Customer Reviews

Agatha Christie: An English Mystery

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed an interview with Laura Thompson on CBC Radio, and I thought her biography of Agatha Christie might well be good reading, even though I am not a fan of its subject.

I enjoy any first-rate biography, and the times Ms. Christie lived through are loaded with interesting events and people. She was moreover a remarkable literary phenomenon, becoming a house-hold name, setting record runs for plays, and creating two unforgettable characters - Miss Marple and M. Poirot.

Reading the first few pages of this book, I was sure that I had been right: this was going to be a fine book. In these pages, Ms Thompson creates almost a prose-poem around the idyllic time in Ms. Christie's childhood.

But my illusion gradually faded: the book is a weak one, having a number of faults.

First, Ms. Thompson uses a huge number of quotes from Ms. Christie, to such an extent I regard them as padding. I don't object to using quotes in the fashion Ms. Thompson does, I just object to the sheer volume of them.

Second, Ms. Thompson, time and again, refers to this or that old photograph, making some special observations about them, but virtually none of these photographs is included in the book's selection of photos.

Third, Ms. Thompson appears to have done a weak job of research on some topics, as for example the crucial one around Ms. Christie's first husband leaving her. I think the questions readers have around that event, and there are many, are left not answered.

Fourth, the sense and drama of history is largely missing from a book covering a remarkable era.

The book is a real disappointment.

Laura Thompson's book goes over a lot of old ground, too, but she had access to so much material, and she was able to interview Rosalind Hicks and many others, many of whom speak freely here; and just "following the money" leads to some amazing stories--that Christie was desperately in need of money after WWII in order to pay off taxes she owed to the USA--and she would do just about anything for ready cash. She also hired a team of "handlers," secretaries, agents and managers on whom she depended heavily, but not all of whom were working in her best interests--it's like a Henry James setup, for somehow Thompson has access to the various correspondences between secretary and agent, agent and manager, who behind Christie's sometimes wrote frankly and harshly of her in a way that's not altogether comfortable to read. Each time she wrote a new book, for example, her trusted inner circle would tear it apart--not to her face of course--but to each other.

But by far the most interesting material is about Christie's writing life. How instead of writing a book a year, as I guess I had always believed (or a book or more), she might write six books in one year, and then spend a year or two waiting for inspiration. So beyond the singular case of CURTAIN and SLEEPING MURDER, the chronology of Christie's writing life is very different than what we have hitherto assumed from her publication chronology. In the late 1930s she sketched out an "Alphabet of Ideas," 26 ideas of novels--and she managed to complete nearly all of them, some of them 20 or 30 years on. Thompson tells us that some of her books came easily, but others were tortuous in conception and execution. "THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS went through several different forms along the way, two of which branched off to become A POCKET FULL OF RYE and A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED."

THE PALE HORSE, CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS, even DEATH ON THE NILE were all started with Jane Marple, but then she changed her mind.

The whole book is worth reading but Thompson has many strong opinions about Christie's life and work which will be much debated I expect!

I'm a big fan of all things "Christie" but I have to say this is the worst yet. Yes, it has new pictures & new letters with the blessing of the family. The writer describes every book & compares it in every way to Agatha & what she was thinking & what was going on in her life at the time or in the past according to letters she left behind or news items. Sounds good, doesn't it? NO!!! Dry as Dust! I kept trying to make myself read it but in the end I gave up. Such wonderful possibilities but all was lost in the writing. "snore"