Reading Agatha Christie for pleasure, mental exercise-- & English-- #124

Have you read any of Agatha Christie’s mysteries? I’m guessing you have, if you’ve read any fiction in English. Her detectives Hercules Poirot and Miss Marple are almost as well known as Sherlock Holmes, and many of her “closed room” mysteries are classics.

Besides, she wrote a LOT: 66 novels (romances as well as mysteries), a few plays, and a little nonfiction based on her travels in the middle East.

The BBC has a fascinating article on her, and especially on her influence on the rest of the world’s ideas of British culture.

The authors say “Her works are seen as so easy to read, she’s a favourite author of people learning English. Christie is also, by leaps and bounds, the world’s most translated author…” (“By leaps and bounds” means by a very large number. ‘Favourite’ is the British spelling of what Americans call ‘favorite.’)

The BBC emphasizes her depiction of English character even more than it talks about the characteristics of her detectives, though it also looks at them. In fact, its main point about Hercules Poirot is that Christie uses him as a contrast to British characters as well as for his clever solutions to crimes.

“The podcaster Brobeck says that ‘Miss Marple is essentially invisible.’ While Christie’s English characters often underestimate Poirot because of his flamboyant foreignness, they frequently dismiss Marple because of her gender and age. Like Poirot, Marple uses this as an opportunity.”

So, both Poirot and Miss Marple have a real advantage in their work because criminals and other investigators are less likely to fear them or be on guard.

Two (or Many) More Perspectives on Christie

Detective Vocabulary