Poirot Pals
Join hosts Caitlin Morris and Chad Lind as they endeavor to read, research, and discuss all thirty-three Hercule Poirot mystery novels.
To get the most out of this audio book club, listen to the pre-read episodes before you read each book. Then, process your thoughts with Chad and Caitlin during each debrief episode.
Join us as we read in real-time, or listen and read at your leisure.
Poirot Pals
Pre-Read: Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Listen to this episode before you read Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
Join Grinch Caitlin and Chad Scrooge as they discuss the historical contexts surrounding the creation of Agatha Christie's beloved character, Hercule Poirot. You'll get tips on how to read the book, where to read the book, and what to look out for as you read.
This is a spoiler-free episode.
(Inspiration for the fireplace sounds in the background, courtesy of Honey and the cheese stick.)
Theme Music: The Black Cat by Aaron Kenny.
Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2gPoZ4x7CqkG4AzlZ9SKFV
Learn more about Simon Schama's Power of Art here:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887235/episodes/?season=1&ref_=tt_eps_sn_1
Sources: https://www.agathachristie.com/stories/hercule-poirots-christmas
https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/Hercule_Poirot%27s_Christmas#Characters
https://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2022/12/hercule-poirots-
christmas-1938-by.html
Chad. If you equate the holidays with remembering all sorts of dynamics that you disassociate from for the rest of the year, we've got a book for you.
Chad:Yeah, depending on that situation that you yourself feel towards the holidays, I feel very similar. This is a baum. This is a baum. This is almost therapy.
Caitlin:It's like those blood masks, you know, like those masks where people take their own blood and they just like put it on their face. This is the book version of that, because it's self-care, but it's also very violent and a little disturbing. Yeah, so this is a very special pre-read to a book that I think I would say is pretty dear to our hearts. Would you say that?
Chad:Yes.
Caitlin:This is Hercule Poirot's Christmas. We are skipping ahead because nothing says, chad and Caitlin, more than a bit of changing things up, even though we promised to do something else.
Chad:Since I'm a baseball fan and it's the dead of winter, baseball references are really in vogue right now, but what I would say is that finishing up the Ackroyd book is like the listener is the batter expecting a fastball and we're throwing them a curveball. We're going to do all of Hercule Poirot's Christmas before we resume.
Caitlin:Roger Ackroyd. It's a Roger Ackroyd sandwich.
Chad:That's exactly what it is, yep.
Caitlin:The best festive treat of them all.
Chad:I was trying to go with the Dr Shepherd's pie, okay. But it doesn't work as well as the sandwich. The sandwich works better. Wow, we haven't done a pre-read in a thousand years.
Caitlin:Should we just dive in? Let's just dive into this thing.
Chad:Yes.
Caitlin:In some versions of this book we have an opening epigraph from macbeth and I just love that. One of the most violent cursed plays begins this holiday tale and it's a bit of a deep cut.
Caitlin:But so to speak oh shit, okay, yeah, the quote is yeah, who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him? Oof, yeah, we're starting off dark. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay very dark, which that's the way I want to do the holidays and it's gonna be violent and it's gonna have to deal with some family dysfunction all All wrapped up in that sentence. One of the questions I wrote in my notes is who knew that Poro's Christmas would be one of the most metal Christmas tales of them all? It feels a little punk rock. It's just well before its time.
Chad:This book is just lean and mean in the best ways.
Caitlin:Yeah.
Chad:It's a twisted Christmas.
Caitlin:Let's just talk about where we are in the Ercuoporo timeline, because we are bouncing around a lot. This was published in 1938, and it sets itself right after An Appointment with Death and right before Sad Cypress. A year later it was published in the US under Murder for Christmas, which is also a great name, and then in 1948, so 10 years later they changed it to A Holiday for Murder, which one I think is kind of silly, because it's kind of in that line of like let's make this more inclusive. I don't think that's what they were doing.
Caitlin:If anything, my guess is that they were trying to remove it from Christmas because it is so dark that they were like ah, let's not put it in the Christmas category, let's make it like a holiday.
Chad:The word holiday is too happy for the title of this book.
Caitlin:Although we do open with two people on holiday.
Chad:Oh, you know, I didn't think about the definition that way, yeah yeah.
Caitlin:Yeah, it seems like a sidestep to take it out of the christmas category, but we want to put it back in the christmas category. This is one of the best christmas stories around. It has a great origin story. Do you want to tell the origin story, or should we read it?
Chad:Let's start out with reading it, yeah.
Caitlin:Chad. Would you do a dramatic reading of the letter that begins this book?
Chad:Certainly, certainly I will, and this is my best Agatha Christie impression by the way Perfect.
Chad:My dear James, you have always been one of the most faithful and kindly of my readers and I was therefore seriously perturbed when I received from you a word of criticism. You complained that my murders were getting too refined, anemic. In fact, you yearned for a good, violent murder with lots of blood, a murder where there was no doubt about it being murder. So this is your special story, written for you. I hope it may please your affectionate sister-in-law, agatha. So who is j is James. James is married to Agatha Christie's sister and apparently he felt the need to give his two cents concerning some of her more recent books. How do you feel about that?
Caitlin:Here's the thing there are a lot of men, it seems like, who like to tell her how they would write their books, and that always makes my hackles raise a little bit. I do think this is less of a fuck you than the Lynx epigraph, for sure, but I do kind of think it's like if you want blood, I'll give you a room covered in blood. I think we're all supposed to feel that she did also dedicate abc murders to him and that's a compliment to have these two books dedicated to you.
Chad:I think you're in her good graces it kind of almost has this feeling of like an inside family joke. Yeah, she's letting us in on a little bit of the dynamic and then she also to continue the terrible baseball metaphors knocks it out of the park. This is a dedication that makes me want to read the book which is weird.
Caitlin:In terms of how it was received at the time New York Times book review Isaac Anderson. This is Februarybruary 1939. Poro has solved some puzzling mysteries in his time, but never has his mighty brain functioned more brilliantly. It's like she's done it again, but better right. Both of these reviews that I'm about to read actually give us a nice structure for what we're about to expect, but each one has a bit of a different take on it. So this is the guardian er punchin. He says by careful and acute reasoning, poro is able to show that a convincing case can be made out against all the family members, till the baffled reader is ready to believe all of them guilty in turn. Till poro and one of his famous confrontation scenes indicate who is in fact the culprit. And so they're like. This fits into the Porro structure really well. It's a classic murder at a family estate, a la Stiles. Everyone is convincingly, as he says, guilty. To the point and that's kind of what I always do when I read it is I'm like at some point I'm always suspecting everyone. So then, like when it's like oh, it's this person. You're like, well, I guessed it 10 minutes ago. So like, yes, I guessed it, but also you guessed everyone else.
Caitlin:They say miss christie remains supreme. One may grumble that she depends too much upon coincidence and manufactured effect. But how small are such blemishes compared with the brilliance of the whole conception? There's a grumpier one. Uh, maurice percy ashley is kind of like miss christie's detective stories follow a pattern. First there's always a group of suspects, each of whom has something to conceal about his or her past. Second, there is a generous use of coincidence in the circumstances of the crime. There is a concession to sentiment, which does not necessarily simplify the solution, and I think that is true.
Caitlin:The complaint has been uttered that her murders were getting too refined, anemic in fact. So this is a good, violent murder with lots of blood. But there is, on the other hand, another departure from Miss Christie's earlier stories which must be regretted. Ooh, this is some criticism of Poirot himself. Poirot in his retirement is becoming too much of a colorless expert. One feels a nostalgic longing for the days when he baited his good friend and butt Hastings, when he spoke malaprop English and astonished strangers by his intellectual arrogance. So he's kind of saying here that Poirot takes the back seat. Poirot could almost be like an every detective. There's less Poirot to it, which I can see, and I think that's something that we can kind of pay attention to as we like go back into the book paying attention to the role of Poirot. He does kind of feel like wallpaper in certain parts. I would say, to really extend my metaphor, you know, if you have a house that's got a lot going on in it already, maybe you don't want the most outlandish wallpaper, maybe you want something simple.
Chad:Yeah.
Caitlin:I think that's his role here is like the family, the dynamics, the blood. There's so much. Poirot almost doesn't need to be his arrogant self.
Chad:You had prepared me for this before we started recording the first episode of Perrault Pals. You had said that in some of these books Perrault barely feels like a main character. Yeah, I'm totally fine with it.
Caitlin:I think she does end up using Poirot as kind of this platform for these, like creative puzzles a little bit, or like I want to write a novel about X, how do I weave Poirot in to make it interesting Again, that's kind of that's my guess.
Chad:Yeah, I love that, guess. I think it's great. I think there's another thing that I would say, especially with the last critique that you read this book is too dark for Hastings. The way that Hastings had been during the first two, he just would have been hitting on any number of the characters.
Caitlin:It would have felt weird and there's a lot of weird people hitting on other people.
Chad:Anyways, it'd be too much yeah, that would be a different genre yeah, it does lend to kind of the ickiness of it, which I like. Yeah, this is a sick little book sometimes and it it's great.
Caitlin:Speaking of interesting stuff, I do think that we need to really get the vibe of how dark this story is. We need to know what's going on, particularly in England and in Spain, because we have a mysterious character from Spain who is experiencing a lot of, or has experienced a lot of, the political turmoil over there, and they'll reference it. Agatha Christie isn't like sitting back in the future, looking back at like pre-World War II. She's in it. Well, obviously, that's what time works. There's just this lingering sense of doom and the unknown. Okay, let's go to Spain, because we open pretty right away with our character who is literally traveling. She is on holiday from Spain and she's going to start referencing her past and kind of just some like violence that she's experienced in particular. So I thought we'd do the quickest, fastest overview of the Spanish Civil War Trust me it'll go fast and then we'll kind of hone in on 1938. Spanish Civil War 1936 to 1939. And then we'll kind of hone in on 1938. Spanish Civil War 1936 to 1939.
Caitlin:Here are the two sides. We have the Republican government and we can think about this as like a coalition of a couple different groups. We have the leftist, socialist, anarchist and communist, and they're all factions, but they're like we are grouping together as the Republicans. Then we have the nationalists. You may have heard of this guy, francisco franco. He is backed by the conservative, monarchist, fascist groups. So we have these two groups of people pitted against each other. I don't want to be like. Does this sound familiar?
Caitlin:yeah, I was just about like jesus, the same thing Doom and gloom. The Republicans are trying to establish a secular state, so think about no monarchy. We're progressive. The nationalists traditional values, authoritarian rule. This ends up becoming a proxy war between the fascist powers in germany and italy. They supported franco and the soviet union, which aided the republicans. The western democracies were neutral, but a lot of volunteers joined through internet. So, like, think about henningley. Yeah, I can see it as like the people who are going in and volunteering in ukraine right now. Sure, yes, officially US troops aren't on the ground, but you have some people, for whatever reason, who are like going there on their own. So we can kind of see some reflections of that, some echoes of that, today. Spoiler alert Franco is victorious in 1939. This created a dictatorship that ended in his death in 1975.
Chad:That ended in his death in 1975. Not that I'm a huge fan of this person, but of their art. There's the Picasso painting Guernica which very much comes from the Spanish Civil War.
Caitlin:Honestly, I was thinking about that painting as we meet this character from Spain. Her name is Pilar. She just kind of seems like she popped out of that painting.
Chad:Yeah, that's a great point. Also, if you haven't experienced that painting and you want to see like an in-depth little bit of a documentary on it, there is an awesome six-part BBC documentary hosted by Simon Schama which is called the Power of Art. There's one about Guernica. It's really fantastic. If you can find it, Watch it. It's great.
Caitlin:In 1937, so kind of before this book was published, kind of probably when she was writing it the Nationalists take over Bilbao and then by October they've completely taken over the Basque country, barcelona and Madrid still not under their power. So it's like, ah, maybe things could come back. But by November 1938, this is from Britannica.
Caitlin:The war had been characterized by long periods of bloody stalemate punctured by rapid breakthroughs by the nationalists. So within this year the Republican army is really falling apart. Spain has about 3 million refugees and I didn't realize that Barcelona falls in 1939. With that the Republicans essentially fail and France actually starts to see this huge surge in refugees from Spain. The movement from spain to england by pilar is very. It's not a refugee fleeing the war, it's more plucky. Yeah, it's not quite that, but it's in this context.
Chad:It's hard to explain the meeting between the first two characters that were introduced to, because one of them is made to say things like no, I'm going to do what I came here to do, and you're like what are you going to do? You seem very driven, but then, pilar, this is what this person has been through. Maybe this is why she feels this way about things.
Caitlin:But then we also find out that she shares some personality traits with someone else yes, and then to add to it, it's not like either, or she also is kind of, I'd say, like a caricature of these people fleeing this area from the lens of a British perspective. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt that she is like in on the caricature and like using it to her advantage, but also then through, like the weird male gaze of the guy she meets and much like hastings he's. Like you know, the easiest way for me to see this woman I'm flirting with is to see her as a child. There's a lot going on with pilar, we'll get to it. So, anyways, let's take a quick look at england. Like you know, the easiest way for me to see this woman I'm flirting with is to see her as a child. There's a lot going on with Pilar, we'll get to it. So, anyways, let's take a quick look at England. I promise it'll be quick. England 1938.
Caitlin:The Munich Agreement was signed in September of 1938. And it's kind of like this peacekeeping attempt by France, england and Italy. They allow Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia. They're like take this chunk, stop there. Some people are supportive because they're like yes, we want peace, we don't want any war. We've been through this. We are all traumatized. Let's not. Then others are like how could you let this fascist threat take? More land Also seems a little familiar. More land Also seems a little familiar. But even though they're still technically in this peacetime, there's a lot of anxiety about war being imminent. Gas masks are distributed all around London because of fear of chemical aerial attacks. People are trying to have a good Christmas Meanwhile. They're like are we all about to die from this?
Chad:like mysterious threat from the sky oh, oh, I know, sometimes when I can't sleep I will put on a very boring history audiobook. Right, the one that I've been falling asleep to recently is the team of rivals, and it is what the text that the Spielberg movie Lincoln is based on.
Chad:And what it is is. It's Abraham Lincoln. As he's getting ready to run for president, his chances of not winning being extremely high. But then he wins extremely high. But then he wins and all of these other candidates who thought they were going to win he approaches them to be in his cabinet to challenge him. And when he writes his inauguration speech that he's going to be reading in 1861, he reads it to Seward, one of the members of his cabinet, and Seward goes this is way too harsh. This language is way, way, way too harsh. We have to soften it, we have to make some concessions because we don't want things to go off the rails. So they soften it, they make concessions and guess what? The Confederates still leave the Union. It doesn't make any difference. It's the same thing with this thing here, where it's like well, maybe if we give them this little bit of Czechoslovakia, no, it's not going to stop these people. God, this happens all the time, apparently.
Caitlin:Merry Christmas one and all. Can you feel the festivity? Okay, Other things to prepare for the blog. Beneath the Stains of Time, which I think is a great title for a blog, says that this is also a subtle parody of the genre. I suggest that we all try to look for that. You know she's nailing these plot beats that she's known for. Is she toying with us at all? Is there a wink in there? Okay, question to the people. I'm now worried. I'm like is there something deeply wrong with me? When you are confronted with something that is cloyingly Christmas, do you feel like you want to rebel? I went to a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in a very quaint neighborhood of the Atlanta area last year. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie. There was hot chocolate, Children were happy, Everybody was joyful and all I wanted to do was like break something and then spray paint it black. Am I okay?
Chad:I don't know if you're okay, okay, but there are times where I think that you and I are related okay, because, well, we both have the nordic thing going for us yeah, we definitely do, and there's got it.
Chad:There's might be something going on there because I so this is where I am with this right now. There is part of me where, even if I'm seeing something that isn't manufactured, that is an actual human element between people, you know, like somebody from the nearby naval base coming home, I get upset at the concept that it's supposed to mean more this time of year. Does this test, this entire thing from like Thanksgiving until December 25th, been turned into like? All of the emotions are magnified.
Chad:Yeah all of the things and I'm like that doesn't make sense, because it's the end of a year and we all agreed to live in this 12 month stupid calendar, so why are we magnifying everything at the end of the freaking year? I feel like you and I are very similar in a lot of ways and we should probably get on that uh, that cool show on pbs where the awesome guy tells people about oh, your history yes yeah, we'll sit next to each other and it'll be like, ah, the ancient lind morris line dating back to the nordic kings, like I don't know.
Caitlin:They sacked all these Christian settlements during the Yuletide and everything makes sense now.
Chad:And I do like also the concept of the recurring thing where, after Our ancestors sacked the villages, they like paint everything black. I know.
Caitlin:Have you thought about black?
Chad:Much better.
Caitlin:Okay, so now that we got that out of the way, we have some other suggestions for how to be with this book and also maybe survive the holidays. I have to say, though, I think that my bitterness does not apply to being cozy. That's different Coziness any time of the year is good. So we're still going to suggest be your coziest, whatever holiday drinks you want. I've got some really good cocoa mix. We, oh and we. We owe the people a tea tasting.
Chad:Oh that, let's do that in january. We're past the holidays and now we're just gonna just gonna concentrate on this awesome competition that we created.
Caitlin:I know that's like not a competition. It'll be like oh, they kind of taste the same. No, they don't. Wow, I'll be in the northwest and so I'll pick us up some market spice tea, but I think that, you know, for the people who do enjoy an alcohol moment, sure a strong drink could go really well with this book, something that's not. It doesn't go down easy Like it makes you a little uncomfortable, maybe a little frightened, whatever that is.
Chad:Yeah, whatever that would be for you. Now, when we say it doesn't go down easy, we don't mean that you put something in it that makes it difficult to swallow. Don't do anything like that.
Caitlin:No choking hazards. No choking hazards to me and I don't drink this anymore.
Chad:But to me I don't drink this anymore, but to me I could definitely see this being like a strong scotch yeah, exactly I think that's important. Keeping with the theme, if you have an area for stockings, put stockings up that are labeled with the names of despised family members, fill them with coal and or fake blood packets and then Christmas morning find something sharp and just like, poke through the stockings and then you'll have a little blood spurting all over the place. Yeah, I think it'd be kind of cool.
Caitlin:It's always good to instill just a little bit of fear in your family members.
Chad:Absolutely. And then also apropos of the book flirt heavily with attractive relatives on a train and elsewhere.
Caitlin:Not strangers, relatives.
Chad:Most definitely.
Caitlin:Last but not least, I did make a Poro's Christmas Spotify playlist Awesome. We'll link to that as well. And so, with all the reading playlists, they're all very like ambient no words. It's supposed to be kind of atmospheric. It's supposed to be kind of atmospheric. It's supposed to be kind of moody. My goal was to make an anti-Christmas, christmas playlist, still with mostly Christmas music.
Chad:So that's great, it's my gift to you.
Caitlin:Yeah, so you're welcome everyone. I'm your Christmas miracle and that's how we'll end this.
Chad:Well, deck the halls and okay, so we'll see everybody for the first debrief when that arrives.
Caitlin:We'll see what we're capable of. Yeah.
Chad:All right.
Caitlin:I think we have to go. We both need naps. You.
