The Orient Express (only for those who have already read it)

LukeMcLAren

I have just finished reading the Orient Express and I felt a slight disappointment when it came to the end. However I still think that it is a marvelous book. The reason i felt disappointed is because normally Hercule Poirot is on justice's side and no matter what the conditions were he condemns the murderer. This time however he doesn't. I suppose justice was that he should be stabbed, considering what he had done. Have you watched the David Suchet documentary on the Orient Express? You should...

ChristieFanForLife

But here's the thing, we don't know which blow from the stabbing was the one that killed Ratchett. It could have been the first blow, the second, maybe the seventh blow. So yes, they all had the motive to murder Ratchett but as to which blow killed him . . . . we don't know. Maybe Poirot decided to let them all go because he felt compassion for them; he must have felt that Ratchett so affected these victims and on top of that he was involved in the death of a child, that letting them go would be the right thing to do, considering what they went through. BUT still, would that be justice? Because in the end, they all came with a motive and intent to kill Ratchett and no matter if we don't know which blow killed him, should they still be held responsible just for the motive and committing the act of stabbing someone alone? 

Griselda

I wonder if Agatha Christie's views altered as she grew older. I note that in the earlier works the author allows a certain  generosity in her presentation of those who interpret the law and the reporting of the crimes. SPOILER - in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the police are going to fix it so Sheppard's sister suffers no shame: his culpability won't be publicised. In Murder at the Vicarage, Inspector Slack gives himself credit for solving the crime: he doesn't write in his notes that Miss Marple fed him the solution. I sense the true crime giving the idea for Murder on the Orient Express - was it the pilot Lyndburgh's baby?  was so shocking to all the public in every country, even to Agatha Christie, that it forced her to imagine revenge with the pen and her passion. Arguably, her feelings gave her that denouement to the novel.  Older a tougher, perhaps, she is rather harder on the young Elvira in At Bertram's Hotel. Only a child, really. She was bad to shoot the doorman. Her mother had made her bad, you could argue, through her self-centred neglect of her. Did Miss Marple really have to reveal the true criminal when the mother had tried to undo the past by taking the rap and then killing herself? As she aged, we see a different attitude not only to personalities, but maybe to her role as a storyteller, too.  Not just entertainer, but maybe Nemesis herself, in later years, giving her damning verdict on the young of the 1960s, and how their attitudes had been changing society for the worse.

ChristieFanForLife

You're right Griselda, Murder On The Orient Express was inspired by the events that occurred with the death of Charles Lindbergh's son which occurred in 1932. And to add onto that tragedy, the maid that was employed by the family was under great suspicion of the Lindbergh's child's death and later committed suicide.  

Griselda

So there are very clear similarities. The story must really have played on AC's mind.I wonder if other members of the household were under suspicion at the time - in the real life tragedy?

Griselda

I know I've said this before, but do you think there are many people who would watch the film and not know the story? I knew the ending before I read the book, and before that, I think I joined the original film half way through, so I saw all the characters and palava before I knew who it was who had been done in. If you didn't know the ending, would it be interesting to wonder who did it - I suppose it would, guessing who could be the child's parents.

Tommy_A_Jones

I had a Puzzle book and he ending was the answer to a Question.

Griselda

I found it interesting to read the WIKI page for Murder on the Orient Express. It describes journeys on the Orient Express which influenced Christie to write the novel, and it has some interesting snippets, such as the information that David Suchet had suggested that directors introduce religious elements into the adaptations of the novels.

Tommy_A_Jones

I always thought he had too much say in the Adaptations

Agathasmykid

I remember the first time I read it, (I was much younger at the time), not being frustrated about Poirot's ethics, but was very frustrated that there wasn't one clear cut murderer!

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate what Agatha was doing, so much so that Orient is my favorite AC book, but I do think it would be fun to speculate about if Agatha had gone the one murderer route, who it might have been.

ChristieFanForLife

Agathasmykid said:

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate what Agatha was doing, so much so that Orient is my favorite AC book, but I do think it would be fun to speculate about if Agatha had gone the one murderer route, who it might have been.

Well if Agatha Christie did go the one murderer route who do you think it could have been? Since she didn't take that route, which stab wound do you think was the fatal blow that killed Mr. Ratchett? 

Griselda

I think the American actress one would have done it. She has the passionate temperament. But Poirot said that Miss Debenham was the one with the psychology to have planned the whole thing. AC does like the idea of the planner with the calculating intellect, and the one who executes the act, the one who is good in the heat of the moment. I'm thinking of the SPOILER murderous couple in Death on the Nile. Interestingly, in Britain it was in the news that the law has been changed or is going to be changed regarding people who are present when a murder or manslaughter is committed and their culpability. Up till now, it has been legal to charge someone who was there and involved in a crime, or even a fight where weapons are being used, even if they do not strike the fatal blow. Something like this, anyway.

tudes

Agathasmykid said:

I remember the first time I read it, (I was much younger at the time), not being frustrated about Poirot's ethics, but was very frustrated that there wasn't one clear cut murderer!

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate what Agatha was doing, so much so that Orient is my favorite AC book, but I do think it would be fun to speculate about if Agatha had gone the one murderer route, who it might have been.

Me too. I think it's one of the best. Nowadays, I think the ending (there is no one clear cut murderer) it's ingenious and it's the reason why this story is so special. Although, it isn't traditional and it can cause an strange felling.

taliavishay-arbel

Grizelda, I agree with you that the actress, Linda Arden, would be the obvious candidate for the murderer, because of her temprament. And there is another point - She is the most suspicious person, since the murderer most likely passed through her room - and the mistake with the toilette bag (her claiming it hung on the door handle and hid the lock, while actually in her room the handle is below the lock) definitely implicates her. Interestingly enough, in the old movie, the directer also places her in the center of the action, not only having everybody pass through her room, but standing her at the door between the rooms, with a look of Nemesis on her face, gesturing the others forward, while one after the other enter, stab and depart.

Griselda

I guess that she would have the strongest personal interest too, but I think, as you do, that temperament is crucial, because feelings, and then being able to physically kill, are two different things. Although, it has to be said that a lot of AC's stories were written around the time of the two European wars, and therefore many men in society  had been trained to fight and kill.. You could argue that this training would have made it easier for a party with a lesser emotional involvement to do the physical deed regardless of how impassioned they might be feeling.

taliavishay-arbel

Griselda, that is an interesting point. However, I think that even without wars, in real life, more direct murders (i.e. murders using a weapon or bare hands, as opposed to murders by poison or indirect methods) are committed by men than by women. However, especially when you look at mysteries written by women authors, e.g. Agatha Christie, Charlotte Macleod, Patricia Wentworth) murderers are pretty equally men and women. (I actually counted murder gender in Macleod books and was surprised by the result). I always felt that was the feminist bias of women writers. If you think of "The Hollow", for instance, SPOILER the thought of the female, conventional, dependent female, worshiping her male partner, using a gun to murder (especially since earlier in the book she has demonstrated her total ineptitude with guns) is pretty unrealistic (though I really love the book).

Griselda

Yes, The Hollow is odd. I'm always trying to identify the idea which might have acted to sow the seed of the rest of the story in AC's mind. As I commented in another thread, I think that in this story it is the idea of hiding a weapon in a sculpture, and moulding clay around it. I sense a similar light-bulb moment for AC in the choice of the dentist's chair and murder (One, Two, Buckle My Shoe); the tape measure in that short story about the dressmaker; the notion of a bridge game and the score cards revealing who has been distracted when playing. This avenue of thought leads me to think that Henrietta was the focal point of interest for AC in the story. She is definitely the clever one - usually, the murderer is. And the murder victim SPOILER is the horrible one. I thought of you, Tali, when reading comments on The Hollow, because you have posted about writing a mystery about someone who doesn't murder, but does something else, and someone has to turn detective-like clever to help them. This story is about being cunning, but not wanting to gain. There is a coldness to the help given, I think, a coldness you see in the typical killer character. Henrietta is interesting. I think to get her completely, as I haven't yet done, is the key to seeing what the story is about. 

ChristieFanForLife

It's fascinating to hear how a story is first conceived, seeing that one idea that sets the story in motion. I believe that the idea for The Hollow was first conceived with the setting of the story, specifically the house that would be used for the Angkatell country house. The setting (the house, the pool and paths) were taken from British film and stage actor Francis L. Sullivan (who portrayed Poirot in both plays, Black Coffee and Peril At End House) and his wife whom Agatha frequently visited. In her dedication page of the book she said, "For Larry and Danae, with apologies for using their swimming pool as the scene of a murder." Larry Sullivan once said about the use of his swimming pool: "At the back of the house my wife, in a moment of insane optimism of the English weather, had caused a swimming pool to be made, with half a dozen paths leading down to it through the chestnut wood. One fine Sunday morning I discovered Agatha wandering up and down these paths with an expression of intense concentration." I believe it was the house, the pool and those paths that lead up to the pool that was the idea, the seed that was first sown for the story. 

Griselda

Yes, that theory makes perfect sense because the paths make the whole mystery seem like a visual puzzle, and, as we know from Agatha Christie's frequent references, through Poirot's words, to a mystery being like a jigsaw puzzle, she liked patterns that eventually are seen at one overview. I will need to revise my interpretation. Did you find this fascinating information in Agatha Christie's autobiography, might I ask, ChristieFanForLife?

ChristieFanForLife

What I found in Agatha Christie's autobiography was this: "Once or twice I went down to stay with Francis Sullivan, the actor, and his wife. They had a house at Haslemere, with Spanish chestnut woods all round it." I found some further bits and pieces of other information in Agatha Christie: A Biography by Janet Morgan, Duchess of Death: The Unauthorized Biography of Agatha Christie by Richard Hack, and The Life And Crimes of Agatha Christie by Charles Osborne. 

Tommy_A_Jones

The Sister, she was related so she would be the most forceful

Griselda

Thank you. It's great to read a really informed theory such as the one that you postulated.

Griselda

I picked up a brochure for plays at the Garrick Theatre, London, today, and noticed that Kenneth Branagh is going to be be directing Romeo and Juliet there, from 12th May to 13th August, with some interesting actor choices. Does this observation lead on to the thought that he might make some pretty unusual castings when he settles the final actors for Murder on the Orient Express (the Fox film which is going to be made)?. In the play at the Garrick, Lily James, who was in Downton Abbey, (the tv series) looks beautiful in the still as Juliet - so nothing surprising in that choice - but the 77 year old esteemed actor Derek Jacobi as Mercutio - well, that does seem an unusual choice. I read in a newspaper article that Jacobi said he had not been expecting to play Mercutio at his age, but the article says Mercutio is presented in the text of the play as something of a father figure to Romeo. In response to that, I would say a great-grandfather figure more like, in view of the fact it was normal to have a child at fourteen, as Juliet's mother did in having her. I would dearly like to know the cast list for Murder on the Orient Express,  please, Tuppence. To answer the question what would it be nice to see on the forum, I would say inside information.

Agathasmykid

ChristieFanForLife said:

Agathasmykid said:

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate what Agatha was doing, so much so that Orient is my favorite AC book, but I do think it would be fun to speculate about if Agatha had gone the one murderer route, who it might have been.

Well if Agatha Christie did go the one murderer route who do you think it could have been? Since she didn't take that route, which stab wound do you think was the fatal blow that killed Mr. Ratchett? 

It's a good question. Maybe a twist could be that who ever administered the sleep medication administered too much and he was actually dead before any of the stabbings took place.

ChristieFanForLife

Agathasmykid said:

ChristieFanForLife said:

Agathasmykid said:

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate what Agatha was doing, so much so that Orient is my favorite AC book, but I do think it would be fun to speculate about if Agatha had gone the one murderer route, who it might have been.

Well if Agatha Christie did go the one murderer route who do you think it could have been? Since she didn't take that route, which stab wound do you think was the fatal blow that killed Mr. Ratchett? 

It's a good question. Maybe a twist could be that who ever administered the sleep medication administered too much and he was actually dead before any of the stabbings took place.

Hmmm, I never thought of that one! 

JS88

Having been highly disappointed with Ken's attempt of a film I went back and re read the novel. Even in the baking heat of this English summer I could feel the freezing Balkan winter. It is simply a joy to read. I sometimes think they shouldn't bother with film adaptations, there is simply not enough time in the format to do most novels justice. The BBC radio version is very good, but is in several episodes so it has time to do its job.