I have just finished reading the biography of Agatha Christie by Laura Thompson and enjoyed it greatly. As you all know by now, I love mysteries and regard Dame A as mistress of the genre. She is still incredibly popular, all her books are in print and selling in their millions and her play The Mousetrap has been running in the West End for over 50 incredible years.
Critics have been very snide about her writing, accusing her of creating cardboard characters, though how anyone can say this about Hercule Porot and Miss Marple beats me. They hardly fall into this category and neither do a large amount of her other protagonists in her output. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like clean writing, no flounces or frills and this is what we get in Dame A's books. The dialogue is clear and concise and no extraneous gilding of the lily. She is a scrupulous writer and though there have been complaints that she leads her readers up the garden path, if you go back and re-read her books (which I have done many times) you will see that the clues to the identity of the murderer are all there, she plays fair, it is not her fault that we are a bit dim and cannot realise what is going on. Re-reading an Agatha Christie knowing who the murderer is can be a very interesting exercise, but I sometimes I still miss the clues embedded in the text.
Back in the summer I attempted to read Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton but came to grief as I could not get on with the style of writing linking the life of the subject with the books and looking for parrallels. I found this slightly fey and irritating and, as Laura Thompson uses the same method, I was not too sure that I was going to succeed with this biography either. However, I told myself to have patience and let the flow take me over and it did and then it all made sense and things fell into place. There were constant references to a book which Agatha Christie wrote under the name of Mary Westmacott (these books are well worth reading, they were published for many years before the secret of their authorship slipped out) An Unfinished Portrait and it is very clear that this is largely autobiographical. The portrayal in this story of Dermot and Celia and her close relationship with her mother is the story of Agatha, Archie and Clara Miller.
Laura Thompson seeks parallels with her crime novels as well and I found it fascinating to read the source of some of the names so familiar to me. One of my favourite early stories, The Man in the Brown Suit, has a wonderful character, Sir Eustace Pedlar, who is based on an employer of Archie Christie, Mr Belcher, and whom they accompanied on a world tour promoting a grand exhibition back in the UK grandly named the Empire Tour. Apparently Mr Belcher was pompous and self important but Sir Eustace was much more witty and amusing.
The question everyone wants to know in any biography of Agatha Christie -is the mystery of her strange 
disappearance all those years ago solved? There have been many theories put forward about this, some more improbable than others, but I feel that Laura Thompson has probably come up with the right answer. Agatha is distraught as her husband has just told her he is in love with another woman and wants a divorce. With unerring timing he tells her this just after the death of her mother when she is already crushed and miserable. She is left alone in the house and one night decides to run away. She gets into her car, drives off, abandons it near a quarry and then vanishes. There ensues a hue and cry with the police dragging ponds, searching forests and more or less accusing Archie of murdering his wife with dark hints about 'another woman'. When Agatha is located in a hotel in Harrogate the story is given out that she is suffering from amnesia and cannot remember anything of the last ten days. This was the official line and was stuck to by her family through thick and thin.
It appears however, that Agatha wrote a letter to her brother in law, with whom she had a close and affectionate relationship, told him her health was bad after the shock of her mother's death and Archie's 
betrayal, and was going to go away to a spa for a few days for rest and treatment. She posted this to his club so he would receive it early the following week and off she went. There is no doubt she was in a fragile and nervous state, but the theory is put forward that she was hoping her brother in law would intervene for her with Archie, he would come and collect her and all would end happily.
But this was real life, not one of her books, and nothing went according to plan. Archie's brother read the letter and for some unfathomable reason told nobody about it and threw it away. Perhaps he felt it was safer to keep out of it all. She was then reported missing, all hell was let loose and the entire episode spiralled out of control. At this stage, she was very well known and her 'disappearance' received wide media coverage. Archie Christie was not best pleased at being a murder suspect and when he finally arrived at Harrogate and identified her, he was angry and resentful at what she had put him through. Instead of making him return to her, Agatha had achieved totally the opposite effect and driven him further away.
The press were furious that they had been made fools of and attacked Agatha viciously in print, but as a perspicacious reader realised and said so, there had been no deception, no attempt to make the press and the police appear stupid. They had done that themselves. She had done precisely what she said she would do - go to a spa for a rest and recover her health. She had written a letter to a close relative informing him of this fact and if this was ignored and everyone chose to make a mystery out of it, then that was hardly her fault. As in her mysteries, she gave the reader the necessary information to solve the mystery, so she cannot be blamed if the wrong conclusions are drawn.
Agatha later married for a second time, Max Mallowen, some fourteen years her junior. She met him when he was a young archeologist on a dig led by Leonard Woolley and it would appear that he made a dead set at her and made himself indespensable and necessary to her well being. I am not sure about Mr Mallowan. He was 24 and she 40 when they met and many have said that allying himself to a wealthy, successful author who was interested in his field of work and who could be useful to him, was behind his pursuit of her. Yet they appear to have had a long and happy marriage. Laura Thompson has had access to their private correspondence and this reveals a deep affection and love for each other, even though at times he could 
be disparaging about her crime fiction. I feel that Laura Thompson is not too sure about him either. After Agatha's death he married again, quite quickly, and to a woman who had accompanied him on various digs and there had been hints and gossip that perhaps they were closer than they should have been, but it is not proven. Friends insist that Max and Agatha were happy together "They had a good marriage" said one "Odd, but good".
This is a totally absorbing book and I can recommend it highly. There is a fascinating chapter about The English Murder near the end in which comparisons and comments are made by and about Ngaio Marsh, Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L Sayers and others and a perceptive commentary on this particular brand of death and mayhem which is done in such a peculiarly English fashion. I was extremely regretful to finish reading and that is always a sign of a good book.
And now that I have become used to this style of biography and narrative, I feel I am ready to try the Edith Wharton again.
Bring it on Hermione.....
