#ReadThis @AgathaChristie @HarperCollins @Morrow_PB #TheHollow by #AgathaChristie #Twenty-Fourth #24 #HerculePoirot #Mystery #ReadChristie2022
Peachy Deegan does not go anywhere without her Agatha Christie!
It goes without saying that we haven't reviewed any other author 24 times. So far. If you've been reviewed that many times it usually because it is something Peachy can wear or eat. We are so into Agatha Christie that this time we decided to read it in the most appropriate setting.
When you read The Hollow, you'll understand.
We have simple taste.
We like the best.
This is not news: we have been that way for the last 26,000 posts or so.
Let us point out yet again that Agatha Christie is only outsold by God (Bible) and Shakespeare.
We fear the day when we will have read all of Agatha Christie because there is simply no one else like her, and we have looked. We are not close to that yet. We are nearly three quarters through Poirot though!
A Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone and we believe Poirot was referring to IRELAND not only England when he says "Quel beau paysage!" on page 103.
We have yet again a brilliant cast of characters, some of which are related, some of which are in love, and some of which are complicated. Manhattan is the land of complicated if there ever was one! This array includes an artist, a doctor, a starlet actress and some less striking characters to balance them out perhaps. Sadly, Agatha is not around to interview and ask. However, don't you always have to worry about the quiet ones, n'est pas?!!
As always you'll acquire new knowledge probably unless you are an encyclopedia. We are not. Learn ygdrasil, secateurs (clippers of plants) and bien sur mes amis you will learn more of the second best language to English, French: Enfin (Finally!) and much more.
Naturally there is a setting, Ainswick, that is practically a character in itself. If you are attached to your dwelling you will understand exactly!
We love that Agatha is usually so precise and formulaic however she develops greater nuance in The Hollow. On page 101: "As it was, he had that extraordinary sensation of starting a new life, unfettered and unhampered by the past....[If that doesn't inspire you to turn over a new leaf after covid what would!]...And perhaps now he would be able to stop trying to bully Henrietta. Not that one could really bully Henrietta-she wasn't made that way. Storms broke over her and she stood there, meditative, her eyes looking at you from very far away."
We also love that Agatha Christie possesses a pronounced respect and appreciation for history and writers that have excelled before her. The Hollow we believe is a nod to Lord Tennyson. (p.185)
Christie captures pure human emotion that is timeless and page 276-77 is particularly current as we all still emerge from the covid nightmare: "Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing-a thing of infinite coldness and lonliness. She's never understood until now that despair was a cold thing...And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts."
Her descriptive capabilities excel on the second half of page 101, which we will not repeat as it reveals too much for those that are uninitiated in having read The Hollow.
As usual, details are everything.
Character development is exceedingly sublime:
"And Henrietta? Do I know how she feels?"
"You can be sure of no one in this world, John."
"No, I won't believe that. I'm sure of you and I'm sure of myself. At least-" (p. 80)
At least what?
Read This.
We've asked you to read Agatha at least 24 times...and counting!
Agatha, you better be online and reading us up there!
The Hollow is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
Previously on Whom You Know, we have raved about Agatha:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
https://www.whomyouknow.com/2020/11/readthis.agathachristie.perilatendhouse.peachydeegan.harpercollins.williammorrow.html#.X7lGvGhKg2w
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
and we took a break from only him and did him with others in Midwinter Murder
and returned to only him with Death in the Clouds
The ABC Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Sad Cypress
One Two Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only in the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, around thirty plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now-legendary Hercule Prior with her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In 1930, Miss Jane Marple made her first full-length novel appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage, quickly becoming another beloved and enduring character to rival Poirot's popularity. Additional series characters include the husband-and wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and is the longest running play in history. Academy Award-nominated actor and director Kenneth Branagh helmed the acclaimed major motion picture Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and its sequel, Death on the Nile, starring in both films as the Belgian detective. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. The one-hundred-year anniversary of Agatha Christie stories and the debut of Hercule Poirot was celebrated around the world in 2020. Whom You Know will never stop celebrating it!
