There was quite a lot of excitement
generated on the internet this week by the news that mystery write Sophie
Hannah has been commissioned to write a
new Agatha Christie novel, starring the incomparable Hercule Poirot. Here’s a link to the story which appeared the
Independent.
For the Harry Potter lovers amongst us, my
friend, John Granger, made some interesting points about this news in his blog,
All I really hope is that the new novel
comes off properly. There’s a real
atmosphere about an Agatha Christie novel, an atmosphere as distinctive as
Conan Doyle, Jane Austen or PG Wodehouse.
Like those authors, Agatha Christie’s style is easily parodied but, like
those parodies, its very rare indeed that the genuine feel of the original is
captured.
So what’s so special about Agatha
Christie? The puzzles, of course. First and foremost, the stories are clever. The plots tie up, the loose ends are neatly
knotted and the whole experience of reading the book gives a sense of
completeness. It can be (rather harshly)
compared to a crossword puzzle but I think a far better comparison is a really
good meal, where all the elements, from the table settings to the food, along
with the perfectly picked wine, the right lighting and the warmth of the room,
come together with great company to make a memorable, satisfying whole. Whether that meal is round your own kitchen
table with your family or in the Ritz hotel is fairly immaterial; a great meal
is a great experience.
Couldn’t an Agatha Christie book be
compared to a game of Cluedo? Not
really; in Cluedo (Or, if you’re in
America, Clue) three cards, the
victim, the weapon, the location, are taken at random from the pack and put in
a envelope. It’s genuinely arbitrary. This is not how AC works, and the reason she
doesn’t work like that is her characters and her scene-setting.
Ah yes, her characters and scenes. It’s a village, right? And sort of stereotyped. Well, only to a point. There’s certainly a village feel to the books, as in it’s a place
where people know who their neighbours are, even if the books aren’t set in an
actual village. We know enough about the
characters to recognise them, to fill in the details for ourselves from our own
experience. And, when we get to the end
and find out the murderer was X, we always feel that we should’ve known it was
X all along. Why? Because X’s character
fits that of the murderer. Right triumphs,
evil is defeated, and along with it all, our curiosity has been slated. Our
love of order, certainty and rationality is satisfied and, perhaps best of all,
she’s never remotely pretentious.
