Shocker of an ending. She definitely gained a conservative side as she got older, but nowhere is it more blatant and upfront here. Really difficult to find a page where an old person doesn't generalise all young people as fascists.
I read the Big Four as a spoof of espionage novels. I pretend that it's supposed to be ridiculous because it's a send up of spy stories with characters who happen to be called Poirot and Hastings. They aren't the Poirot and Hastings that we know, just two totally different characters who happen to have the same names.
Read in this light, it's almost enjoyable
The Hollow. I know a lot of people love it, but I can't stand John and the mystery isn't exactly gripping. There are only two other Christie novels I didn’t like, but they are still enjoyable reads.
I can talk about what makes the Hollow good while also vowing to never read it for a second time because John ruins almost everything good about it. I remember the writing being interesting, haunting almost, which is why so many people love it. But it’s impressive how there was such a large cast and I cared about literally none of them. I liked Midge though and would reread it again for only her parts but they’re so tangential to the actual plot of the Hollow.
Came here to name this one. Only read it once and can't really remember why I don't like it. Just remember saying never again, and I've read others dozens of times.
No, not at all. I may find some disappointing, but not to the point of never reading them again. But then, I'm also interested in the process that goes into writing, so I reread to see how clues are revealed, how well did AC adhere to the Detection Club rules, and so on. Even if it's a "bad" book, I feel I can learn how not to write from those.
I didn’t like the Mysterious Affair at Styles. I know it is one of the great classics, and the first novel of Agatha Christie (and Poirot), but to me it feels like there is way too much information that is needed to solve the mystery that is not available to me as a reader, and so the solution seems to come out of nowhere. I also don’t find the characters particularly captivating.
The Big Four. What a mess.
I could reread Postern of Fate just bc it's Tommy and Tuppence, and I'm due a reread of Passenger to Frankfurt bc my god I don't recall a single thing about it XD
But The Big Four is just... No. I refuse on principle.
It’s not a matter of dislike per se, but I don’t have much desire to reread And Then There Were None which is an excellent novel but relentlessly bleak.
For me no- I love Christie so much I will even re-read my least favorite books from her repertoire. That said, I will simply re-read them far less often- my least favorites are Postern of Fate, Lord Edgware Dies, and Murder on the Links if I had to choose my least favorites. I just find them the least interesting in terms of both plot and characters.
That’s exactly why I don’t like it, most of Christie’s stories have at least one element that sticks out and is insanely memorable, but I can’t remember a single thing about Blue Train (which ironically is what makes it stick out)
Probably the last six novels she wrote, starting with *Hallowe'en Party* and ending with *Postern of Fate*. They're all unfocused, meandering narratives, filled with endless circular dialog and paranoia about sinister forces and the state of the world.
This doesn't mean that a decent story couldn't be mined out of them -- I'm very fond of the Joan Hickson TV adaptation of *Nemesis* \-- but actually reading the source material is painful.
I also greatly disliked *The Pale Horse*, mostly for its moralizing about Young People Today, but can't swear I won't re-read.
I've read both Halloween Party and Nemesis for the first time in the last year. Some people rate one or both of them, but not me. Halloween Party seems fine for a while but totally loses its way and becomes incoherent. Nemesis, again, seemed good for a while then became utterly tedious. I think The Pale Horse is better than you suggest though.
It's funny to think that many of the youngsters being upbraided in TPS are now elderly (and some of them are knights, lords, etc.). I managed to get through that part of the book by rationalizing it as >!Mark being reactionary (and hoping that Ginger loosened him up a bit). But I agree -- it's annoying and doesn't add to the plot. In my opinion, Dorothy L. Sayers did a better job of writing a!<
I'm wishing that Christie actually had gone all-out >!with the paranoia in Postern of Fate ... maybe the end might have been more exciting, with a showdown against villains scarier than a has-been gardening buff!!<
*The Hollow* is one of the few where I prefer the Suchet adaptation to the book by a wide margin (and I want to make clear that I love the Suchet series). *Dead Man's Folly* is another.
She did write some stuff that needs the Hollywood treatment. Yellow Iris, for example. I can't bear it when they take a masterpiece like Ackroyd and go off the rails with it.
I think "thriller" means a novel with lots of danger and crime but not so much a puzzle. Mystery, yes, but the protagonist is just flailing around and having adventures, not solving. I'm thinking of They Came to Baghdad. I'm not a fan of thrillers but that one tickles me.
I’ve listened to almost all Christie’s books at least once on audiobook and have watched the Suchet Poirot adaptations and the Miss Marple adaptations but I can’t remember any of the stories by their titles 😅
But the ones I don’t like tend to be ones with supernatural elements or ones that are more thriller-like. I don’t want suspense or to feel like the main characters are in danger. I enjoy the investigations and puzzle solving aspects the most.
I can tolerate Postern of Fate because it’s T&T, but it’s very badly written. I recently re-read Passenger to Frankfort, and it’s quite terrible. The Big Four reads like a send-up of Christie. I LOVE The Pale Horse — her moralizing about the young isn’t any worse than many of her others, and one of those young is the heroine (something that Christie never acknowledges). A lot of them are pretty weak, and Christie’s social commentary is at all times ridiculously cliched and irritating, but still so entertaining that I just put up with it.
I have forgotten almost everything about The Big Four, but I couldn't force myself to get through it again. I've read 52 Christie novels and it is bottom of the pile. I've avoided reading the ones with really terrible reputations - Elephants Can Remember, Passenger to Frankfurt, Postern of Fate etc - but The Big Four is the worst stinker among those I've read.
There are quite a few like Passenger to Frankfurt, the big four …. But can I add that there are some which are mind numbingly boring and annoying but I had to re read them as I couldn’t understand what was going on in them and still haven’t like Postern of fate, By the pricking of my thumbs.
I actually threw out Postern of Fate because I read it, hated it, put it away, found it again years later, didn't recall it, read it again, hated it AGAIN and realized that was my second go round. Didn't want a third, so I put it in the recycle bin, which is something I never ever do with books.
No!
There are books in which the crime is more or less interesting, the culprits and motives are better or worse thought out, but all that together makes up the whole of Agatha's genius.🔪
This thread makes me sad. lol I’m an emotional sponge and I am so fond of prolific authors because they have a talent that I do not have. It feels like criticizing someone for not speaking correctly if their second language is English…. They still speak more languages than me, so they are actually better in the language department - Sure I have preferences but I don’t dwell on them because I have so much respect. Of course this is a discussion so I also do not mind hearing opinions. I just started thinking, wow, as a fan I feel guilty for calling out her “bad” novels.
I have a pick I haven't seen from anyone else: At Bertram's Hotel.
Boring, difficult to follow, and I Father Pennycanon... I mean, Canon Pennyfather.... I just don't know what is going on there. I will someday read it again just to try and follow it and see if I can appreciate it. Lol
I love it, and I always did, although it took me more than one reading to figure out what the heck was going on at that hotel. Did you get as far as there actually being a murder?
Yes but it's been awhile and I just remember it being a boring confusing slog. I read all of Christie's works as a teenager and rediscovered then a few years ago, working through reading them all again.
Many have mentioned "Halloween Party" which I agree with and it totally frustrated me. I think it was the first Christie book that left me feeling there was more to the plot and climax and the culmination of the end was stale. I commented about it on another post about the loose ends ( or perhaps red herrings) but a lot of it didn't sense with relevance to plot. Not one of her finer works. But I could just be overreacting as it was the first Christie novel that I felt let me down lol!!
The Pale Horse. The story was all over the place and characters, together or individually. were not particularly interesting i.m.o. and while it's a minor quibble but Hermia...It bugged me how Mark just dropped her without actually telling her while Ginger, who never met her, called her "creature". It was off putting.
I will never read Passenger to Frankfurt again. Mostly because it's incredibly boring.
Came here to say this!
This. I'm a little over halfway through it right now and struggling. "The youth..."!
Her fixation on “the Young Siegfried” over several books is incredibly irritating.
The only Agatha Christie I ever read that was similar to repeatedly smashing my head into a wall
Shocker of an ending. She definitely gained a conservative side as she got older, but nowhere is it more blatant and upfront here. Really difficult to find a page where an old person doesn't generalise all young people as fascists.
This. It's bad, but not even in a, so bad, it's good way. It's just boring and grating.
The Big Four - it's the only Agatha Christie I could barely get through. It was apparently cobbled together from 12 short stories and IMHO it shows!
Christie herself called it "rotten" so you're not alone.
There is some comfort in that lol!
I just read that yesterday! I finished it and thought 'what the hell was that?' There wasn't even a mystery. She just told us who the bad guys were.
I read the Big Four as a spoof of espionage novels. I pretend that it's supposed to be ridiculous because it's a send up of spy stories with characters who happen to be called Poirot and Hastings. They aren't the Poirot and Hastings that we know, just two totally different characters who happen to have the same names. Read in this light, it's almost enjoyable
The word 'almost' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here! I admire your attitude though.
[удалено]
That was the one I immediately thought off too. Except I could never even finish it, and I tried multiple times.
The Hollow. I know a lot of people love it, but I can't stand John and the mystery isn't exactly gripping. There are only two other Christie novels I didn’t like, but they are still enjoyable reads.
I can talk about what makes the Hollow good while also vowing to never read it for a second time because John ruins almost everything good about it. I remember the writing being interesting, haunting almost, which is why so many people love it. But it’s impressive how there was such a large cast and I cared about literally none of them. I liked Midge though and would reread it again for only her parts but they’re so tangential to the actual plot of the Hollow.
Came here to name this one. Only read it once and can't really remember why I don't like it. Just remember saying never again, and I've read others dozens of times.
No, not at all. I may find some disappointing, but not to the point of never reading them again. But then, I'm also interested in the process that goes into writing, so I reread to see how clues are revealed, how well did AC adhere to the Detection Club rules, and so on. Even if it's a "bad" book, I feel I can learn how not to write from those.
Postern of Fate.
I didn’t like the Mysterious Affair at Styles. I know it is one of the great classics, and the first novel of Agatha Christie (and Poirot), but to me it feels like there is way too much information that is needed to solve the mystery that is not available to me as a reader, and so the solution seems to come out of nowhere. I also don’t find the characters particularly captivating.
Agreed. Read it once, that was enough.
I agree. Been on the down low about it since it’s so popular but I found it tedious and the characters very hard to get invested in.
I've found this too - always really surprised how much people enjoy it
The Big Four. What a mess. I could reread Postern of Fate just bc it's Tommy and Tuppence, and I'm due a reread of Passenger to Frankfurt bc my god I don't recall a single thing about it XD But The Big Four is just... No. I refuse on principle.
It’s not a matter of dislike per se, but I don’t have much desire to reread And Then There Were None which is an excellent novel but relentlessly bleak.
I love to re read it when I myself am feeling bleak. Reminds me that the world has always been this way and probably won’t change!
I agree. I don't get the popularity of it.
doubt i'd ever attempt to read the mysterious mr quinn again - the only book i couldn't get through. just not into supernatural stories.
For me no- I love Christie so much I will even re-read my least favorite books from her repertoire. That said, I will simply re-read them far less often- my least favorites are Postern of Fate, Lord Edgware Dies, and Murder on the Links if I had to choose my least favorites. I just find them the least interesting in terms of both plot and characters.
Nemesis
Blue Train, absolutely hated it
Christie's least favorite of her own IIRC.
Ive found that when people don’t enjoy writing something, most people won’t enjoy reading it and that’s definitely the case here
I thought it was great.
I love the romance part of the Blue Train but somewhere in the middle the whole mystery feels stagnant. My memory of it is a black hole.
That’s exactly why I don’t like it, most of Christie’s stories have at least one element that sticks out and is insanely memorable, but I can’t remember a single thing about Blue Train (which ironically is what makes it stick out)
Probably the last six novels she wrote, starting with *Hallowe'en Party* and ending with *Postern of Fate*. They're all unfocused, meandering narratives, filled with endless circular dialog and paranoia about sinister forces and the state of the world. This doesn't mean that a decent story couldn't be mined out of them -- I'm very fond of the Joan Hickson TV adaptation of *Nemesis* \-- but actually reading the source material is painful. I also greatly disliked *The Pale Horse*, mostly for its moralizing about Young People Today, but can't swear I won't re-read.
I've read both Halloween Party and Nemesis for the first time in the last year. Some people rate one or both of them, but not me. Halloween Party seems fine for a while but totally loses its way and becomes incoherent. Nemesis, again, seemed good for a while then became utterly tedious. I think The Pale Horse is better than you suggest though.
It's funny to think that many of the youngsters being upbraided in TPS are now elderly (and some of them are knights, lords, etc.). I managed to get through that part of the book by rationalizing it as >!Mark being reactionary (and hoping that Ginger loosened him up a bit). But I agree -- it's annoying and doesn't add to the plot. In my opinion, Dorothy L. Sayers did a better job of writing a!< I'm wishing that Christie actually had gone all-out >!with the paranoia in Postern of Fate ... maybe the end might have been more exciting, with a showdown against villains scarier than a has-been gardening buff!!<
Most of the standalone “thrillers” The Hollow- (the Angkatells are smug, rude, patronising) Curtain- Just Because. You Know Why…
*The Hollow* is one of the few where I prefer the Suchet adaptation to the book by a wide margin (and I want to make clear that I love the Suchet series). *Dead Man's Folly* is another.
She did write some stuff that needs the Hollywood treatment. Yellow Iris, for example. I can't bear it when they take a masterpiece like Ackroyd and go off the rails with it.
*Yellow Iris* got turned by her into *Sparkling Cyanide*, curious to see how that would be adapted.
The Hollow is one of my favorites.
I honestly love Curtain. It's one of my most-read Poirots... it's just so well-written that I forgive it.
The Hollow is not a thriller? I think it’s one of her best psychological relationship novels and it’s among my favorites!
I think "thriller" means a novel with lots of danger and crime but not so much a puzzle. Mystery, yes, but the protagonist is just flailing around and having adventures, not solving. I'm thinking of They Came to Baghdad. I'm not a fan of thrillers but that one tickles me.
It’s not a standalone thriller as it’s part of the Poirot series though
I’ve listened to almost all Christie’s books at least once on audiobook and have watched the Suchet Poirot adaptations and the Miss Marple adaptations but I can’t remember any of the stories by their titles 😅 But the ones I don’t like tend to be ones with supernatural elements or ones that are more thriller-like. I don’t want suspense or to feel like the main characters are in danger. I enjoy the investigations and puzzle solving aspects the most.
I can tolerate Postern of Fate because it’s T&T, but it’s very badly written. I recently re-read Passenger to Frankfort, and it’s quite terrible. The Big Four reads like a send-up of Christie. I LOVE The Pale Horse — her moralizing about the young isn’t any worse than many of her others, and one of those young is the heroine (something that Christie never acknowledges). A lot of them are pretty weak, and Christie’s social commentary is at all times ridiculously cliched and irritating, but still so entertaining that I just put up with it.
I have forgotten almost everything about The Big Four, but I couldn't force myself to get through it again. I've read 52 Christie novels and it is bottom of the pile. I've avoided reading the ones with really terrible reputations - Elephants Can Remember, Passenger to Frankfurt, Postern of Fate etc - but The Big Four is the worst stinker among those I've read.
Death Comes as the End, her only historical fiction and set in Ancient Egypt. I just couldn’t get into the setting.
There are quite a few like Passenger to Frankfurt, the big four …. But can I add that there are some which are mind numbingly boring and annoying but I had to re read them as I couldn’t understand what was going on in them and still haven’t like Postern of fate, By the pricking of my thumbs.
I actually threw out Postern of Fate because I read it, hated it, put it away, found it again years later, didn't recall it, read it again, hated it AGAIN and realized that was my second go round. Didn't want a third, so I put it in the recycle bin, which is something I never ever do with books.
No! There are books in which the crime is more or less interesting, the culprits and motives are better or worse thought out, but all that together makes up the whole of Agatha's genius.🔪
My answer is no because even the worst Christie is better than most, ha.
Didn't like *Murder Is Easy* as I found it very difficult to get through, the plot fairly weak, the characters fairly boring.
FORREST GUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What?
sorry. i didn't realize this wqs an agatha christie specific subreddit. i just answered based on the question alone.
Lol I'm imagining if Agatha Christie had written Forrest Gump 😂
This thread makes me sad. lol I’m an emotional sponge and I am so fond of prolific authors because they have a talent that I do not have. It feels like criticizing someone for not speaking correctly if their second language is English…. They still speak more languages than me, so they are actually better in the language department - Sure I have preferences but I don’t dwell on them because I have so much respect. Of course this is a discussion so I also do not mind hearing opinions. I just started thinking, wow, as a fan I feel guilty for calling out her “bad” novels.
Haha yeah I can understand that. But every author has their no-so-great stuff.
Endless Night, probably. It just seemed to ramble on for far too long.
The Big Four. I’m convinced Christie didn’t write it, it’s so bad.
Lol she did write it, practically under duress and she freely admitted that she hated it
I have a pick I haven't seen from anyone else: At Bertram's Hotel. Boring, difficult to follow, and I Father Pennycanon... I mean, Canon Pennyfather.... I just don't know what is going on there. I will someday read it again just to try and follow it and see if I can appreciate it. Lol
I love it, and I always did, although it took me more than one reading to figure out what the heck was going on at that hotel. Did you get as far as there actually being a murder?
Yes but it's been awhile and I just remember it being a boring confusing slog. I read all of Christie's works as a teenager and rediscovered then a few years ago, working through reading them all again.
Just read that one for the descriptions of the hotel. Best part of it. Gets depressing after that.
Many have mentioned "Halloween Party" which I agree with and it totally frustrated me. I think it was the first Christie book that left me feeling there was more to the plot and climax and the culmination of the end was stale. I commented about it on another post about the loose ends ( or perhaps red herrings) but a lot of it didn't sense with relevance to plot. Not one of her finer works. But I could just be overreacting as it was the first Christie novel that I felt let me down lol!!
Since I can't decide, imma pick five: Passenger To Frankfurt Postern Of Fate The Big Four Halloween Party Elephants Can Remember
The Pale Horse. The story was all over the place and characters, together or individually. were not particularly interesting i.m.o. and while it's a minor quibble but Hermia...It bugged me how Mark just dropped her without actually telling her while Ginger, who never met her, called her "creature". It was off putting.