After re-reading Christie's A Caribbean Mystery several years later from my middle school years, I have felt a desire to blog about this brilliant writer. Though some of her novels' titles were not very clever or creative, her stories, though always following a simple formula for detective fiction, revealed new words, Englishisms, an imperialist white gaze, and a record on the rapidly changing world of the 20th century. In addition, her detective fiction introduced two of the best sleuths in the game, Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot. I will admit to being initially biased against Marple, who, as an old woman living in a village in the south of England, I assumed would be rather boring, I grew to love both Poirot and Marple over the years. Indeed, my seventh and eighth grade years were often spent reading Christie mystery books and listening to my mother complain and tell me to read 'real literature' or 'real books,' a suggestion I find disconcerting since it suggests that detective fiction lacks literary or artistic merit. In such a long literary career (and a very successful one at that!), Christie did produce some overly contrived and over the top nonsense though, The Big Four being a great example of Christie's lack of steam in different decades of her writing. In the following list of reasons below, I hope to reveal how foolish such an interpretation of mystery novels can be.
1. Christie, as an English woman, uses peculiar and uniquely English phrases as well as a large vocabulary useful for expanding one's vocal palette. For instance, reading Christie several years ago introduced me to words such as "lugubrious" (excessively mournful) and other so typical old, Victorian and early 20th century English words nobody in their right mind would use in everyday conversation. Thus, reading Christie helped expand my palette and allow me to increase my understanding of British English and unique phrases and idioms from across the pond. Indeed, as a young person reading almost all of the Marple mysteries and every single Poirot story, I often had to check my mother's dictionary she had lying around the house just to catch the meaning of certain words. In fact, I wish I had done so after reading A Caribbean Mystery. It's always a useful learning experience to discover new words. Furthermore, many of the titles and lines in her book contain literary quotes from Shakespeare, the Bible, nursery rhymes, and other elements of popular culture which are thereby further mythologized and transformed via her pen. Thus, a process of refashioning and reusing past literary allusions and popular culture infuse her novels with fun little references and a dash or realism.
2. Christie's writings over most of the 20th century reveal a lot of the sweeping changes across the world. World War II, the decline and fall of the British Empire, hippies and the counterculture, lesbians and gays, non-white immigrants and students in London, changes in gender relations, and Christie's own dated social views show how important the world around the writer is in shaping how one creates their own literary worlds. For instance, in Christie's work, one can find references to non-white immigrants in England, if you read Hickory Dickory Death, which reveals a rapidly changing postwar immigration policy in Christie's nation. She also makes references to men with long hair, new music, counterculture, changes in how women dress and behave, commentary on marital problems for newer generations, and, like many older individuals living in a world that seems to shift so rapidly, often include characters resistant, indifferent, and confused by social change. One could argue that, at times, Christie succumbed to being crotchety, but it reveals something universal for all of us as we age and discover a world in constant flux. Nevertheless, Christie produced some great novels well up to the point of her death in the mid-1970s, and her perspective on the 'revolutionary' decades of the 1960s and 1970s is interesting from a historical and personal perspective.
3. Christie's novels often contain references to characters who lived or worked in some capacity (often military service) in the former colonies of the largest empire in world history, the British Empire. Allusions to India, Africa, the West Indies, Egypt, Iraq, and other 'exotic' locales populate her literary world, which demonstrates the degree to which the colonies shaped the English as well as how the English likewise impacted their vast colonies. Indian tigers, African safaris, ancient Egyptian ruins and temples, the Nile river, Mesopotamia and its archaeological excavations (Christie's second husband was an archaeologist, so her Murder in Mesopotamia was partly inspired by her time with her husband in the Fertile Crescent), Hinduism and Hindu traditions, India's tea and other exports, tourism in the Caribbean, and train services travelling in parts of Europe often appear in her work. As a product of her time, Christie gives off uncomfortable racist vibes in some of her work, for instance, in A Caribbean Mystery the local black population of the island are generalized as lazy because of one man who climbs a tree to eat a coconut and apparently sleeps for the rest of the day! As a product of the British Empire and it's imperialist gaze, many indigenous peoples and subjects become 'savages' and a seemingly permanent "Other" used to define the insular, organized world of Britain. She could, at times, also use offensive language and rhetoric, with sayings such as "nigger in the woodpile" appearing in one novel, if I remember correctly, as well as the brilliant Ten Little Indians (originally entitled Ten Little Niggers, but changed for American audiences to avoid offense, and also known as And Then There Were None). Regardless, I find value in studying and consuming Christie's writings, even if it at times engages in severe white imperialistic gazing, largely since it documents how some English writers perceived colonial subjects as well as providing another medium through which one can analyze British perceptions of racial difference, world politics, and the change in racial views of younger, more immigrant-fed generations of Britons. In addition, through the use of a Belgian sleuth forced to relocate to London after the German invasion of Belgium during the first World War, Christie, I like to think, mocks the English for their insular and xenophobic attitudes toward European immigrants, too.
4. One cannot forget the many creative and progressive techniques and contributions to the genre made by Christie. For example, one of her early gems includes a tale where the narrator is revealed to the be murderer, discovered by Poirot (for the sake of spoilers I shall not give the name of this novel). Some people would say that's cheating on the part of Christie, but is it not the purpose of mystery or whodunit novels to keep the reader hanging on the edge of their feet and surprised? She also wrote another classic in which the murderer is revealed to be essentially everyone on a train, thanks again to the brilliant, albeit slightly compulsive and strange little egg-shaped man, Poirot, who loves liqueurs, dyes his hair black, uses French phrases profusely, and enjoys living in a perfectly square-shaped building for his flat and office. Poirot's OCD and obsession with neatness definitely influenced the TV sleuth, Adrian Monk. In addition, Christie also wrote mysteries which were entirely psychological (Cards on the Table) as well as some dealing with public crises wrought by serial killers (ABC Murders), the shock of exciting crime and intrigue in small-town St. Mary Mead, the town of Jane Murple, an elderly woman who, though largely most often in her village, nevertheless has picked up on universal human nature to help solve crimes as well as use her old age as an advantage to obtain gossip and information, and she created endearing, long-lasting characters. She can also, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the best of mystery writers, take advantage of secret codes, European aristocracy, and other stock plot devices and archetypes of detective fiction successfully.
The Watson for Poirot, often Captain Hastings, who, compared to Poirot was lacking in the "little grey cells," often helped Poirot solve cases simply through his ignorance, as well as providing amusing moments of a great friendship that, nonetheless, often broke down into petty insults and condescension from Poirot to Hastings. Yet the two remain friends, even after Hastings marries and moves to Argentina. Fortunately, Poirot's occasional Watson, Ariadne Oliver, an example of self-insertion, is a nice self-parody of Christie. She has her own detective, a Finn, is poorly organized and slightly scatter-brained while also very interested in women's intuition as a crime-solving method, and her relationship with Poirot always intrigued me for the unlikely compatibility of the pair. Poirot's relationship with her, as well as the Russian countess who Poirot seems to love but never succeeds, are great occasional characters in the oeuvre of Poirot novels and short stories, as well as the one-time appearance of Poirot's brother, Achille, which was likely just Poirot pretending to be someone else.
5. Christie's final greatness is due to her ability to weave complex and compelling characters in several mystery novels while mostly using the detective fiction framework. Yes, she may not be Shakespeare, or writing something that's revolutionary in terms of aesthetics, style, or content, but Christie succeeds for the most part in creating a realistic world, an encapsulation of a real-world event utterly fictional. Somehow, her characters make sense and come together, and the denouement of each mystery novel is normally satisfying, moving, insightful, unexpected, and/or engaging. Her novels can sometimes be successfully solved by the reader before her sleuths uncover the culprit, but usually make it difficult to guess outright, a sign of a well-written whodunit. Overall, her memorable characters, including recurring side characters and the endearing detectives, Marple and Poirot, often interact with interesting suspects, victims, witnesses, and perpetrators who can easily transport the reader to the Caribbean, a train, an airplane, a villa, the streets of London, and the villages of the south of England and, through these other characters, the rest of the world based on themes of love, infidelity, betrayal, trust, greed, and a plethora of human emotions that drive our relationships. For that, I stand by Christie, even if her writing itself is nothing awe-inducing in terms of literary prowess or superb, fantastic prose. If one wants interesting, literary somersaults in detective fiction, check out Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo and I promise you won't be disappointed, it's a meta-fiction detective tale.
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