A library I frequented for years has closed down following a drastic decline in readership. It used to be a happy hub for book-lovers, where I eagerly encountered my favourite authors.
Agatha Christie topped that list, although I was already familiar with her writings. I had devoured her Poirot and Marple murder mysteries, Tommy and Tuppence adventures, short stories, poems and plays; also her offbeat romances, penned under a pseudonym. I had seen film adaptations of her fiction and watched the record-breaking, stage production of The Mousetrap. The library stocked most of Christie’s titles, and I borrowed them repeatedly. That enthralling establishment no longer exists, but I still find ways to enjoy Agatha Christie.
I am in illustrious company. No less a literary luminary than Ruskin Bond admits to regularly re-reading Christie’s works. A character in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra says of Cleopatra, ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.’ The accolade is as suited to the Queen of Crime as it was to the Queen of Egypt. There is no question of outgrowing captivating Christie!
Incredibly, there was a time when she was a stranger. On my 15th birthday, when a friend of mine presented me with a Christie paperback, I received it with indifference. I had not heard of the writer, and felt disinclined to make her acquaintance.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Mukta the next morning, certain that I had stayed up all night with Third Girl. The question was rhetorical. If Sir Walter Scott was passionate about patriotism, Mukta was convinced that there breathed no one ‘with soul so dead’ who did not admire Christie. She proceeded to expatiate on the merits of a masterpiece, which she termed “Christie’s best”, assuming that I was aware of it. Unwilling to betray my ignorance, I nodded insincerely. I later acquired the novel, to converse knowledgeably with my Christie-crazed classmate.
“The end is where we start from,” says T S Eliot. The conclusion of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the beginning of my attachment to Agatha Christie: a bond that has endured half a century. I remember the shiver that coursed down my spine when I learnt the identity of the killer; someone I had not suspected for an instant. In her autobiography, Christie reveals that a suggestion by Lord Mountbatten contributed to her cunningly crafted plot.
To go further would be to outdo London taxi drivers, who drop people at St Martin’s Theatre where The Mousetrap is running. If they are not decently tipped by would-be viewers, they disclose the denouement of the drama. If I have whetted the curiosity of those to whom this encomium is as incomprehensible as Mukta’s enthusiasm once was to me, let them hasten to sample that sumptuous fare — the art of Agatha Christie!