I partly agree with you on this dear.. I like Poirot and also like Ms. Marple, I too have to pick up more on the reading..
nice to feel nostalgic, I just went on Google map and looked at the old home that I partly grew up and felt twinge of emotion..
This experience growing up in Madras gave me a sense of belonging and also tolerance and understanding.. O! those 50's and 60's, beautiful era in the world I think.. for most part..
dear bushu,
critics have listed 'the murder of roger ackroyd' as the best of all agatha christie's murder mysteries. want to hear a funny story? quite some years ago, when i was saying this to someone, the person could not recollect this story, even though had claimed to
have read all of ac's mysteries. i blurted out the theme of the story along with who dunnit.
apparently the person had missed
this book, and now with moi blabbering about the solution to the mystery, felt pissed off and lost all desire to read it.
Personally, my most favourite characters were tommy and tuppence. Together they were in about 4 or 5 ac mysteries, spanning the 2 wars and afterwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_and_Tuppence
There were also many ac stories, where the chief protoganist was a genteel single woman with few relatives, taking up clerical jobs in London, and finding adventure. These were set in the 20s and 30s, the early period of ac literary career.
The Man in the Brown Suit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
i loved the characterization of these girls - all young, pretty, their love of adventure and risk taking. an independence quite unseen in the world of those times but probably reflected ac's own view of female emancipation and freedom. in fact, in many stories, it is the female who is strong, and many a times the males are wimpish or villains
Poirot ofcourse was the most famous, with his very first book, the mysterious affair at styles, becoming a perpetual hit and favourite. Hard to imagine these days, about refugees to England from Belgium, but this was early 20th century and the beginning of European madness with wars. While poirot is always interesting, there is a definite pattern, and later in life, ac ‘disliked’ this guy, and called him, ‘a horrible man’ – strong words for a genteel lady of those times.
in fact quite early in her life she had ‘finished him off’ as a character, in a book to be published posthumously. The public was so upset, that ac continued to write poirot novels. When after her death, the supposedly last poirot novel was published, ‘the curtain’ one can get confused, as poirot dies in this novel, while the era is still in 1940s…
My favourite, after tommy and tuppence, is miss marple. She takes a while to get used and once you start liking her, you cannot stop. I had a mental idea of how she would look, but then a few years ago BBC produced a marvellous series of ac mysteries based on miss marple. If you get a chance bushu, get to see them. joan hickson, though tall and gaintly, was tops playing miss marple.
Miss Marple (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A watered down version of miss marple/ac combined character was made into a usa tv series ‘muder she wrote’ with angela Lansbury. Awful. Gave it a pass after watching a couple of episodes.
ac was also an amateur archelogist; some of which must have been rubbed off skills after marrying sir max mallowan, a brand name mid east expert. she had a few mysteries placed in ancient egypt but these were probably the least read of all her prodigious works.
in the ideal world, agatha christie's works should have reached 'classics' status, for these are over 50 years to 90 years old. but they still sell well, and her estate has been very careful to renew the copyrights. smart folks, her nieces and the descendents
set for life by the writings of a gentle english lady, who probably has never held even a pistol in her entire life.
