Oct 16, 2004 07:11 PM
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(Updated Oct 16, 2004 07:13 PM)
AGATHA CHRISTIE
It is not really surprising that Agatha Christie’s works are translated in more languages than Shakespeare’s. The ingenuity of her plots is simply incomparable. Christie is easily the most versatile of mystery authors. Out of the seventy-nine Christie mysteries, no two are similar.
Her enduring success, enhanced by many TV and film adaptations, is a tribute to the timeless appeal of her characters and the unequalled ingenuity of her plots. Agatha Christie’s first novel, “The Mysterious Affair At Styles” was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she created Hercule Poirot. Her masterpiece, “The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd” was the first of her books to be dramatized – under the name “Alibi” – and to have a successful run in London’s West End. “The Mousetrap”, her most famous play of all, is the longest running play in history. Recently in 1998, “Black Coffee” was the first of her plays to be novelized by the celebrated author, Charles Osborne.
DUMB WITNESS
The acknowledged queen of detective fiction has done it yet again – needless to say – with the help of Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective famous for his “grey cells”. (And also for the symmetrically flamboyant moustache!)
I was not much satisfied with my first encounter with Poirot in “Evil Under The Sun”. The book was excruciatingly dull. (For further details, read my review “Just Another Murder Mystery”) However, “Dumb Witness” made me reconsider all my opinions about Poirot. His intelligence could easily rival that of Sherlock Holmes.
Talking of Sherlock Holmes, this book has been written much in an ‘Arthur Conan Doyle’ style. Christie here introduces a narrator named Captain Hastings, a companion of Hercule Poirot. The relation between them is much similar to that between Holmes and Watson – the most striking similarity being the habit of Poirot to prove Hastings wrong each time the latter made a deduction.
“Dumb Witness” is the story of the murder of a rich landlady, Emily Arundell, who suffers from an accident and becomes convinced that one of her relatives is trying to kill her. She writes her suspicions in a letter to Poirot. But somehow, the letter gets delayed mysteriously, and reaches Poirot by the time Emily Arundell is dead and gone.
The mystery also involves Miss Arundell’s will, which she changes abruptly before her death, causing uproar amongst her relatives. Poirot, acting for the dead landlady, probes deep into the case.
The most striking feature of Poirot’s investigations is his ability to reconstruct the whole crime successfully just by listening to the statements made by the various people concerned. Whenever we mention the word “detective”, we imagine someone with a wig and a fake beard, wearing a large overcoat and standing behind a pillar. Poirot seems to defy this conventional law, all has to do is sit back and think. As he puts it, “Suspect everything. Do not think, but reason. There is no such thing called as instinct. Crime is a most practical science”.
“Dumb Witness” also holds the popular twist towards the end – a really stunning conclusion, characteristic of Agatha Christie. Apart from her, one of the few authors who can create such “twists” is Jeffrey Archer.
Agatha Cristie is the master of the art of murder story told briskly, vivaciously, and with ever-fertile imagination. With her liveliness and her infectious zest, she plays a cunning game of murder with the reader.
Happy Readin’!
