As many Christie followers might (or might not) know, Agatha Christie spent most of her life residing close to the water. Born in Torquay, England, she was raised in a seaside city with a harbor and seafront, traditionally with a fishing business and these days extra identified for seaside tourism. As a younger grownup, she spent a winter along with her mom staying by the Nile river in Egypt. Afterward, she spent practically a 12 months finishing up worldwide journey exploits along with her first husband in 1922, which included fairly a bit of cruising and crusing. She sailed to Las Palmas along with her daughter for a interval of convalescence, and in her later years lived in Wallingford on the Thames river, the place many rowers go to apply the game (and hosts the annual Wallingford Regatta).
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Suffice it to say, Christie’s maritime experiences and pursuits spilled over into her mysteries. A variety of her brief tales in addition to full-length thriller novels both happen utterly on a crusing vessel or function components of the story aboard yachts and steamers.
Mockingly, Hercule Poirot is her sleuthing protagonist that’s featured probably the most often in relation to sailing-adjacent tales, however he’s decidedly not a fan of being on the water. Our hero detective does, alas, get seasick. “If it weren’t for mal de mer…I ought to delight to voyage myself on one among these huge liners,” he ruminates in “The Million Greenback Bond Theft.” Sadly for Poirot, he does certainly appear to seek out himself onboard a couple of instances, regardless of his reticence.
Probably the most noteworthy instance of a seafaring thriller is Loss of life on the Nile, a beloved Christie traditional that options a big a part of the story aboard the S. S. Karnak. The truth is, modern-day Christie followers may even sail on the S. S. Sudan, a restored nineteenth century steamer that Christie herself sailed on and offered inspiration for the S. S. Karnak. Primarily, such steamers had been extravagant pleasure boats for well-off international vacationers to Egypt. Even now, expensive Nile cruises stay a preferred type of luxurious journey for modern guests, that includes gourmand meals and lavish staterooms.
Downside at Sea, a Thirties Poirot brief story, takes place on a passenger ship, a crusing geared in direction of upper-class vacationers. Within the TV adaptation of this story for Poirot, the movie crew was capable of make the most of a interval motor yacht from the early twentieth century for the episode. The truth is, it’s presently for sale, if any yachting Christie devotees need to purchase.
One other well-loved Poirot story that makes use of a ship is The Million Greenback Bond Theft. Within the story itself (not counting media variations), whereas Poirot doesn’t really board the ship, the automobile in query is an ocean liner. In the course of the time Christie was writing, whereas some profitable transatlantic air flights had occurred, ocean liners had been primarily the one viable technique of getting from Europe to North America. Due to this fact for transatlantic journey tales written throughout this period, the ocean liner would’ve been the setting. Probably the most well-known ocean liner of the twentieth century is admittedly Titanic, however luckily, most ocean liners operated for years with out assembly such a dramatic destiny.
One of many highlights of Christie’s writing about boats in her tales is it offers readers a very good portrait of what it would’ve been prefer to sail in a reasonably extravagant method throughout a golden age of delight cruising. Her characters on board get to drink high-end cocktails and scrumptious meals, and stewards and attendants can deal with each whim in relation to stateroom requests. To get some recent air and train, they promenade out on the decks, and for recreation, the characters play playing cards or shuffleboard; typically there’s reside music or leisure offered by crew members or passengers. Poor Poirot isn’t all the time capable of get pleasure from all of those creature comforts on the excessive seas, however at the least his readers would possibly!
