Friday, September 15, 2006

Happy Birthday, Agatha Christie

I discovered Dame Agatha, thanks to a tip from my mom, when I was about fourteen years old, with a charming little adventure called They Came to Baghdad. I loved it. My mother, knowing me, had selected the best Christie to engage my teenage mind, but after that every one of the mysteries was fair game, because I knew that each one would hold a puzzle that I would most likely not be able to solve. But boy, I sure loved trying. And there were no hard feelings in the end, when I failed again to guess the solution. I'd always give Agatha a figurative bow, deferring to her cleverness.

You know when people sometimes ask "Who would you want to meet, if you could go back in time?" Well, aside from my own grandparents when they were young, and probably Abe Lincoln (I'd try to save him at the theatre), I'd want to meet Agatha Christie. Just sit and have some tea with her and say, "So what are you working on now, Agatha?" And I'd take a fairy cake from the tray, (hey, it's my fantasy, there's going to be cake), luxuriate back in my chair, and listen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, Christie got me started reading mysteries as well. I have a ton of paperbacks carefully stored in a plastic box. Nobody writes like her. Critics say she didn't do characters well, but the plots are so grand, I've never noticed. I must say I'm more a Marple than a Poirot fan.

Julia Buckley said...

Lonnie--I used to haunt the used bookstores looking for those blue fake-leather Christies with the paisley face-pages. You know the ones I mean? I probably have about forty or fifty of them. I rarely read them, but I just love having them and sort of stroking the covers sometimes. :)