by Arlene
Mr Parker Pyne
Following from my last post about my love of Christie, I bought the Parker Pyne Investigates Collection. Fourteen short stories featuring Mr Parker Pyne, who is not a detective, but an ex civil servant who has set himself up as a specialist to cure unhappiness.
It’s an intriguing idea, but in truth, I didn’t really enjoy the stories. Perhaps because I found it difficult to like Parker Pyne, who I found pompous and rather pleased with himself for the most part? Or perhaps because I found the central characters themselves difficult to engage with?
Certainly, they lack the urgency of murder. I wonder if reading them in 2020, the stories and ideas seem trite and tired? Or perhaps I knew the basic outlines of the stories, without knowing where they were from? Either way, I don’t feel like they brought me anything fresh. I am aware of the irony of saying this, when I have talked about re-reading novels because they are familiar, but I don’t think anyone could argue that the Parker Pyne stories are masterpieces of detective fiction. Despite this, I enjoyed the stories for two main reasons
Happiness
I can see that Christie was trying something quite different with these stories. Of course, they say a lot about Christie, and the society she was living in, and that is interesting in itself, but the idea of unhappiness being the root of crime is psychologically interesting, and they are worth reading with this in mind.
Writing
More importantly – to me at least – I like the fact that they are not perfect stories. The can at times be clumsy and a little tired, and I like that. Anyone who writes, knows how difficult it is. Motivation, discipline, editing, self-doubt and deleting plague me. That Christie wrote something which wasn’t a masterpiece is incredibly comforting. It’s more than comforting, it’s proof that even if what you write isn’t going to be considered as the last great work of literary fiction, just writing it, exploring the idea, and getting it down on paper to be read, is enough.
I’m going to take a little break from reading Christie for a while. I have a growing pile of unread books that need my attention, and I’m hoping, with help, to remember how to knit.
Mainly Witterings 