Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  I would say the same thing of the problematic attitude to race in Styles. For me, Christie’s racist slurs shock and disappoint the modern enthusiast in equal measure not because they indicate a considered and sustained hatred for other races (I don’t think they do) but because they suggest an unthinking adherence to the prejudices of the day. This is borne out by the way in which, until her encounter with the incipient Nazi party, Christie seems genuinely not to have thought of her own racist remarks as something that had any actual effect on the races in question. Such lazy complacency is all the more galling since it represents precisely the kind of unthinking adherence to habitual prejudice that her novels seem, in other ways, keenly to counteract.

  I say all this because I’m wary lest I should appear to present Christie’s novels as the work of an arch radical. I do think some of the subtleties of her attitudes to class, race and gender have been missed – as I suggest above, there is at least some attempt, at the level of the very structure of the murder plot, to use that plot as way of questioning assumptions based on sensational stereotyping, habitual prejudice and unthinking adherence to established social norms. Yet, such a suggestion can only be taken so far.

  At the end of the tale her own entirely conventional values about the relationship between husband and wife are vindicated; for all that Poirot admires Bauerstein’s patriotism, his own caveat that the German is ‘a jew of course’ echoes in its casual racism the casual xenophobia in Hastings’s earlier claim to supremacy over his foreign friend, but without the irony. Likewise, if Mary Cavendish is not the femme fatale Hastings imagines, her reconciliation with her husband proves to Poirot that she is one of those women who show themselves best in adversity – ‘It brings out all that is sweetest and truest in them’ – illustrating the author’s own adherence to an outdated and simplistic model of innate femininity based on marital subservience. Even in the better-drawn female characters that appear in later novels this isn’t totally effaced. A similar ambivalence surrounds the novel’s attitudes to class. I like the way in which the novel defends the police, for example, precisely by evoking as unfair the class-based criticisms they have to endure. Detective-Inspector Japp (not yet ‘Chief Inspector’) is a sympathetic character – an intelligent policeman tied down by beaurocracy and professional expectations. He is confined (as Hastings and even, to some extent, Poirot are not) by his role as a working man coming into this circle from outside. Unsure of the case against Alfred Inglethorp, Japp nevertheless feels pressured from above to arrest somebody. Hence his gratitude to Poirot when the Belgian comes up with an unimpeachable alibi for Inglethorp, whilst also conveniently preparing a list of witnesses that Japp will have to visit.

  The result is that Japp gets to look busy whilst not being pressured into taking action he knows to be unwise: ‘I’m much obliged to you. A pretty mare’s nest arresting him would have been.’ This counteracts Dorcas’s claim that the police compare unfavourably with Poirot, who is of ‘quite a different class from them two detectives from London, what goes prying about and asking questions. I don’t hold with foreigners as a rule, but from what the newspapers says I make out as how these brave Belgies isn’t the ordinary run of foreigners and certainly he’s a most polite spoken gentleman’. This is followed by a ‘Dear old Dorcas!’, to show that we are not meant to go along either with her xenophobia or with her anger that these crass police types get to come and snoop around the private lives of the rich – in this world, if a crime has been committed, it has to be exposed no matter who the perpetrator is, what nationality they are or to which class they belong. While this consideration of the interaction between the police and the landed classes is fine as far as it goes, however, it’s also true that Dorcas herself, as a domestic servant, is patronised by the remark, while in the novel itself one cannot help noticing that the lines of acceptable xenophobia (Belgians good, Germans bad) follows the lines of wartime allegiance.

  It really isn’t a surprise, therefore, that at the end of the novel the hereditary flow of inherited wealth is restored, all the Cavendishes paired off or reconciled, and the unsavoury foreigners and eccentrics safely banished. The threat to the bastion of Englishness, this rural idyll of Styles, has been safely exorcised. The ‘mysterious affair’ that threatened to bring the household into close contact with sensational otherness (both in the flesh and discursively through Hastings’s suspiciously-titled account) has resolved itself to the satisfaction of the privileged classes. Indeed, so deftly is the central mystery unravelled and finally, conclusively, solved that the resultant catharsis is hard not to enjoy – even if the nature of the ‘problems’ at Styles sometimes go uncomfortably further than the tragic death of an elderly lady and come disconcertingly close to the convenient excision of England’s social, racial and gendered ‘others’. Yet if it’s important to note Christie’s limitations in going beyond the prejudices of the landed elite, it’s also important to note her attempt to upset at least some of their ideas. For all that these attempts are sometimes limited or ambivalent, their presence is still part of the novel’s appeal – to find that murder narratives are not just a game of problems, clues and deductions, but are something that, by seriously upsetting the status quo, inevitably reveal the fascinating faultlines in the social history of twentieth-century Britain. Faultlines which, even if hurriedly resolved or buried conveniently under the foundations of Styles court (to reappear in Poirot’s final case), cannot help but reveal themselves in all their fascinating complexity for the modern reader to pick over. At the same time though, none of this detracts from the fiendish dexterity with which is revealed the solution to what, when all’s said and done, is the main point here: who murdered poor old Mrs Inglethorp?

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  A BRIEF HISTORY

  Agatha Christie began with a bang, writing one of her best novels, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, during World War I (1914 -1918). It took some years to get it published, finally appearing in 1920. Styles introduced her sleuth Hercule Poirot. During 1922 - 1926, Christie followed it up with a series of much weaker non-detective books, adventure and spy novels. Much of best work during this period was in short stories. She wrote a huge number of Poirot short stories during this era. She created many new detectives, as well as writing some outstanding stories without series heroes, such as those collected much later in The Listerdale Mystery. Also excellent in this period were the Tommy and Tuppence stories contained in Partners in Crime (mainly 1924), which were made into a delightful British television series in the 1980's, and the tales featuring Mr. Harley Quin, in The Mysterious Mr. Quin. Several of Christie's works during this period are experimental in that they mix fantasy (Mr. Quin), or satire (Tommy and Tuppence) with detective story elements. Others, such as the tales in The Listerdale Mystery, are more to be classified as "ingenious tales involving mystery and adventure" than as pure detective stories. The greatest achievement of this period, however, is a pure detective story, the Poirot novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1925). This book, a subtle masterpiece of misdirection, created as much of a public sensation in Christie's day as The Crying Game did in ours. People argued over whether Christie's surprise solution was fair, a debate that continues to this day, but no one doubted her ability to unleash a stunning surprise on her readers.

  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1925) is usually discussed solely in terms of its central plot idea. This main plot is certainly brilliant, to say the least, but such a view does not do full justice to Christie's novel. The sheer complexity of Christie's plot gets ignored, with numerous inventive plot elements that go to make up its complex solution. This plot complexity is in the Golden Age tradition - in fact, it probably helped create that tradition. Also noteworthy are the many clues Christie has included in the book, all pointing to the murderer. The killer's identity would be obvious, were not the reader bamboozled by Christie's main plot.

  After the publication of Ackroyd, Christie's husband ran off with another woman, abandoning his wife.
Christie responded by disappearing in December 1926. The subject of a nationwide, media frenzy manhunt, Christie was discovered ten days later at a resort hotel, claiming to be subject to amnesia. Soon recovered to her full memory, Christie stuck to her story, of amnesia brought on by emotional stress, for the rest of her life. It is still unclear whether Christie was faking this attack to get revenge on her husband and publicity for her fiction (it did both), or whether her story of amnesia was in fact true. A few years later, Christie met and married a young archeologist specializing in the Ancient Middle East, Max Mallowan, and lived with him for many years in Baghdad, Iraq, as well as accompanying him on his archeological digs. Christie's second marriage was a major success, lasting till her death in 1976.

  Following Ackroyd, Christie embarked on period where she changed her pace (1927 - 1931). Her spinster sleuth, Miss Jane Marple, was the subject of her finest book, the short story collection The Tuesday Club Murders (1927 -1931), as well as the novel The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Readers looking to get acquainted with Agatha Christie for the first time would be well advised to start here, with The Tuesday Club Murders. The high quality of the stories, combined with their great variety of approach, make it the perfect introduction to Christie's world. Christie also brought Hercule Poirot to the stage, in the play Black Coffee. She also wrote about Parker Pyne, in an undistinguished 1932-1933 short story series collected in book form in 1934.

  During 1934 - 1941, Christie's writing changed direction again. She stopped creating so many sleuths, stuck closely to the detective story proper, and concentrated on detective novels and short stories featuring Hercule Poirot. These works are the "meat and potatoes" of her career. They maintain a uniform standard of excellence, and are what many people fondly think of as a "typical Agatha Christie" novel. Cleverly plotted, with ingenious solutions that surprise even the astutest readers, the novels also feature fascinating detective work. The Poirot short story, "The Dream" (1937), is my favorite Christie short story after The Tuesday Night Club Murders. Especially outstanding among the many Poirot novels are The ABC Murders (1936), Murder for Christmas (1938), and An Overdose of Death (1940). But most of the 14 Poirot books of this period have virtues. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) and Sad Cypress (1940) have ingenious solutions. Even a relatively "minor" novel like Death in the Clouds (1935) is just plain fun to read. While "minor" in the body of Christie's work, it would be considered "major" in the bibliography of most lesser mystery authors.

  Christie also created some important non-series works during this period. And Then There Were None and Easy to Kill (both 1939) are the best; the former is a virtuoso summing up of Christie's mystery technique, a "fantasia on detective themes", to modify a phrase of Arnold Bennett's, and is one of Christie's best books.

  Sometime during the early days of World War II (1939 - 1945), Agatha Christie wrote Curtain, intended as a farewell appearance for Hercule Poirot. It returns Poirot to Styles, scene of his first case, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The two books together constitute one of Christie's high points. As per her instructions, it was not published till the 1970's.

  Christie changed direction again at this point. She wrote fewer Poirot books. Christie brought back Miss Marple for a long series of novels, of which the best are the first, The Body in the Library (1942), and A Murder is Announced (1950). Christie also created an unusual mystery set in Ancient Egypt, Death Comes as the End (1944). While just so-so as a mystery plot, it is interesting as a look at daily life in the distant past.

  During her first twenty five years as a writer (1920 - 1945), Christie produced an enormous number of impossible crime stories and novels. She also wrote many tales, such as clever alibi stories or ingenious poisonings, whose plot ideas derive from the impossible crime tradition, even if their mystery situation is not presented as impossible, strictly speaking. Christie's sleuths were genius detectives, who usually solved their crimes through pure thinking: what this Guide has been referring to as the "intuitionist" tradition in detective fiction. Many of the writers in this intuitionist tradition of hard-thinking sleuths, also produced impossible crimes in great quantities. Chesterton was probably a major influence on Christie's work.

  After World War II ended in 1945, Christie's work generally suffered a decline in quality. The plots generally became simpler, and the storytelling and characterization less interesting. Her best post war book was the spy novel They Came to Baghdad (1951). Like many of her novels, it is set in the contemporary Middle East, where Agatha Christie lived.

  Fewer of Christie's post war books feature Hercule Poirot. Perhaps significantly, she only brought Poirot back for books that showed the complex plotting of her prewar works. Some of these are outstanding, especially Dead Man's Folly (1956), The Clocks (1963), and Elephants Can Remember (1972). Dead Man's Folly seems linked thematically to an earlier Poirot novel, Evil Under The Sun (1941). The two novels somehow seem to form a pair of works in which Agatha Christie developed similar material, using similar techniques of the mystery story, and yet came up with books that are interestingly different. They remind one of Leonardo da Vinci's two versions of the painting, The Madonna on the Rocks.

  For many years I have had a dream, one that repeats itself quite regularly. I am in a library, and I find an Agatha Christie novel that I have never read before. I always wake up happy after this dream.

  Partners in Crime (Book)

  Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1924) contains fifteen stories about Tommy and Tuppence. The first two are introductory, the next twelve spoof other detective writers, and the last parodies Christie's own Hercule Poirot. Some comments on the tales.

  "A Fairy in the Flat" (introductory). This story and the next show how Tommy and Tuppence are set up as a detective agency, by the Intelligence chief of Tommy's. The whole arrangement is similar, in a comic, tongue in cheek way, to that in Herbert Jenkins Malcolm Sage Detective (1921). Jenkins' book, like Partners in Crime, is a short story sequence disguised as a novel. In that book the talented Malcolm Sage, former top Intelligence agent in Britain's Division Z during World War I, is set up in peacetime as a detective, by the head of his former department. Sage has a secretary; Tuppence poses as the secretary of their agency, just as Tommy poses as the detective Blunt. Sage has an office boy who reads detective fiction and serves as comic relief; Tommy and Tuppence have Albert, who serves a similar function. Albert seems even younger than Sage's office boy, however. Both Sage and Tommy and Tuppence are in a typical "modern" office of the 1920's, with phone lines and buzzers for communication. Tommy and Tuppence are light hearted and playful with this equipment, however, unlike the more serious Sage. Sage can be haughty and turn away customers if he has too much business; Tommy and Tuppence pretend to do the same to make people think they are busy. Everything in Tommy and Tuppence is an exaggerated, parodistic reflection of the set-up in the Sage stories. Sage runs the Malcom Sage Detective Bureau; Tommy and Tuppence the International Detective Agency, whose motto is "Blunt's Brilliant Detectives".

  "A Pot of Tea" (introductory). I like this tale. It is humorous and sweet, and has affinities in its subject matter to stories in The Listerdale Mystery, such as the title tale (1925) and "The Manhood of Edward Robinson" (1924), the latter story appearing immediately after the magazine publication of the Partners in Crime stories in late 1924.

  "The Affair of The Pink Pearl". Christie does a nice comic job evoking Austin Freemans, Dr. Thorndyke and Polton. She does not get involved in science at all, flatly stating at one point that Tommy and Tuppence (and by extension, their author) know nothing about science, but she does pick up on Freeman's interest in crafts, the solution turning on her own more domestic version of the same. The young boyfriend who is a Socialist will turn up again in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.

  "The Adventure of The Sinister Stranger". Well done spy tale; good plot and storytelling, with a nice thread of humor. Christie's ability to pack such a complex plot into such a small space is impressive. This story spoo
fs Valentine Williams. "Finessing The King". Isabel Ostrander was a popular American detective writer of the Post World War I era. She was read by John Carr as a teenager, according to Douglas G. Greene's biography, was praised by Dorothy Sayers in The Omnibus of Crime and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and was one of the famous detective writers chosen for parody by Agatha Christie here. Despite this one time fame, her works are almost completely forgotten and unobtainable today. This story spoofs Ostrander's series detective, ex-cop Tommy McCarty, and his best friend, fireman Dennis Riordan. Tommy dresses up like a fireman at a costume party, a favorite Christie setting, while Tuppence masquerades as McCarty. As does McCarty in Ostrander's The Clue in the Air (1917), Tommy and Tuppence hear the murder committed, and are the first to find the body. In both stories the victim is a young society woman.