Agatha Christie

I personally never got hooked by Arthur Conan Doyle. For mystery, when the film-noirish stuff of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler get old, I turn to Agatha Christie. Considering that she's the bestselling author in history, Shakespeare notwithstanding, and that she's not "all money and no literary merit" (*cough* Stephen King *cough*)... and I personally think her plot twists were masterfully devised... let's discuss her.

And Then There Were None is my favorite, even though Poirot wasn't in it. I absolutely loved Murder on the Orient Express too...

Um, I read a few books of hers, a few years back. I read And Then There Were None and some others I can't remember. The problem with mysteries is that the authors make them so it's impossible to solve. For example, in ATTWN *spoiler warning* it turns out that the judge did it, even though he's dead! (he was "just pretending" or something )

Yeah...

But with a lot of Christie's works, it isn't a matter of the reader trying to solve it so much as it is the reader being kept in suspense in anticipation of what the solution really is...

BTW this is post #100 in General Lit.

Hi Iron Parrot,


I am not a big mystery fan (I usually can guess the ending or I don't find it clever enough) but I did read Agatha Christie's "And then There were None" a long time ago and adored it. I was surprised by the ending and I loved how everything lead up to it.


Luv Always,
Gat

I always thought that she was a lot of fun to read. I like Poirot and his little grey cells. He amuses me.

I read MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS!

I really enjoyed Peter Ustinov's portrayal of Hercule Poirot in DEATH ON THE NILE!

Sadly, I've never seen the other movie he did and have forgotten the name of it!

I've never been much of a mystery fan. I have one Christie novel, And Then there were None, but I've never read it.

I also like Hercules Poirot.

Oh, and I love Stephen King.

Is anyone here familiar with the play veresion of And Then There Were None? Agatha Christie wrote it herself and she completely changed the ending!!! She does that with a lot of her plays, actually.

I once read (don't remember where, sorry) that Agatha Christie deliberately wrote her novels in such a way that any one of three or so characters could be the murderer. That's why it's impossible to guess. This doesn't really seem fair to the reader, but since when does the reader actually want to figure out the solution before the detective? I know, I know, I try to figure it out, too, but my real hope is to be completely surprised.

I have always felt that the mystery reader who reads soley to figure out who did it is little more than a myth. Ideally, one wants to figure it out every once and a while, but not very often. Otherwise, the author only comes across as too obvious. Put another way, one can only feel clever when one has been tricked by the author in question before.

I love Agatha Christie. I only figured out a relatively small number of her plots. And, they are not so obvious that I necessarily remember right away when rereading a long time afterwards.

I always like how complex the mysteries are. So far I haven't guessed the murderer and/or thief-yet ( I'm on the Regetta Mystery). I also love how instead of have just one super detective (can anyone say Sherlock Holmes, though I like him as well, and if you read him don't get an abridged edition, those are all horrible, cutting out every detail and leaving the bare basics). Instead she has three main detectives: Hercule Poirot, Miss Maple, and finally Christopher Pine who isa sometimes a detective and sometimes isn't.

[Imladris]

I'm not familiar with the play version "And Then There Were None" but I've seen the film.
Christie is a great writer in her own "write" (de deh cxha), no I've not missssspelllttt it (see brackets).
But in her books, particularly her earlier ones she seems to copy A.C.Doyle's work.

[Spock]

Oh, everything she wrote was marvelously crafted. How about "Murder Most Foul" or "Murder in the Mews" two favorites.

[TinuvielChild]

i've read "And Then There Were None", and i loved it! i recently started reading "The Mirror Crack'd", although i didn't get very far because i was sidetracked by the excerpt from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" in the beginning, from which the title of the book is derived. I then began memorizing The Lady of Shalott, and i haven't opened "The Mirror Crack'd" in 3 months because of it! Dame Christie is an excellent author, and i like to try to figure out who did it although i never can.

[Garina]

Agatha Christie is a very good author. My favourite book is definitely Sparking Cyanide. I prefer Hastings to Poirot - he's more human.

[Vanimdil]

I love Christie's books. Two of my favorites are CARDS ON THE TABLE and THE LABORS OF HERCULES. I adore Poirot!! In my opinion he is quite human, he's just not run-of-the-mill human.
Has anyone read THE MYSTERIOUS MR. QUINN? I am fascinated by the stories in that book. [spoiler follows!] I fell in love with Mr. Quinn, only to discover that he is sort of a personification of love (possibly death too?) :P

[dream wanderer]

She was half American you know

I think I have read all of her books...had them all and lost them in a move. Have yet to re buy the collection.

I enjoy watching the Hecule Poirot mystery dramas they sometimes show on A&E here...

She said there is one book where she made an obvious fatal flaw which somehow got past the publishers/editors and the public...she didn't realize it herself until after the book was published...but I don't think she ever told anyone which book it was...a sort of cult has grown up around it...trying to find out which book it was in which she made the 'mistake'. I think someone has even written a book about it!

But then again...it may have been a marketing ploy to get us to read her books again...

dream wanderer

[IronParrot]

She was probably referring to killing off Poirot in Curtain... a literally "fatal" flaw because it ended such a highly successful series.

[Jadera]

Long live David Suchet.
I've read the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and I knew who the killer was simply because I'd seen the movie on A&E.
I also read Curtain, and cried. (I cry over a lot of things, but that was particularly sad.)
Those are the only two I've read, because I found Christie's books a little tedious for some reason. Which is strange, because I adore Sherlock Holmes. Go figure.
I probably need to retry to read the series, since they come so highly reccomended.
I love Hastings, but I can't find him in most of the Poirot books. Must read. I prefer Poirot to Tommy and Tupence and Ms. Marple. Maybe because they made more Poirot movies.

[tolkienfan]

I love Agatha Christie! I actually thought The Big Four ending was worse then the ending to Curtain, because it felt wrong. At least in Curtain the ending felt complete. It was very moving though. I think Poirot is awesome! I loved And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, all of them actually.