Two more by Agatha Christie

 

Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie

published 1955

 

Endless Night by Agatha Christie

published 1967

 

 

I’ve been working on a talk to give to the Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay later this week –

International Agatha Christie Festival 

My talk is on Thursday 14th at 5pm, do please come and see me! 

This is a link to my event:

International Agatha Christie Festival | Mysterious Affairs with Style (iacf-uk.org)

it was their clever idea to call it Mysterious Affairs of Style.

I’ve been re-reading  particularly some of her later books – see Third Girl recently. (That picture above could really be me, working SO HARD). My view is that she went from the 1920s flappers to the 1960s flatsharers. These two books, 12 years apart both feature young people – what are they wearing?

Hickory Dickory Dock is always associated in my mind with a wonderful moment in Robert Barnard’s iconic 1980 work on Agatha Christie, A Talent to Deceive:

Evelyn Waugh’s diary records that it ‘began well’ but deteriorated ‘a third of the way through into twaddle’ – a judgement which, unusually for him, erred on the side of charity.

It is a readable book, but it is also very easy to criticize. The setting is a hostel for students, many of them foreign. The name and nursery rhyme get us nowhere – she has given  the hostel an address in Hickory Rd, then what? Nothing really. Fulbrite scholarship is spelled like that, ie wrongly. 

The racism is awful – the young Jamaican girl known ‘affectionately’ as Black Bess,  the mockery of someone objecting to the phrase ‘free white and 21’ – which was no doubt used widely and without bad intention at the time, but still fair for someone to object. Woolly hair and an inability to blush, and some sweeping stereotypes – though all nationalities are used for stereotypes in Christie – English, Scottish, Italian, American.

There’s very little to say about the book or the plot, it is unguessable but also not all that interesting. There is a lot going on with a small bottle containing a white powder which is moved all around the house, emptied and filled and seeming to have three different lives. There is a final revelation of a relationship which seems – again – both unguessable and pointless, and then a final romance with nothing to it. (It's not a spoiler to say there are drugs involved - weird distribution sysems a subject of some interest round here) 

It's a pity – an opportunity  squandered, because the hostel should be a great setting and full of atmosphere. London in the 1950s is full of opportunities, but she doesn’t use them here. And disappointingly there are no clothes to speak of at all, nothing for me to work with.

Luckily there were these splendid pictures of students from the 1950s and 1960s, all from the LSE Library.

 

Endless Night has no clothes at all to speak of, and also actually could be set any time. Elly wears nice tweeds, very much a feature of heroines from the earlier years, and that’s about it. It is a clever book, with an interesting plot, but unlike others of her books with memorable solutions - it is not fascinating to read again, though every so often you think ‘oh yes, she’s being clever there.’ There are some stark moments  - ‘You damned fool - why didn’t you go the other way’ – and it was a brave attempt to do something different and look at some different people, not just the Christie-types. Santorix the architect is hilarious, a great character. Christie is good at trying to describe the arts, at making you believe in a talented figure: Amyas Crale in Five Little Pigs, Henrietta in The Hollow – you really want to see their works of art, and it is the same with Santorix and his houses.

I am not far off from having blogged on all Agatha Christie's full length novels, and this brings me two closer. I have also featured many of the short stories, and have done themed entries, podcasts talks - there is a dedicated tab above for AC, where you can find details of all ninety (90!) posts on her.