Sunday, April 16, 2006
I really enjoyed reading Murder on the Orient Express. It’s the first Agatha Christie book I’ve read! It seems most people read these books when they were teenagers (or younger) - I don’t know why I never did. Actually, I guess I didn’t really start reading mystery books until I was in my twenties and at that time I guess I wanted to read “harder” stuff, like Jim Thompson or James Ellroy. Christie’s book takes on a serious subject, but in a light-hearted, chess game-like way. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do, but for me it works. It actually reminded me a lot of reading a Tintin album. That same charm, wit and soft touch, even when dealing with something, if you were to really think about it, should probably be considered quite grim. Perhaps it’s the books age, first published in 1934, but another of its delights, is the remarkable un-PC tone throughout the book. Nationality plays a surprising importance in shaping the characters and their (apparent) relationships to each other. For instance, because the book’s main murder is accomplished by stabbing, several characters seem to think the Italian man onboard is the most likely suspect, “because Italians are stabbers.” The English hate the French and vice versa, and of course, everybody hates the Americans. Is it charming because it’s dated, or is it charming because it really hasn’t dated at all? Perhaps because Christie’s approach is more like a fantasy, less concerned with realism than putting all the pieces on the chess board in a way that somehow makes its own kind of sense, the book succeeds in creating its own timeless world. Also, most simply, the characters she has created here are amusing and fun to read about.
