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Killing time with Agatha Christie

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Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#31

Post by tgv »

lqet wrote: post #27
umvi wrote: post #2

For anyone who has never read Agatha Christie, I highly recommend the following: - And Then There Were None - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Murder on the Orient Express - The A.B.C. Murders The books are usually "slow burns", meaning they slowly build up to the big reveal at the end of the book. Agatha Christie is the master of making great payoffs though, so despite the initial slog, by the last page you are usually…

> The Murder of Roger Ackroyd A great book, I definitely did not see the ending coming until 2 or 3 paragraphs before the twist. > The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the supreme, the ultimate detective novel. It rests upon the most elegant of all twists. -- Laura Thompson, partial quote because of spoilers.

But it works best if you first read a few of the others, like the ones mentioned above, or the Miss Marple books The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, A Pocket Full of Rye, or They Do It with Mirrors.

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#32

Post by majormajor »

lqet wrote: post #30
Jaruzel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also has to be said, that Christie created the 'reveal monologue' where the detective gets everyone in a room, and then dissects the murder and clues until the killer is unmasked. Without her, all crime writers that came later would write very different stories.

In Dostoyevski Crime and Punishment , there is a similar 'reveal' monologue with an extremely interesting twist (spoiler alert): the narrator knows the murderer, the reader knows the murderer, the detective knows the murderer, the reader knows that the detective knows the murderer - but the murderer, a naive student who is convinced he is the Übermensch and committed a perfect crime, is unaware that everyone knows he…

My recollection is that the murderer there isn't really convinced he committed a perfect crime but frequently is panicked and pushed to extremes by suspicion that he's being toyed with (and in particular, the detective was intentionally making him ride a roller coaster of more or less suspicion of this)?

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#33

Post by taeric »

js2 wrote: post #28
taeric wrote: post #9

This essay's main accusation at crime fiction, captured in the callout that these particular books are "not entirely a waste of time", is kind of insulting. Does anyone actually know the parts of reading that make a book a non-waste of time? This is the kind of arrogance in criticism that would lead parents to be ashamed that their kids are reading Pokemon fan fiction. Heaven help you if they are writing it?! Do I sy…

The author is being ironic and having a laugh at himself. He does not think reading Agatha Christie is a waste of time at all. At worst, he considers it a guilty pleasure.

Right, the attack wasn't against Agatha Christie, but on crime fiction as a genre. Called out these as an exception to the genre bring a waste of time.

My assertion is to drop that stance entirely. It turns what could be a normal compliment into a backhand one. And sets a negative tone for reading the rest.

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#34

Post by taeric »

pdevr wrote: post #23
taeric wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to these, there is a great collection of Marple stories where each chapter is a guest trying to trick her with a story. I can't remember the name of it, but it is very good. For the ones you listed, too, there are great audio versions. Dan Stevens did a very good job on the ones he read, to my ears.

I say "The Thirteen Problems" (because I bought it while I was outside the US), you say (hazarding a guess that you are in the USA) "The Tuesday Club Murders"? :-)

I finally looked up the book in my history. Looks like I have a collection just called Miss Marple. Description confirms it is mainly the story you mention. Fun book.

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#36

Post by Symbiote »

umvi wrote: post #2

For anyone who has never read Agatha Christie, I highly recommend the following: - And Then There Were None - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Murder on the Orient Express - The A.B.C. Murders The books are usually "slow burns", meaning they slowly build up to the big reveal at the end of the book. Agatha Christie is the master of making great payoffs though, so despite the initial slog, by the last page you are usually…

Standard Ebooks is on the front page at the moment, but unfortunately doesn't have these titles. Would you particularly recommend any of the five they do have:

- Poirot Investigates

- The Secret Adversary

- The Man in the Brown Suit

- The Murder on the Links

- The Mysterious Affair at Styles

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/agatha-christie

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#37

Post by js2 »

taeric wrote: post #33
js2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is being ironic and having a laugh at himself. He does not think reading Agatha Christie is a waste of time at all. At worst, he considers it a guilty pleasure.

Right, the attack wasn't against Agatha Christie, but on crime fiction as a genre. Called out these as an exception to the genre bring a waste of time. My assertion is to drop that stance entirely. It turns what could be a normal compliment into a backhand one. And sets a negative tone for reading the rest.

I gather you're getting that from this single sentence:

> Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time.

But let's look at the paragraph:

> I am a great admirer of Mrs. Christie. I enjoy her irony, and she sometimes reveals herself to be an acute psychologist. Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time. She conveys to the reader the impression of enjoying the human comedy without bitterness or rancor, and thereby acts as an antidote to our resentment of the imperfections of the world and existence. There is also something deeply comforting about her fairy tales in which evil suddenly erupts into a pleasantly settled world only to be quickly defeated and for order to be restored. The world is not really like this, of course, and no one imagines that it is, but which of us never needs imaginative escape from reality?

That's an entirely complementary paragraph unless you read "not entirely a waste of time" to mean that it is somewhat a waste of time. But the author is clearly using "not entirely" ironically, iow, that reading Christie is not at all a waste of time.

The piece opens by declaring itself "an essay on the transcendent meaning and value of crime novels."

I see no attack on crime fiction in this piece.

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#38

Post by groovy2shoes »

taeric wrote: post #9

This essay's main accusation at crime fiction, captured in the callout that these particular books are "not entirely a waste of time", is kind of insulting. Does anyone actually know the parts of reading that make a book a non-waste of time? This is the kind of arrogance in criticism that would lead parents to be ashamed that their kids are reading Pokemon fan fiction. Heaven help you if they are writing it?! Do I sy…

I'm reminded of Sturgeon's Law [1].

And of something I heard Brandon Sanderson say once, about how absurd it is to belittle someone for liking some genre or another: he compared genres to food, and said it's equally absurd to belittle someone for liking or not liking seafood, or some flavor of ice cream, łs.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#39

Post by taeric »

js2 wrote: post #37
taeric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the attack wasn't against Agatha Christie, but on crime fiction as a genre. Called out these as an exception to the genre bring a waste of time. My assertion is to drop that stance entirely. It turns what could be a normal compliment into a backhand one. And sets a negative tone for reading the rest.

I gather you're getting that from this single sentence: > Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time. But let's look at the paragraph: > I am a great admirer of Mrs. Christie. I enjoy her irony, and she sometimes reveals herself to be an acute psychologist. Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time. She conveys to the reader the impr…

That is the line. And I still fail to read it as anything other than a backhand compliment. Drop that one sentence, and the paragraph is far stronger.

Re: Killing time with Agatha Christie

#40

Post by js2 »

taeric wrote: post #39
js2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gather you're getting that from this single sentence: > Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time. But let's look at the paragraph: > I am a great admirer of Mrs. Christie. I enjoy her irony, and she sometimes reveals herself to be an acute psychologist. Quite apart from the pleasure she gives, reading her is not entirely a waste of time. She conveys to the reader the impr…

That is the line. And I still fail to read it as anything other than a backhand compliment. Drop that one sentence, and the paragraph is far stronger.

Ah, well, I read it as the opposite of a backhanded compliment, if there's a name for such a thing. It's a complement disguised as criticism.
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