strange and random happenstance

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
Published by: Harper Collins
Publication Date: 1924
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

While Poirot takes on cases that are immense in scope, occasionally he takes on those smaller, but still significant cases, sometimes with the fate of the world in the balance, that can be solved very quickly, comme ca. From jewel heists to mysterious deaths, people in disguises to Egyptian curses, disappearances, both staged and unfortunate, to a will most cunningly hidden, Poirot has a host of clients, thankfully none of them with missing dogs. Poirot's genius succeeds at every turn and the police and Hastings are baffled that his little grey cells are able to make such leaps of intuition, in more than one case, without even leaving his bed. Because all you need is your little grey cells, everything else is just fodder.

Recently I read an article about Terry Pratchett and his distaste for modern storytelling, in particular Doctor Who. In the interview he said "On planet Earth it's generally taken for granted that it's a bad thing to introduce into a narrative some last-minute solution that was totally unexpected and unheralded ... The unexpected, unadvertised solution which kisses it all better is known as a deus ex machina – literally, a god from the machine. And a god from the machine is what the Doctor now is. A decent detective story provides you with enough tantalising information to allow you to make a stab at a solution before the famous detective struts his stuff in the library. Doctor Who replaces this with speed, fast talking, and what appears to be that wonderful element 'makeitupasyougalongeum'."

This is exactly my problem when you take a Poirot story and make it short. I have always had reservations about short stories. They can be shallow and way too short. With the case of Poirot, you don't get the joy of following him every step of the way so that it's conceivable that you could solve it, instead you get his, and here's how it happened, with Poirot as God. We aren't given "enough tantalising information!" Also, while I was familiar with a lot of these stories from the TV series, I can see why they had to expand and pad them out, they were making them what Christie should have made them in the first place, fully formed stories without "unexpected and unheralded" endings. Instead, we are left with Hastings scratching out heads. And if I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times, I do not want any comparison between me and Hastings, thank you very much.

Speaking of Hastings... he seems really a little hard on Poirot in his narration. Always commenting on how Poirot is full of himself, a little man with a big ego and unjustifiably vain in his abilities. I'm sorry Hastings, but seeing as he can solve cases without leaving his house and is able to get a result every time, that isn't unjustifiably vain, it's justifiably vain. That lovely little Belgian has every right to toot his own horn, and you even are going "How does he do it?" and marvelling at his little grey cells. You can't praise him to his face and then grumble about his genius too! You can't have it both ways the way you are written. Either you think he's vain or he's a justifiably vain genius, you aren't written to begrudgingly talk about his genius. You are astounded so much that your carping on makes you sound like a bitter little man not accepting of his friends personality quirks but still riding his coattails. Another reason not to like Hastings. The Argentine can't come soon enough for you matey.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Belgian, Deus Ex Machina, Doctor Who, Egypt, Golden Summer, Hastings, Poirot, Poirot Investigates, Short Story, Terry Pratchett, Vanity

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
Published by: Harper Collins
Publication Date: 1923
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Poirot is lamenting the lack of any interesting cases. He doesn't know what he will do if he is asked to find yet another missing dog for some Dame or doyenne. Then he receives a letter from a Monsieur Paul Renauld. This lights up his face and gets his little grey cells going. Poirot is to set out at once for Merlinville-sur-Mer in France because Monsieur Renauld fears for his life daily. A fear that was justified. When Poirot and Hastings arrive in France, Monsieur Renauld is dead. His body was found next to an open grave on a golf course abutting his property, while his wife was restrained in their bedroom. When she is well enough, she tells the story of two heavily bearded men who wreaked this tragedy on her family. And yet... while everything seems open and shut, Poirot doesn't agree. He soon sets his little grey cells to work and finds many suspects and echos of the crime in the past. Soon another body is discovered and Poirot has two murders to solve, and solve them he will. Poirot must prove that old fashioned crime fighting can beat modern forensics any day.

Firstly I must say I breathed a true sigh of relief when I got immersed in the book and realized that there would be nothing about golf in it. Now you might find it strange that this was my first thought going into the book, but with a title like The Murder on the Links, I was picturing people being clubbed to death round the third hole... or close to that as makes no difference. I don't doubt Agatha Christie and Poirot's ability to make golf even mildly interesting to me, it's just if I don't have to deal with it all the better. I can not fathom why people like to watch golf, playing, maybe I get it a little, mini-golf, I totally get that, but watching it... no thank you, it's like some really boring activity that maybe is zen like to some people but to me is a snooze fest. Whereas a dead body just found on a golf course next to an empty grave? Sign me up!

Now I've reached the part of the review where I rant about Hastings, you had to know it was coming. While I can see why Poirot keeps Hastings around, it is the true Watson/Holmes dynamic after all, there are times I just want to smack Hastings. I think I'm coming around a bit to my mother's Hastings hate. He's just such a blithering idiot. Poirot needs to spell out every little thing for him. I'm sorry, but if Hastings is there as a conduit for the reader, can I upgrade the conduit, to say, Mrs. Oliver? And speaking of Mrs. Oliver, I find it interesting that in actuality, she is in as many books as Hastings is. She appeared in six Poirot novels, and two other novels as well, whereas, Hastings is in eight novels, but because of the collections of short stories, Hastings appears to be more prolific in the life of Poirot then he really is. Also, I really can not in my head separate him from the actor who plays Hastings, Hugh Fraser. Now I'm sure he's a fine actor, I just would have preferred a more likable buffoon, like Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster. So instead of having Hugh Laurie read to me in my head, I have Hugh Fraser. Plus, he was too old for Hastings. He's mentioned as being 35 in the first book, and Hugh was a good ten years older when Poirot started.

Ok, enough on my Hastings rant... hmm, if they were to excise him from the show I think Stephen Mangan would be perfect... no really, I'm done with this now. Here's what I love about the Hastings/Poirot dynamic. Poirot is always chiding Hastings for his melodramatic and overly romantic notions, saying at times Hastings' ideas would make wonderful movies, but this is real life. Yet, deep down, Poirot is a romantic. Hastings and Poirot are really kindred spirits, with vastly different IQs. Poirot more then once plays the matchmaker and gets a little gleam in his eye. But then again, those who believe in the fine art of deduction have to be romantics in some way. To choose the path of deduction verses cold hard evidence... ah, a beating heart must be there with the little grey cells.

But what really drove the plot for me was the antagonism between Poirot and Monsieur Giraud of the Paris Sûreté. Poirot had earlier been deriding Hastings on these "new" police methods of cigarette butts and tiny bits of dirt and stray hairs, and of course, the fingerprints! Poirot believed, and rightfully as is always the case with Poirot, that these new detection methods that have the police scrambling around in the dirt for hours for a stray hair have turned the noble art of detection into being nothing more then a foxhound. Also, the evidence can easily be planted or faked. Poirot insists that a true detective needs nothing more then their little grey cells! As you would expect, Poirot is vindicated in his opinions. What's interesting is that I think this struggle between Poirot and Giraud shows why people love the Golden Age of Detection. It's about motive and profiling and thought processes. Solving crime was romantic. It wasn't about watching some hot lab tech run a DNA test like on any of the various CSI shows. You needed little grey cells, not computer equipment. While it could said the Girauds of the world have won, it's the Poirots of the world we love and venerate. Though if someone did a David Caruso CSI: Miami meme with David Suchet in character as Poirot, I think I might be the happiest person in the world.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, CSI, David Caruso, Golden Summer, Golf, Hastings, Hugh Laurie, John Watson, Mrs. Oliver, Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Mangan, The Murder on the Links

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Published by: UK General Books
Publication Date: 1920
Format: Hardcover, 296 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Arthur Hastings has been invalided out from the war. Running into his old friend John Cavendish, he's invited to stay at the family estate Styles, in Essex, where Hastings lands in the middle of a family crisis. Styles is packed with people. John and his wife are in residence, as is John's younger brother, Lawrence. Yet the real trouble lies with John and Lawrence's step-mother. She was a wonderful mother to them but has recently re-married an odd younger man who was her secretary, a Mr. Alfred Inglethorp. Evelyn Howard, Mrs. Emily Inglethorp's friend, who has long lived at Styles, as well as Emily's ward, Cynthia Murdoch, is so upset, that Evelyn leaves quite volubly on Hastings arrival. Though the situation is about to get much worse. Emily is found dead one night. All the doors to her room were locked and, despite the local doctors insisting that her heart just gave out, it turns out to be murder.

With everyone acting suspicious, and a new husband to point the finger at, things get more complicated as multiple wills arise. Hastings wants to help but is at a bit of a lose. Then felicitously, Hasting runs into Hercule Poirot. Hastings knew Poirot back in Belgium when Poirot was a detective of great renown. Poirot has been displaced by the war and placed in Essex. Hastings doesn't take long to ask his old friend for help. With Poirot on the case, soon all the suspects will be rounded up and he will point the finger at the murderer. Because that is what Poirot is best at.

Now this may come as a surprise, but until now I've never read an Agatha Christie novel with Poirot. When I was younger I'd watched the BBC adaptations on Mystery and my friend Sarah used to devour the books at a prodigious rate, I remember her actually picking up an omnibus edition when we were on vacation in LA and I think she had finished it before we arrived home. But for some reason I never felt compelled to pick one up myself. In fact, I haven't actually read that many books by Agatha Christie, I know, for shame. I finally picked up The Body in the Library years ago when there was an outcry that the new Marple adaptation had changed the ending, and I was therefore intrigued to see how they had changed it. I was immediately struck by the ease and apparent simplicity of her writing. Her straight forward prose was able to hide wonderful twists and turns. I have since read a few more of her non-series books, Sparkling Cyanide and Endless Night, but still I hesitated on picking up Poirot.

Thanks to the re-release of the early seasons of Poirot on Blu-Ray, finally in the correct order I might add, I have been re-watching all the old episodes and loving every minute of David Suchet. The episode that I loved far and away more then any other was "The Mysterious Affair at Styles." The "origin story" of Poirot, if you will. What I loved more then anything else was a fussy Poirot trying to get his fellow Belgian exiles in line with his ideas of dress and deportment. Watching Poirot herd mini Poirot wannabes was beyond entertaining to me. Therefore, my desire to finally read Poirot and more Agatha Christie helped inspire this whole "Golden Summer."

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie's first book, and sadly it shows. The books by Christie I had previously read were written 22 years after this book and her ease of writing and narrative flow are sadly a little choppy here. The fact that I have never been a huge Hastings fan and that he narrates this story doesn't help that much. Of course, my "meh" attitude is nothing to my mother's loathing of Hastings, which resulted in me not seeing a lot of the early episodes on TV because of her refusal to watch any episode with him in. I kid you not when I say I have a list of "approved" Poirot watching just for my mom, with the Hastings episodes excised. Though reading this book, I have to say, the show was a little generous to Hastings... he's a little more annoying and a lot more stupid then I have been led to believe. Which makes me wonder... all the books can't be from Hastings POV, can they? I mean he eventually goes off to the Argentine and enter people I really like, like Mrs. Oliver.

Yet, Hastings being even more of an idiot was nothing to the marvel of Poirot. Poirot was perfect from his first line. I remember watching the Agatha Christie Biopic Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures staring Olivia Williams and Anna Massey and how Poirot just "came to her" while working in the World War I dispensary. I wonder if this isn't more truth then fiction, because, there he is, on the page, fully formed first time out. It's rare for an author to have the full and perfect embodiment of their most famous character right away, yet she did it. Poirot was a perfect, fussy, enigmatic detective from day one. It's no wonder he became one of her most popular creations going on to be in 33 novels, 50 short stories and one play. Oh Poirot, I love you, I promise to read all your books and I look forward to the final season of your show with joy and sorrow, I never want it to end.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, David Suchet, Endless Night, Golden Summer, Hastings, Miss Marple, Mrs. Oliver, Murder, Mystery, Poirot, Sparkling Cyanide, The Body in the Library, The Mysterious Affair at Styles