What makes you re:read the stories ?

MarcWatson-Gray

Most of us Agatha Christie fans (i think) have read and re:read many times over,a lot ,if not all of her books.

What is it that brings you back to the same stories again and again and always with the same anticipation as if you were reading them for the first time ?

Is it the plots and story lines ?

Is it the characters ?

Or is there a form of hypnotism in her writing style that brings us back ?

Is there any one particular reason that a specific book draws you back to it again and agian ?

Tommy_A_Jones

For me it is a sense of enjoyment which I haven't quite found with Many Contempory Novelists, when I say not many, for me only Wodehouse, Dorothy Simpson, James Anderson, Mark Wallington and Betty Rowland's Mel Craig Books give me AS MUCH enjoyment some others come close but not close enough.

taliavishay-arbel

For me it is the characters. With some of them it feels like coming back to meet old friends. That is certainly true with Miss Marple and Ariadne Oliver, but also with Bunch Harmon, Lucy Eylesbarrow and Brian Eastly, and Hori and Renisenb in "Death comes as the end". 

Anubis

It feels like a warm bed on a cold night: comforting, reassuring, familiar. I saw a documentary about AC that claimed her writing style could be considered hypnotic, although whether deliberately or not, I don't know. For instance, both she and hypnotists tend to repeat simple words over and over. Also, characters in her books tend to talk the way people do talk in real life. That doesn't always happen in other books, where the conversation can be artificial. I also find her characters to be "old friends." Too, I always hope to recapture the genuine thrill when the culprit is revealed. 

LeopoldoAtila

For me, it's the plot. There are plots that I like them very much. Besides, I know what I'm find out and it's something that I like.

Tommy_A_Jones

Most are quite Relaxing and give me a feeling of Warmth but there is at least one Poirot where I don't get that although I still read it and some Poirot's I have given up on, 2 MMs don't give me that feeling of warmth I still read both and some Non Series Books I don't get that feeling with, I still read 1 but have abandoned the others

MarcWatson-Gray

The one MM that does not engage me is They Do It With Mirrors !

Griselda

I think the psychology does it for me: the psychology of the murderer, and the main characters. To me it is like a warning of who to avoid, especially as, when I was younger, I did often feel attracted to those handsome, carefree types who are sociopaths underneath, so I read the novels and recognize people I know. Although some of her novels portray too accurately an evil which on some deep level is scary, so that I feel like hiding the book, and have even given some copies to the charity shop, I do admire Christie's ability to describe good and evil - very like Shakespeare does. I think people had more admirable values in the 40s too, and I like to inhabit this celebrity-free era.

sue42

For me it is the continuing ability of Agatha Christie to make you part of the world she is writing about, no matter how many times you have read the story. The ability for me to go into a different world from the  chaotic lives we live and just be drawn into the mystery of someone else's  life.

MarcWatson-Gray

That's exactly how i feel sue42

I always joke with folk when i am about to read a book that "I'm off to Chipping Cleghorn"

or "I'm off down the Nile" as i feel as if i really am going to visit people i know.

 "Old friends" as Anubis said previously.....

Tommy_A_Jones

I do that Mark, when I listened to Local Radio more I quite often told people I was going to Worcester or Wales or Devon or Sussex, This was when I moved my bed and I could get those stations on my Radio, I also do that when reading too.

SiddharthaS

I see so many new things worth pondering on every time I go back to reading her books.

The intriguing aspects of the mystery no longer apply for you already know the who, how, and why aspects; and now you have the time to notice and enjoy the beauty of the many things you overlooked in the first eager reading - characterization, plot intricacies, red herrings, richness of language variation, conversational comprehensiveness, psychology, explicit and implicit axioms the characters (and by implication the author) seems to be guided by ...  where does one stop listing them? 

But there is one more important reason that may or may not apply to others - references to Shakespeare. 

My exposure to old Bill began when "Tales from Shakespeare" was prescribed as a rapid reader in the seventh grade.  What should have been very absorbing reading for someone just entering his teens was spoiled by the extreme unfamiliarity with the names of the characters, and possibly the focus of the teachers on grammar rather than the richness of content. 

For someone who was not proficient with the English language, the additional confusion of not being able to distinguish between heroines, heroes, villains and other main characters from their strange sounding names was a major dampener.  I thought Shakespeare was not for me.   

It was only after I began reading and re-reading Christie's quotes from and frequent references to Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Othello, and other Shakespeare Classics that I began to understand the universality of his characters, their urges, and their dilemmas.  And I could also see how many characters from Christie's own stories were influenced by Shakespeare.  

To summarize, I reread Christie books because they never stop enriching me.   

Tommy_A_Jones

The lack of other books that excite me contributes to me re-reading some again and again. Also I sometimes see different things every time, and sometimes the Plots and Characters are so great I want to read them more than twice, three times and in 2 cases 7 times, I have only read 1 non Christie book 7 times and with all 3 books I look forward to an 8th.