"What is the most striking thing about the “mystery” as opposed to “hard-boiled” American pulp fiction or even the works of Raymond Chandler? Answer: in Christie no one ever gets paid. Unless you’re one of the plodding policemen types. Neither Poirot nor Marple ever asks for a penny. The pleasure of finally pointing the finger is enough. This is the sole point of the book, to correctly name the malefactor. The Christie sleuth is an amateur, s/he’s not in it for the money.
Not only are they not into filthy lucre, they’re not into sex either. They never fall in love and are fully satisfied and kept on the straight and narrow perhaps by the pure pursuit of the perpetrator. The Christie novels are a bewitching exercise in highly disciplined sublimation. No sex please, we’re busy hunting for clues. The other surprising thing about them is how few people are criminals. This is the essence of the middle-class, not sex, not money, but rather crimelessness, a zero degree of crime which is disrupted by murder and must be restored. As Poirot says in Cards on the Table, “I have a bourgeois attitude to murder, I disapprove of it.”"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/christie-hercule-poirot-murder-mysteries-mousetrap-harrogate-kenneth-branagh-murder-on-the-orient-a7862316.html
I have this weird, uncomplicated love for Christie and Christie-style mysteries. I find them soothing and reassuring. I can't explain it, except that maybe they are so clean and divorced from the real world and not even pretending to be realistic, so there is no emotional stress.
They don't pull you in by asking you to identify with anyone, or to find out what is going to happen to your favorite recurring character, or to re-encounter our society through another perspective. They say "here is something completely dependable that will be thoughtfully unique each time". They are like really good crackers or your favorite brand of tea; they settle your stomach.
Related: reading romance novels about white people
No comments:
Post a Comment