It is the little grey cells, mon ami, on which one must rely.

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.