The Golden Age
What Writers Over the Past Hundred Years
Owe to the Queen Of Crime
by Carol Westron
I was delighted to have my proposal accepted to read a paper at the conference Agatha Christie, Investigating the Queen of Crime at Solent University. I was even more pleased that several people said how much they had enjoyed it. This article is adapted from that paper.
For many of us, Agatha Christie was the first detective novelist we read when we moved on to ‘grown up’ books. Indeed, I read an article in which Val McDermid claims to have been addicted to The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) from the precocious age of seven. Christie’s simplicity of style is one of the weapons that has been used by her critics to cudgel her reputation over the years, possibly because many people believe that it’s impossible for such a prolific and popular writer to also be a good writer.
Stylistically, I must admit that Christie’s early works don’t always conform to what we’d regard as good practice nowadays. When copying out a quote from her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), I realised that she used exclamation marks as if she’d bought a job lot at cost price and had to get rid of them before they went past their sell-by-date. However, in the many times I’d read that book as a reader, I had not noticed the over-punctuation, because I was too swept along by the story and the sly humour of the dialogue. Christie’s style may not have always been as elegant as many of her peers, but her skill at plotting was unequalled and she had a remarkable ability to slip in a clue so beautifully camouflaged by dialogue or humour that it passed unnoticed. To put it simply, she was a storyteller without equal.
Most writers struggle to achieve originality and to ensure that their writing voice is unique. I’ve often thought that while most of us strive to think outside the box, due to her upbringing, Christie was never in a box to start with. Home education may give unique opportunities for a child to develop their individuality and creativity. This is a point of view with which Christie agrees: ‘I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.'
Before 1920, the popular fictional series detectives were professional men of gravitas and scientific knowledge, like Holmes and Thorndyke. In 1923 Lord Peter Wimsey heralded the arrival of the aristocratic detective, followed by Albert Campion and Roderick Alleyn. The only series detective who fell outside these parameters was G.K. Chesterton’s shabby little priest, Father Brown. However, although not conforming to the standard fictional detective, Father Brown had his own role and his own spiritual power. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), Christie showed the originality and humour of her mindset when she introduced her detective to the public for the first time: ‘Poirot was an extraordinary-looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.’
From the first, Poirot showed no potential to ever become a conventional fictional hero and, despite his encounters with the Countess Vera Rosakoff, even less likelihood of becoming a romantic hero. As well as endowing Poirot with a comical appearance, Christie took the remarkably brave step of making him a refugee, a dispossessed person, living on charity. However, it must be admitted that Christie did allow Poirot a few moments of melodramatic heroism, as in the early novel, The Big Four (1927), when Poirot and Hastings have been captured by a murderous adversary:
‘Never before, or since, have I felt so near death. Poirot was magnificent. He neither flinched nor paled, just stared at her with unabated interest.
“Your psychology interests me enormously, madame,” he said quietly. “It is a pity that I have so short a time to devote to studying it.’
Christie must have realised that to investigate a really exciting range of cases, Poirot had to become a more influential and established detective and he soon
becomes a successful private investigator. His appearance alters little throughout
his career. He remains a dandified, finicky little figure, wearing smart suits
and patent leather shoes, even while riding a camel through the desert. His
magnificent moustache flourishes and remains his pride and joy. In fact, when
he moves to a village, incognito, the local doctor is convinced that he is a
retired hairdresser.
Christie was a pioneer of the detective who relied mainly on
psychological methods to solve a case: “And do not neglect the psychology –
that is important. The character of the murder – implying as it does a certain
temperament in the murderer – that is an essential clue to the crime.”
“I can’t consider the character of the murderer if I
don’t know who the murderer is!”
“No, no, you have not paid attention to what I have just
said. If you reflect sufficiently on the character – the necessary character –
of the murder, then you will realize who the murderer is!” (Dumb Witness,
1937).
This physically inactive method of detection often proves extremely irritating to Poirot’s more impetuous assistants, like Hastings or Ariadne Oliver. Mrs Oliver is another of Christie’s returning characters, whom she uses to describe with great humour the trials and tribulations of a detective novelist’s life. In the cases they share, Mrs Oliver finds it impossible to accept that Poirot can investigate without leaving his home.
‘“Well, what are you doing? What have you done?”
“I am sitting in this chair,” said Poirot. “Thinking,” he added.
“Is that all?” said Mrs. Oliver.“It is the important thing,” said Poirot.’ (Third Girl, 1966.)
The psychological method of investigation led to another Christie innovation, one of the finest cold crime novels ever written. In Five Little Pigs (1942), Poirot undertakes to reinvestigate a murder that occurred sixteen years previously although now both the victim and the convicted murderer are dead. He does this by talking to the five remaining witnesses and exploring their recollections of the fateful day and the time leading up to it. In another novel, Poirot explains his process: ‘For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people are bound to give themselves away.’ (After the Funeral, 1953.) In A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie, Robert Barnard wrote that Five Little Pigs was, ‘The-murder-in-the-past plot on its first and best appearance.’ ...‘All in all, it is a beautifully tailored book, rich and satisfying. The present writer would be willing to chance his arm and say that this is the best Christie of all.’
Much of Christie’s advice on detection, spoken in the words of Hercule Poirot, has informed later generations of crime fiction writers and is still valid today: ‘Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.’ (The ABC Murders, 1936)
‘Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small – it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.” That way lies confusion! Everything matters.’ (The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920.)
One of the other major criticisms levelled at Christie has been the weakness of her characterisation. While Christie’s style may be too honed to fit with into the detective-novel-as-literature school of thought, in my opinion, usually she gives the reader all the insight needed into both character and plot, without long diversions into soul-searching or philosophical debates. For Poirot the philosophy behind tracking down a murderer, however highly placed, is very simple: “I am not concerned with nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”’ (One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, 1940.
Often Christie’s characterisation is implicit in her dialogue, which can be both humorous and insightful, without labouring the point. This is evident from the start in Poirot’s relationship with Hastings, as when he explains their course of action in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920):
‘“Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.”
I acquiesced.
“There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me.”
I was pleased with the compliment. There had been times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.
“Yes,” he continued, staring at me thoughtfully, “you will be invaluable.”
Perhaps it is not surprising that, in the male dominated world of the 1920s, neither Poirot nor Christie were to everybody’s taste. In 1927 the American art critic Willard Huntingdon Wright, published the essay, The Great
Detective Stories in which he treated the work of Agatha Christie to harsh criticism. In this essay he refers to Poirot as Christie's 'pompous little Belgian sleuth' and claims that, 'Poirot is more fantastic and far less credible than his brother criminologists.'
‘So how good a critic is Wright? The best way to judge is to consider his own novels, written under the name S.S. Van Dine.
Regarding characterisation, Van Dine’s protagonist, Philo Vance, is the polar opposite of Poirot.
'An aristocrat by birth and instinct, he held himself severely aloof from the common world of men. In his manner there was an indefinable contempt for inferiority of all kinds. The great majority of those with whom he came in contact regarded him as a snob. Yet there was in his condescension and disdain no trace of spuriousness. His snobbishness was intellectual as well as social. He detested stupidity even more, I believe, than he did vulgarity or bad taste.' (The Benson Murder Case, 1926.)
And now to Van Dine’s plots. In The Canary Murder Case (1929) Vance and his companions revisit the scene of a locked room mystery and Vance selects a record labelled as classical music to play on the phonograph, while he lies back on the sofa to relax. You can deduce from this that Van Dine was meticulous about crime scene protocol. By sheer chance, the record proves not to be music but a recording of the victim's last words, which were spoken from behind a locked door. This destroys the main suspect's air-tight alibi. For me it also destroys Van Dine's credibility as a writer and a critic.
There are two lists of rules, written in the late 1920s, that firmly state what a detective novelist was not allowed to do. The witty and erudite priest, Ronald Knox, wrote his Ten Commandments, and the neurotic and snobbish Wright produced twenty detailed rules. It has never been explained why these two men should be regarded as the arbiters of crime fiction. Indeed, at this point, they had published far fewer novels between them than Christie. Throughout her career, Christie, not unreasonably, ignored the majority of the rules. Indeed, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), she had already broken the Commandment that ‘The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.’
In his essay, Wright becomes positively virulent when writing about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, describing the solution as a 'trick' and not a 'legitimate device of the detective-story writer.' Compared to the rest of the essay, the references to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ferment with wounded vanity and it seems probable that Christie's device fooled Wright and he was not going to forgive her 'trickery'.
Christie remained on good terms with Ronald Knox, even contributing to a collaborative novel with him and other members of The Detection Club, but by her rejection of the Ten Commandments and Wright’s more prescriptive set of rules, Christie demonstrated that she would not be shackled by arbitrary rules, and cleaved a way for the writers who followed her.
Dorothy L. Sayers was different from Christie in many ways. A highly educated woman who rated her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy far above her detective novels, she spearheaded an attempt to have detective fiction recognised as Literature. Her main detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, was erudite, wealthy and accomplished. In Strong Poison (1930) she introduced Wimsey’s love interest, Harriet Vane. Whether or not she wished to finish off the Wimsey series and thought that marriage would accomplish this, the effect was to give the Wimsey novels new life. Harriet is an independent, highly educated detective novelist, and in Gaudy Night (1935) she is given centre stage. Harriet Vane has been held up as an icon of women’s liberation but in the cases in which she collaborates with Wimsey, it is always Lord Peter who solves the mystery.
Christie created a husband and wife team of investigators, Tommy and Tuppence
Beresford, whom she follows from just after the First World War for five decades and allows to age in real time. The remarkable thing about Tuppence is that, throughout the mysteries, she takes her fair share of the action and often shows more detective insight than her husband. In N or M (1941), which is set in the Second World War, Tuppence is a respectable middle-aged wife and mother. Nevertheless, she outwits the British Secret Service agents who wish to exclude her from sharing Tommy’s mission and joins him to discover the identity of German spies. In my opinion, in the first three books featuring her, Tuppence is the most convincing icon for the intelligent, independent, everyday woman that early Golden Age Detective fiction produced.
Of course, talking about remarkable women brings me onto Miss Jane Marple. Strangely enough, Christie’s innovation of an elderly, middle-class, respectable, gentlewoman sleuth coincided with the advent of a similar detective, Miss Maud Silver, the creation of the prolific and underestimated writer, Patricia Wentworth. Ten years after women’s suffrage was obviously a good time for lady detectives to assert themselves, armed with Victorian values, common-sense and knitting needles, Christie said that Miss Marple was based on ‘the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my step grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl.’ It is reputed that Christie was so disappointed when the man adapting The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for the stage changed Caroline Shepherd into a young girl that she resolved to give old maids a voice. Miss Marple has spent her whole life in the village of St Mary Mead and solves her cases by thinking of village parallels. ‘Everybody in St. Mary Mead knew Miss Marple; fluffy and dithery in appearance, but inwardly as sharp and as shrewd as they make them.’ (The 4.50 From Paddington, 1957.)
When writing a Poirot novel, Christie did not have to justify his involvement with crime, even if he did seem
to encounter it in his private life more often than is usual. But with Miss Marple it seemed unlikely that a fragile old gentlewoman would constantly be in the vicinity of violent crime, as she acknowledges in Nemesis (1971): ‘It has just happened that I have found myself in the vicinity of murder rather more often than would seem normal.’ However, Christie does justify this by giving Miss Marple an instinct for evil, so that she becomes identified with Nemesis, the seeker out of ill-doers. As Miss Marple explains, ‘Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.’
Those who claim that Christie’s characterisation is weak should consider the two lines in Murder at the Vicarage (1930), in which the Vicar introduces Miss Marple to the reader at that most dreaded of events, a vicarage tea party. ‘Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle appealing manner- Miss Wetherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two Miss Marple is the more dangerous.’ Such incisiveness can only be admired.
As a writer, Christie was about justice and empowerment. In Miss Marple she gave a voice to elderly, unmarried women and in several of her stand-alone novels, again roughly in parallel with Patricia Wentworth, she introduced a selection of lively, self-sufficient heroines who are the natural forerunners of the post-World War 2heroines created by Mary Stewart, precursors of the genre sometimes referred to as Romantic Suspense.
There is a perception that Christie is one of the cosier writers of the Golden Age, which, with regard to her
books, I can only presume is caused by the accessibility of her style. However, it seems more likely that the cosy image is the effect of television adaptations, which establish Poirot in his flat, in close affectionate contact with his circle of friends, Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon. In other words, television has portrayed Poirot at the centre of a community. In contrast, Christie portrays Poirot’s old age as rather lonely, isolated in his flat, with only his manservant in attendance, which is why he grasps eagerly at cases that will relieve his boredom. And, when it comes to cosy plots, I can think of no other writer of the time who had children murdered in their books, much less had a child as a murderer. And when it comes to psychological suspense, the bleak, First Person narrative of Endless Night (1967) is truly haunting. And, when considering Endless Night, what other middle-class woman in her late seventies could write in the first-person viewpoint of a young, working-class man?
Another factor that may have tarnished Christie’s reputation as a great writer is that the novels she wrote in the last few years of her life were, with the possible exception of Nemesis, increasingly weak. This, to some level, has been disguised by the publication of Curtain (1975) and Sleeping Murder (1976), novels written decades earlier when she was at the height of her powers. However, Christie was a remarkably prolific writer and a few weak books must not disguise the value of her canon of superb novels, short stories and plays.
Throughout her long career, Christie changed the persona of the detective, empowering those who in the 1920s and 30s were usually disregarded. She championed the underdog and laid the foundations for the independent, strong-minded women of fiction after World War 2. She made detective fiction accessible; explored the role of psychological investigation and the cold case. Above all, she did not allow other people’s rules to curtail her creativity. The Detective Fiction writers who followed her owe her a great debt.
Recently I read an academic article in which the writer remarked that, if the Golden Age started at one point and with one book, in his opinion it was when a middle-aged man, wearing only a monocle, was discovered in a stranger’s bath, in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body? (1923). Like him, I am not convinced that the Golden Age had one starting point, but if it did, I think it was when a cottage door opened in the village of Styles and a little Belgian refugee stepped out into the world.
All of the books by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Patricia Wentworth that are mentioned in this article are still available in paperback and on Kindle, as are the books of S.S. Van Dine.
by Robert Barnard is only available second-hand.
Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher. She is the moderator for the cosy/historical
crime panel, The Deadly Dames. Her crime
novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times. The Terminal Velocity of Cats the first in her Scene of Crimes novels,
was published July 2013. Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. To
read the interview click on the link below.
