book until the publisher wrote back, saying that he
had loved the book and he wanted to publish it. Agatha then continued
to write mysteries that grew more and more famous.
She
wrote throughout the rest of her life, but other things were happening.
In the next World War, her husband left again and she worked in a
chemist shop, where she learned all about the poisons she included in so
many of her books. After that, she caught her husband cheating on her
and they dvorced. She was so upset at this point that she disappeared
for ten days, showing up ten days later in a hotel with no memory of how
she got there.
As it turns out, what happened was
that she tried to sacrifice herself to save the world from a giant wasp
from another planet that was acting like a murderer in one of her
stories and then was brought forward in time in the TARDIS and left at
the hotel, with her mind erased. (Just kidding. Apparently, she was
planning on either tracking down her husband or committing suicide, but
no one knows for sure.
Agatha started traveling around
the world, and she eventually met an archaeologist named Max Mallowan,
who she fell in love with and got married to. She travelled a lot, and,
now that her books were getting more famous, had to go appear in public
and give talks and stuff. She hated it.
She eventually
got very sick, and her daughter, as per Agatha's request, published her
last book about Poirot, in which he is killed (I'm not reading it,
ever) because she wanted to outlive her insufferable detective. She died
shortly thereafter, at age 85.
I really admire Agatha
Christie for everything that she has done and everything that she was. I
love how clever her books are, and how she really cares about justice
and fairness and has very definitive moral standards. She is definitely
one of my favorite people and one of my role models.
If you want to find out more about her, this
website rocks socks.
Here are some pictures:
Hercule
Poirot, portrayed by David Suchet, also one of my favorite people. He's
very belgian, and very posh, and very, very clever.
Dame
Agatha! I call her by her first name because we're best friends. Hey
Agatha, you're cool. And look how pretty she is! Also she's the best
person.
Miss
Jane Marple, portrayed by Julia Mckinze, who is my personal favorite
representation of her. She's sort of an adorable old woman.
It's
Captain Hastings! Portrayed by Hugh Jackson. I see you, Hastings,
thinking you're the bees' knees. Yeah, you and your overcoat and sweater
are simply spiffing.
Ariadne
Oliver. Eating an apple. In her exotic-bird-wallpapered kitchen.
Because why the heck not? She's portrayed here by Zoe Wanamaker (aka
Lady Eddison aka Madame Hooch aka Cassandra the last human aka also one
of my favorite people).
Here's Agatha with her second husband! They look so cheerful.
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By
the way, I rather like this profiling people sort of thing I've been
doing, so I might do more of that, one for each of my favorite people.
No promises, though.