185. Agatha Christie

[@malgorzatajakubowska-chaab3613]

One of the things I love about your podcasts is the fact that you seem to have so much fun and enjoy each other's company. It always makes me smile.

[@alisonlilley3039]

Thank you. I listen to each podcast with growing admiration snd enjoyment. I can only imagine the amount of background work - clearly done with enjoyment and love for the cast of characters involved in each topic - thatTom and Dominic do. 🙏☺️

[@oddsandexabytes]

Thank you for this! I’m a lifelong lover of Christie’s work. Also, I’m very glad that you are on KZbin! This is the easiest way for me to listen to podcasts so now I will never miss your show

[@ld3418]

Perfect analysis! You have not missed any of what make Christie great! Thank you.

[@nanditabanerjee9620]

I love Christie's body of work and have enjoyed this podcast. Please do an analysis of Enid Blyton as well.

[@Rwthless1]

Georgette Heyer's books on historical subjects Hastings, Waterloo are recommended at Sandhurst for their accuracy

[@Mute_Nostril_Agony]

Dorothy L Sayers would also be an interesting writer from the same era to profile

[@marty9011]

The photo of Agatha Christie with the surf board is in her autobiography ! A book in which she does not discuss her disappearance by the way.

[@sohara....]

There's a lot of humour in Agatha Christie ... I didn't see it when reading her novels in 1980s ... it's more pronounced in the BBC productions. And Christie gave great roles to women in her stories!

[@ben.mitchell.theater]

That's a feature of the production and the screenplay to maximise their viewer appeal. I've seen some recently which are darker than the books themselves.

[@ropeburnsrussell]

0:19 where are episodes 1-178?

[@gdonegan03237]

"And Then There Were None" would be a notable exception to the "no psychopaths in Christie novels" assertion...

[@walterreeves3679]

There's at least one serial killer in Christie's catalogue. That would be the murderer in her stand alone novel "Murder is Easy". Also there have been some three posthumous Wimsey novels written by Jill Paton Walsh with the approval of the Sayers estate.

[@ben.mitchell.theater]

The reason Guardian columnist and the snobs who read them, despise and malign Agatha, is because she's popular. It's a consistent feature of snobs that the regard anything that's popular as being beneath them. Sneering at the middle and working classes, and non 'intellectuals' is the way they differentiate themselves from the rest of us, and inflate their own their own egos. But as the speakers observe, this malaise doesn't affect the Agatha admiring 'intellectuals' abroad. The reason being that those concerned don't have a social stake in bullying the British masses.

[@raddziedzic8671]

Where am I able join podcast besides background youtubes

[@sohara....]

Podbean AFAIK

[@iainsan]

A major trope in her novels is the constant nostalgic lament about the decline in the respect that the working class have for their 'betters'. Apart from that, I'd agree with you.

[@DaveS859]

Literary trope, or correct observation ?

[@iainsan]

@@DaveS859 'Correct' observation, I suppose if you happen to be an arch conservative who doesn't believe in social equality.

[@ben.mitchell.theater]

The fact that someone makes correct observations about a period about which they're writing doesn't imply that they hold 'beliefs' about anything and neither does it matter if they did. The world that Christie recounts is exactly as it was. It applied (and still does) to 'working class' people as well who'd have been lamenting lack of respect from people they regarded as beneath them. We still get endless complaints from middle aged and old people today that young people don't 'respect their elders'. We've become so used to literary works containing political propaganda nowadays that some ignorant types judge the whole work on whether it's Woke enough. In any case there's never going to be 'social equality'. No one can dictate to each of us how we view the status of someone else. We each have our differing values and prejudices, and we each have to find our own place in the community.

[@kambrose1549]

There are a lot of clever girls and working women in Christies work too who make the case for female independence and are very authentic characters not pale background figures

[@angelakyle4838]

She was such a perceptive writer.

[@shermansav]

bought A Murder is Announced for the snap shot of England after the War

[@bilinguru]

It’s a shame you two fellows would characterize her 10 day disappearance as a “breakdown” or escape due to shame. I’d venture that Agatha was tougher than anyone knew, and she left without a word to embarrass her husband, and checked in under the other woman’s name for precisely the same reason. She was a successful writer and a woman of means in her own right, who didn’t need her husband’s money. She was basically giving him and everyone else the middle finger.

[@lemartin3827]

It’s a shame that you characterise Christie as having given a middle finger, a gesture not in common use in England at the time

[@Federico1685]

​@@lemartin3827 Wow, that was harsh!

[@triciashoemaker9047]

They also did not mention the fact that her mother passed not long before she found out about the affair. She had been grieving and cleaning out her mother's house and then had to deal with another huge blow. I've watched documentaries where psychiatrists have analyzed everything she had been going through at the time and said it definitely could have triggered a certain kind of episode very similar to what she experienced.

[@bsastarfire250]

It adds to her ''mystique'' .

[@ianbanks2844]

Spot on .