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Styles- NOT A Great Poirot

go_leafs_nation 19 Oct 09 at 11:21 a.m. GMT

I'm rather surprised at what a big following The Mysterious Affair at Styles has. Certainly, it was Agatha's first book, but it was not even nearly as good as it is purported to be. Why? There is one reason, and it is very simple.

AC followed the conventions of the "chess puzzle" mystery; atmosphere and character were ignored, when they serve only to make a mystery better. (Don't believe me? Refer to ATTWN, The Moving Finger, Death on the Nile, The A.B.C. Murders, Towards Zero... need I go on?) In particular, the characters are rather stale, and most if not all behave rather stupidly. In true "chess puzzle mystery" style, they seem to play ring around the rosy in and around the room in which the murder takes place. Fortunately, AC wasn't reduced to such bland clues like wilted flowers and dropped bus tickets.

AC would outdo herself when she returned to Styles in Curtain, a fantastic piece of work that, unlike Styles, emphasises the characters and their relationships with each other. As it is, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is dull, and AC's talents had not yet 'matured' enough to seriously consider it one of her best books.

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Puffinjill 19 Oct 09 at 2:55 p.m. GMT

Oh, no, not one of her best by a mile but it IS the first. Without it, we wouldn't have the rest of her fantastic and large body of work. For a young woman at a time when detective novels weren't so common (and young women did not write books for a living), its imaginative and contains a lot of the things we all grow to love.

Yes, some of the characterisations are stilted and stereotypical, but her flair for dialogue shows itself. And if she had written the 'perfect' book first time out, she may have simply not written any more, or put any effort into improving. And where would we be now without them?

So, yes, go leafs, not the best, but still deserves to be considered a classic.

go_leafs_nation 19 Oct 09 at 5:09 p.m. GMT

I agree it's an important book, but not a classic by a long shot. It's just too flawed.

Puffinjill 19 Oct 09 at 7:01 p.m. GMT

I still think it can be considered a classic of its genre even with all its flaws. I don't think a text has to be perfect to be called that. But perhaps the term is wrong and I should be using another rather than classic, because, actually, what does that mean? Maybe we bandy the term around too much without knowing its true defination.

I don't know. I think it's right to consider it important and, in a way, a benchmark in detective fiction, as it is AC's first work. But I'm not sure being flawed is neccessarily a reason to dismiss it from being regared as such. I'm sure many other works considered in this light may have flaws too.

go_leafs_nation 19 Oct 09 at 8:37 p.m. GMT

The spark of originality in Styles is in its denouement and the murder method. Apart from that, it's simply a dull read, with characters that hardly feel real. It was a good book, but far from AC's best, as it simply dragged on, without an eerie atmosphere or interesting characters to keep the interest up.

Now, when you say "classic" mystery, such amazing works like The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of the Yellow Room jump to mind. Although some of AC's works do stand up with these, The Mysterious Affair at Styles comes nowhere near such quality. It is a book that could've been far better, but was a decent achievement for a first-time author. It's important as it is AC's first novel; but it's one of her most mediocre ones.

GKCfan 20 Oct 09 at 3:47 a.m. GMT

I think that you both make great points.  Let's not forget that this was one of the most heavily edited Christie novels.  The Bodley Head Publishing Company had a number of people preparing a first-time writer for publication, suggesting changes and making rewrites.  Christie wasn't pleased, but she went along to get along– even allowing them to spell "cocoa" without an "A."  

I do think that Christie deserves a lot of credit– she learned a lot from her early books, and her improvements came pretty quickly.

go_leafs_nation 20 Oct 09 at 4:03 a.m. GMT

Oh, yes, I remember the "cocoa" incident, which I believe Charles Osborne described in his book, saying AC even produced tins of cocoa, but the person still insisted on the old-fashioned spelling.

It's very true that AC learned rapidly from her mistakes, and deserves credit for this. Already in the next Poirot, Murder on the Links, the problem of dull characters has been solved. The next HP is her brilliant The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Puffinjill 20 Oct 09 at 6:38 a.m. GMT

I believe even at the time AC felt she had some difficulty with certain characters (especially John and Mary) and was never really happy with the way they came across on the page. I imagine her original text sent to the publishers would have been very different from the book that finally made it onto the shelves for sale. Thrilled to have it published (and at this time she was writing really for recreation and not for the income, or from any deep burning desire to write) I imagine she accepted the majority of changes editors suggested assuming they know their business best. Had she not done this, she may have bundled the whole lot into a cupboard at home and we may never of heard of it again! That would have been a tragedy!!

Do you not think The Murders on the Rue Morgue, which has long been called a classic, has no flaws? Massively important as it gave us the first fictional detective but it isn't perfect. Poe inroduces the art of deduction to us but he also give us (in my very humble opinion) a sensational and hard to believe solution. It strains my credability somewhat!

go_leafs_nation 20 Oct 09 at 11:20 a.m. GMT

Is it incredible? Yes. Is it well-written? Yes! There aren't too many novels you could call flawless, but Rue Morgue is really fantastic.

Puffinjill 20 Oct 09 at 2:47 p.m. GMT

True, but I did feel cheated by Poe as his denoument was so extraordinary and beyond most readers imagination. I felt it was a little unfair. It is certainly effective and wonderfully written but a bit of a leap into the fantastic for me.

So, if a classic is defined by being well-written, then The Mysterious Affair at Styles possibly falls a little short due to AC not having developed her style, confidence and flair. but it will always have a special place in the annuls of detective literature as it introduced us all to Hercule Poirot and helped shape the genre for many, many years to come.

go_leafs_nation 20 Oct 09 at 9:04 p.m. GMT

There's another way to look at Rue Morgue: its ending is where it is brilliant, in a way. Look at the solution in retrospect, and you'll probably laugh. It's farfetched and ridiculous to say the least. So why is it so effective as it is being read? Poe's writing was amazing; a less skilled author would've made the solution into a farce; Poe made it into a horrifying conclusion.

Puffinjill 21 Oct 09 at 6:56 a.m. GMT

I guess so. But after that first amazement had gone away, I did feel a bit cheated by a solution that seemed to come completely out of left field. Interesting figure, Poe, his own life seems to have spawned a whole gammut of books written about this life and (rather sudden and unexplained) death. Shame we had so little of Dupin, but perhaps more would have watered down his impact? Poe also introduced the 'friend' as narrator, a literary device obviously used to great effect by Conan Doyle, AC and many others.

yamifannetje 21 Oct 09 at 6:17 p.m. GMT

"The mysterious affair at Styles" makes me always feeling there has happened so much before that. Where and how have Poirot and Hastings meet each other for the first time? How did they become friends? And it makes me still want to know their ages and more about Poirots time as Belgian police officer.

Puffinjill 21 Oct 09 at 7:19 p.m. GMT

Tantalising, isn't it!! I know Hastings mentions coming across Poirot in belgium (I guess Hastings was there due to the War) but they never disclose what caused them to meet. Hastins obviously was able to view Poirot at work because he refers to his methods when first mentions him to Mary Cavendish.

I have also long been intrigued by the first cases that Poirot and Japp shared - the Abercrombie forgery case and the Baron Altara affair - and wish we had more information on those. It would be fun to know how Japp viewed Poirot when they first met in 1904!! Alas, we will never know the answers to any of these!

yamifannetje 05 Jan 10 at 4:54 p.m. GMT

Indeed! I guess Japp's first impression was not realy one we want to know! And indeed, what makes Poirot and Hastings have any need to meet? Thinking about the difference of age between them, there must have been something special that makes them to become friends...

HeiseiHolmes 15 Jan 10 at 4:27 p.m. GMT

This is her first published book,but the first thing she wrote was "Snow on the Desert", a romance novel. I did like this book, though...