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Unescapable endgame pairings

(Contains spoilers!)

Lone_Wolf 13 Feb 10 at 7:44 p.m. GMT

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OK, who else is tired from a large number of Christie stories including at least one pair of characters who're going to marry, and, more often then not, more then one (Death at the Nile, Appointment with Death, Ordeal by Innocence, Towards Zero... the list can go on and on)?

I mean, it's actually very touching and cute at first, but at your 4th or 5th AC novel with the deafening noise of marriage bells at the end, don't you want to do something destructive to your surrounding objects? Especially when people are paired off "just because", without a preceeding plotline about their relationship (like, for example, Carol Boyton and Jefferson Cope in Appointment with Death)?

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AndThenThereWereToon 14 Feb 10 at 1:07 a.m. GMT

I agree that "just because" pairings that come out of nowhere are a problem, but if a pairing arises naturally out of good character writing - or even contributes to it - I think it's fine.  What's more, once AC had established a precedent for marrying off characters, she could play with the reader's expectations by using romantic relationships as a source of red herrings or having a romantic lead turn out to be the murderer.  All good fuel for the murder mystery.

I know "thou shalt not have a love interest" was one of the 20 Van Dine rules for mystery writers, but I think a number of Van Dine's rules are questionable and that one's always struck me as singularly fatuous.

Lone_Wolf 13 Feb 10 at 9:55 p.m. GMT

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ATTWN was one of my first Cristies, so I didn't have the time to tire of endgame pairings yet. ;) I was 13 at that time, ah the memories of youth! I'm now an old man of 19 years...

You can make a great ending without dwelling on the wedding bells. The very ending of "The Hollow", to me, is one of the best Christie endings ever, and it dwells on the feelings of a woman sculptor whose lover had been killed (and the book as a whole contains only one instance of wedding bells - Edward/Midge, with their relationship being adequately developed). 

GKCfan 13 Feb 10 at 9:07 p.m. GMT

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After reading your opinions, Lone_Wolf, you must've thought that the resolution of the Vera/Lombard relationship in  And Then There Were None was Christie's best ending ever!

All kidding aside, I understand how you feel.  I think that after spending two hundred and fifty pages talking about murder and crime and all sorts of other awful things (bear in mind that lots of the murder victims are in miserable relationships) I think that Christie often just needed to wrap things up on an upbeat note.  Personally, I read so many depressing books that I'm glad to have a happy ending, even if it seems a bit tacked on, so I just take the pairings as another Christie trademark.