Posted on 08/22/2009 12:22:11 PM PDT by BGHater
The publication of Agatha Christie's notebooks will do nothing to reveal what made her tick, says Laura Thompson. Only her novels can do that.
More than 30 years after her death, in January 1976, Agatha Christie is news once again. HarperCollins – with whom she first signed a three-book deal back in 1924 – is about to publish Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, a hefty volume that details, exhaustively, the contents of the 73 extant notebooks in which she sketched out plots for her detective fiction.
In fact, there is nothing very "secret" about Christie's notebooks, which were first analysed by Janet Morgan in 1984, and later in my own biography in 2007. But they have rekindled our interest because they hint at answer to the central mystery, the question asked by her friend Allen Lane in a BBC broadcast in 1955: "How on Earth is it done?"
Christie wrote more than 90 books, which have sold an estimated four billion copies: more, as the familiar phrase has it, than everything except Shakespeare and the Bible. "The disappointing truth is that I haven't much method," Christie told the BBC, almost apologetically. As well as scribbling ideas in her notebooks, and on random scraps of paper, what she found most productive was to walk around the countryside, talking aloud to herself, thinking through her plots. And then came the finished product: smooth, seamless, deceptively simple, with the authorial presence barely visible.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Thanks for posting this — even if the notebooks are *no secret*, my mom, a huge Agatha Christie fan, has never mentioned this, I don’t think she knows about them. I would love to send her a copy of the hardcover for a present when it is released. great heads up for me, appreciate it.
Wow—I had no idea AC was so popular.
I hope I can keep this a secret from my wife, so I can get it for her as a gift before she gets it for herself.
I love reading AC.
Nice find-—thanks.
Just as delightful as the books, is Margaret Rutherford playing Agatha’s amateur sleuth, Miss Marple, in about four movies.
Rutherford often co-starred with her husband, Stringer Davis.
She was masterful at dialog. You really don't appreciate it fully until you read some of the truly awful new mysteries.
My mom was a fan, so she got me hooked. Her favorite was Miss Marple, but I prefer Poirot.
The Agatha Christie Miss Marple Movie Collection
(Yes, I happened to have the link handy because these are also in the Wish List awaiting order for my mom -- I got her the VHS several years ago, now that they're on DVD, I'm going to update her come Christmas!)
Many thanks——will check it out.
I think she's a lot of folks' secret vice. It's just not sophisticated enough nowadays to say you're an AC fan.
Agatha Christie’s novel “Evil Under the Sun” was made into a movie...... with an amazing cast.
Peter Ustinov as Poirot, Jane Birkin, Roddy McDowall, James Mason, Sylvia Miles, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith.
Takes place at a resort hotel.
I've seen it, multiple times, but David Suchet is my favorite as Poirot -- his characterization fits AC's description perfectly. Peter Ustinov (and Albert Finney in "Murder on the Orient Express") not so much. Both films were excellent, though.
Suchet was outstanding as the cop investigating Michael Douglas’ “perfect crime” in “A Perfect Murder” (remake of Hitch’s “Dial M For Murder”).
Thanks. I haven't seen it, but now I will.
“Agatha Christie’s novel “Evil Under the Sun” was made into a movie...... with an amazing cast.
Peter Ustinov as Poirot, Jane Birkin, Roddy McDowall, James Mason, Sylvia Miles, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith.
Takes place at a resort hotel.”
Easily my favourite of the films made from her books. You forgot the amazing Cole Porter score (the whole film was drenched in it) and the setting - Majorca. A feast for all the senses.
The setting was on Majorca but in different parts of the area. Skillful editing made it look like the same place. Some scenes were shot in England.
The only thing I found disconcerting was that all of the actresses looked like they went to the same store for their clothes........even though the plot had them emanating from diverse places. The film's costume designer should have been more inventive.
It was my grandmother that got me hooked. Like you, she was a Poirot fan, I prefer Marple.
AC wrote a wonderful book, “Come, Tell Me How You Live”, about helping her husband, Max Mallowan, on his archeological expeditions in the Middle East.
For five years Agnes and Max spend the winter months exploring in northern Syria looking for Hittite ruins from around 4,000 BC.
It’s a interesting book and a great introduction to archeology.
“I had no idea AC was so popular.”
Oh my goodness yes, she really is. And this article makes me want to read some of her stuff again.
Those were the good old days of my youth, reading my grandmother’s limitless supply of Agatha Christie and Earl Stanley Gardener, some of my happiest hours.
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