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Curtain

deborah29770 23 Aug 09 at 1:24 p.m. GMT

I have just finished all the Agatha Chrisite novels but this one.  I am about half way through.  I have put this one off because everytime I started it I get so sad.  I suppose this is terribly silly of me. I do think Poirot is my favorite detective second would be Tommy and Tuppence. My first time on the Agatha Christie site, my family gets tired of me talking about Agatha Christie, maybe you all won't mind so much!

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ilovewalruses2 10 May 10 at 10:43 a.m. GMT

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David Suchet is making Curtain in about one year. At least thats what I read.

liz3280 26 Apr 10 at 10:05 p.m. GMT

I loved Curtain I never saw it coming, I think it was perfect.  Would love to see tv adaption with David Suchet as long as they dont stray too far from the book.  Will need a big box of tissues if they ever do make it.

MissQuin 01 Mar 10 at 3:06 p.m. GMT

yamifannetje

For me, his death, and its cause,  just proves his immortality. Why?  Everyone loves him so much for who he is, deep inside. His heroic action, based on pure bravery and deep friendship towards Hastings, shows the reason for that intense love: an fantastic kind and warm person. abd that parsonality is the basic of what makes him so immortal.

Besides, the cause of his death were pure bravery and deep friendship. There isn't anything more beautifull and more worthy Poirot to die for.

I thought your post was really touching. You summed my feeling up more eloquently that I could have myself.

go_leafs_nation 01 Mar 10 at 1:17 p.m. GMT

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And yet, was it justified? Poirot, ladies and gentlemen, ended his career a murderer. He, being the bon Catholique, considered murder a mortal sin, and he would stop at nothing to find the killer's identity in his previous cases.

Yet here he came across a murderer who manipulated others into committing his crimes- a sickening modern-day "honest Iago" (note the clue Poirot left behind for Hastings, Othello- it wasn't there to enrich Hastings' literary tastes). Poirot decides that only by murdering this man will future crimes be prevented, but is any murder ever justified? Poirot has never thought so, and even when it is he 'on the other side' of the law, he believes so. He has become a murderer, and thus, in his eyes, he deserves to die.

(I always think of this story as taking place during WWII, even though there are other great cases later on for Poirot- the timeline simply fits this much better than the 1970s.)

But even during his careful plans for murder, he does a great favour for Hastings, ensuring that he does nothing silly when the man was sitting up waiting to murder someone, and later, "matching him up", so to speak, with someone else. It is his great act of friendship towards a man whom he was genuinely fond of.

yamifannetje 28 Feb 10 at 8:50 p.m. GMT

Lone_Wolf

See, Poirot was always immortal to me (I don't really like him that much, just consider him immortal), which makes any book about his death ring false in my eyes. To convice me of it, you need to do something really strong. Maybe for some people Poirot's death is shoking enough for the book to have a big emotional value regardless of other details, but not for me (esp. since I knew that Poirot dies in the book beforehand).

For me, his death, and its cause,  just proves his immortality. Why?  Everyone loves him so much for who he is, deep inside. His heroic action, based on pure bravery and deep friendship towards Hastings, shows the reason for that intense love: an fantastic kind and warm person. abd that parsonality is the basic of what makes him so immortal.

Besides, the cause of his death were pure bravery and deep friendship. There isn't anything more beautifull and more worthy Poirot to die for.

Lone_Wolf 26 Feb 10 at 12:33 p.m. GMT

See, Poirot was always immortal to me (I don't really like him that much, just consider him immortal), which makes any book about his death ring false in my eyes. To convice me of it, you need to do something really strong. Maybe for some people Poirot's death is shoking enough for the book to have a big emotional value regardless of other details, but not for me (esp. since I knew that Poirot dies in the book beforehand).

AndThenThereWereToon 26 Feb 10 at 8:36 a.m. GMT

I like Robert Barnard's book a lot, it's probably my favourite book about AC's work, but I disagree with him on Curtain.  If Curtain had been more full-blooded, the book would have been horrific - you can see above that it shocks plenty of AC fans as it is.  It's enough for me that AC came up with the idea and got a solid novel out of it - the reader can work through the subtleties him/herself.  And the implications and variations of the idea are worked out fully and perfectly well as far as I'm concerned.

Lone_Wolf 25 Feb 10 at 5:05 p.m. GMT

Am I the only one who doesn't like "Curtain"? I pretty much side with Robert Barnard when he speaks about the idea of the novel as "a clever and interesting one, but needing greater subtlety in the handling... (the characters here are in any case quite exceptionally pallid). In fact, for a long-cherished idea, and as an exit for Poirot, this is oddly perfunctory in execution".

I find myself agreeing with Barnard's option on AC's books very often, in fact.

HeiseiHolmes 17 Feb 10 at 10:36 a.m. GMT

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I couldn't eat after finishing this book. I was so upset... I'm so glad this never happened with Miss Marple...

MissQuin 15 Feb 10 at 4:17 p.m. GMT

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Ive got to confess, I found this book a shocker but for a different reason...

I could always imagine Poirot becoming a murderer as he has the brains, the daring and I might add the arogance! What stunned me was the idea of good old Captain Hastings planning a murder! I say! He didn't go through with it, but it was close..

I liked Curtain, it's not in my top 10 but I was gripped by it. I knew part of the ending, but put of reading it until I read nearly all the Poirot books. I liked the way it had come a full circle by setting it at Styles. It must have been strange for AC to have to continue writing about Poirot, when she had killed him! It would be as if he'd come back from the dead, an unsettling feeling I'm sure..

This has to be, I think the only two Poirot murders that werent for money, revenge, or to silence someone or for bigamacy reasons.

go_leafs_nation 13 Feb 10 at 11:47 p.m. GMT

A glorious curtain-call for Poirot, far better than the book which started it all, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. However, it has a special connection with Styles, taking place at the same location and making quite a few references to it. But here, the focus is on characters, their relationships with each other, and a storm that finally breaks loose, resulting in murder.

AndThenThereWereToon 13 Feb 10 at 9:04 a.m. GMT

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yamifannetje: Poirot sees himself as a murderer, clearly.  He's also said on previous occasions that killers find it easier to kill the more they do it, and other characters have said the same.  So on this one occasion he's resorted to killing a murderer himself because he believes the murderer cannot be brought to justice - what's to stop him doing it again?  If Poirot can convince himself that his actions are just and there's no alternative, he could kill other murderers in subtle ways that cannot be traced by the police.  And it would get easier for him each time he did it.  First the serial killers, then the ordinary murderers because if he doesn't stop them, they could kill again.  Effectively, he would become a monstrous sort of vigilante.  His intentions might be just, but his actions would be deplorable.

I think that's why he kills himself - I think he may even say something similar in his letter to Hastings, although I can't remember off-hand.  By his own reasoning and standards, it's the only appropriate thing to do - if he's prepared to personally kill untraceable murderers to stop them killing again, the very next person he should kill is himself.  It's a mark of his honour that he does so.

yamifannetje 04 Oct 09 at 9:38 a.m. GMT

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His death is a terrible loose for the whole country, the whole world. But dying by his own hand is better than being hanged for a murder he did to safe other lives and so actually doesn't deserve to be punished.

The problem with all this is the English law that want to bring criminals to justice. But is there anyone who sees the action from Poirot as a real murder and himself as a murderer? The motive makes it rather a heroic action.

Like I said here before, the storie is shocking, not in the way of being filled with horror and terrible crime but in the first place in the way of showing great bravery. To think that this man, who is so proud (nearly arrogant) risked his name, honour and career to save all the future victims of the real murderer... Is there another word for it? But more important than all this is the fact he had the opinion of preventing his dear friend of being hanged  for a murder he did whitout knowing. So this murder actually is a proove of deep friendship and a great heart. Deserves such a thing to be punished???

shaunabbkevrye 27 Sep 09 at 7:15 p.m. GMT

I loved the Curtain too. I didn't feel sad with the ending though.  It seemed the perfect way. The only way it could have happened to him.  I couldn't imagine a less dramatic end to end it all? if you know what i mean, its so hard to say without saying.

thedoctor98 26 Sep 09 at 6:21 p.m. GMT

ive just finished reading curtain and was so shocked at the end of it it really is so sad my all time favourite poirot book definately!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mirror 09 Sep 09 at 10:59 a.m. GMT

I have to say that Curtain is definitely one of my favotites.  This book somehow reminds me of And The There Were None.  I guess it's because of the mysterious situation where a lot of murders happen but the real culprit is kept in the dark until the very end.  Have fun reading it!

yamifannetje 07 Sep 09 at 5:34 a.m. GMT

I have read that there are plans too make a film (last part of the series) too from "Curtain". Is that true ???

deborah29770 05 Sep 09 at 2:11 p.m. GMT

Hercuel_Poirot_7

Is the Curtain good ?  Yes I just finished it.  Shocking is correct! Never would have guessed how this one ends.  Don't want to say too much for those haven't read it yet. 

yamifannetje 26 Aug 09 at 8:37 a.m. GMT

Hercuel_Poirot_7

Is the Curtain good ?

Yes I have read it some time ago.  It's surprising and amazing. But also shocking. I was happy that I read something on the internet about the story before I started to read it.

Hercuel_Poirot_7 24 Aug 09 at 7:49 a.m. GMT

Is the Curtain good ?