Book 10 -- The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Did you know that Agatha Christie is the most widely published author in the world, falling just short of Shakespeare and the Bible? Now you know!

Context:

The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. They don't know who she is or why she is there, but when another young girl is murdered nearby, the connection is clear: something foul is at play. Esteemed amateur sleuth and adorable old spinster Miss Marple is brought in by Mrs. Bantry to discover the truth of the situation before her and her husband's reputations are ruined by the affair.

My Thoughts:

I've never been much of a mystery girl, but I really enjoyed this novel.

First, I like the time period. I've always gotten a kick of  late Victorian and early 20th century language--you know, when they used to say "fantastic" to mean something wildly unimaginable, or "gay" to mean happy, and all that kind of stuff. It's also interesting to see how different it was solving crimes Back Then. Today we have television shows like CSI and SVU and other such things that give us ideas about how crime solving works, but they had far less technology in the period Agatha Christie wrote. The character of Miss Marple is something of a Sherlock Holmes, without the ramped up ego and label of Genius. It was interesting to see her suss out the details based on human observation and uncharacteristic cynicism of human nature. I think my fiance would like this book a lot. He prides himself on his observational skills, so I wonder if he'd be able to figure it out. I sure didn't. I was totally wrong.

Though one thing that annoyed me--due to my own personal issues rather than anything wrong with the novel--was Mrs. Bantry's obsession with how people talked about them. It was clearly emphasized how important public opinion was. And I get it. It's totally historically accurate. In today's society, we can afford to be independent and self-important; in the era which Christie wrote and wrote about, communities well and truly depended on each other for everything from employment to reliable professionals (for instance, you wouldn't want the only doctor in your small community to think poorly of you). And sure, some of it was superficial and more about socializing, but socializing was important, and could only be accomplished if certain social etiquette was observed. Nowadays, social etiquette isn't really important, at least not to the degree of propriety it used to be. It's an interesting way of living, but it just irritates me that so much importance had to be placed on other people's opinions.

I also really like Christie's tone. She has a sense of humor that is subtle, and her characters each have a distinct personality that doesn't feel forced or overly structured. There's also a point where she references herself--a young boy claims he has autographs from many mystery authors, and the boy names Christie as one of them. Teehee.

I also like her obvious feminism. Considering the book was published in 1942, it was rather daring of her to have so many women at the forefront of her novel. The detective who solves the crime is a woman; one of the murderers is a woman; the victims are women; and in fact, quite a number of the supporting cast are women. Each of these women is a character who would pass a novel version of the Bechdel test. I applaud your progressive stance, Agatha Christie!

The actual story was wonderful. I read this book in a day. I was fascinated by the storyline, and remember earlier in my blog when I mentioned how not many authors can pull off a twist without it feeling unoriginal or forced? Well, Christie is apparently the Mother of the Surprise Ending; I didn't expect her ending at all, and it didn't feel contrived, scripted, or forced in any way. She had me guessing from the get-go, and I loved every minute of it. Marple felt real;  unlike the well-loved Sherlock Holmes, whom we are supposed to simply accept as a savant, Marple is simply an old lady with a keen eye for detail and a cynical view of human nature. 

My Rating: 4.5/5

An extremely well written novel with believable characters, an intriguing plot, and a great pace. There's no real identifiable reason why I didn't quite feel this novel was a five; simply a feeling I had where I was intrigued, but not grabbed. I wasn't hooked, maybe because there wasn't a lot of action. It was mostly dialogue and descriptions of action. Perhaps if we could have seen one of the murders in action, cloaked in anonymity, it would have grabbed me more.