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Quality of AC's Books

Lone_Wolf 18 Mar 10 at 4:42 p.m. GMT

When AC's writing and quality of her books is being discussed, I often find myself sitting on the fence.

The thing is, that from all her writings, I like only roughly 17-20 of her books (there are a couple of titles I'm not sure how I fell about). That sets me apart from both her readers who either like everything - from Thе Вig Fоur to Fivе Littlе Рigs, or have only a couple of disliked novels, and her complete detractors. 

Sometimes I can tell exactly why I dislike a certain book. Sometimes I don't understand completely myself why it fails to click for me.

On the other hand, those books which I do like I like vеry much - they've brightened my life a good deal, thanks to Dame Agatha for that.

Anyone else feels the same?

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4 replies

Reverse order

Lone_Wolf 18 Mar 10 at 7:18 p.m. GMT

4. The Middle Autumn - 1955-1961. The decline is already evident. The stories start to ramble, with some unnecessary dialogue that adds nothing to the plot or the characterization and "meanders on through irrelevancies, repetitions and inconsequentialities to end nowhere", to quote R. Barnard. Not sure how I feel about "Ordeal". "The Pale Horse" is a brief flash of light and her last book which I would desribe as good.

5. The Final - 1962-1973. The decline is in full swing, the redundant rambling takes over everything, The plots are becoming more and more boring. Occasionally, an interesting idea or literary theme still pops up, but fails to be executed properly.

Lone_Wolf 18 Mar 10 at 7:17 p.m. GMT

Here's my brief review of the periods of her writing:

1. The Initial Period: 1920-1930. Poirot and Hastings are clearly under the shade of Holmes and Watson here. The plots are a bit clumsy - even "Аckroyd" has its clumsiness, despite the great idea. Amusingly enough, "Stylеs" reminds me of her more uninspired works from later 50'es. That period is also characterised by a bunch of rather mediorce thrillers, though they all have their charming moments.
2. The Golden Period: 1930-1950. I adore every third book here - the highest concentration of my favourite books is in that period. My favourite books here mix slever twists with entertaining and involving characters. Sometimes the psychology alone strikes powerful and deep accords ("Five Little Pigs", "The Hollow"). Besides well-known classics (like "Death on the Nile" or "The A.B.C. Murders"), I like some other less-known novels like "Murder is Easy" - the novel that, paradoxically, is the most successful in creating a Marple-like athmosphere, despite not actually having Miss Marple. I still have my disagreements with some the popular perceptions here - like, I consider Orient Express to be pretty mediocre.
3. The Early Autumn: 1950-1955. Here, Marple starts to overtake Poirot. Despite some signs of impending decline, AC's still going strong - that period contains "Baghdad", her only thriller I like, and the powerful and poignant ending in "After the Funeral", that redeems that book's uninvolved middle. "Hickory Dickory" is interesting, though not quite as good.

Lone_Wolf 18 Mar 10 at 6:50 p.m. GMT

I can even say that it isn't a good thing for Christie's critical perception that Miss Marple is, perhaps, even more known then Poirot. I actually like Miss Marple more then Poirot as a literary creation, but while quite a lot of Poirot books strike me as having strong, memorable characters and great plots, the plots of Marple books seem to be very mediocre to me, and not so greatly written (it's the later 50'ies - 60'ies when Marple started to overtake Poirot, and Christie's writing skills began to deteriorate about that time. "Pale Horse" is a brief flash of light in that period).

HeiseiHolmes 18 Mar 10 at 5:55 p.m. GMT

I have only a couple I don't like, but I haven't read them all yet.