Poirot, Cards on the Table
Oct. 19th, 2015 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackPoirot, Cards on the Table
ghoti found me an Agatha Christie in a second hand bookstall -- I'd never read any Christie before.
I enjoyed it a lot, it was a good detective story, and hung together well. She recommended this particular one because the murder occurred during a bridge game, and part of it is wondering which person slipped away when playing dummy.
It focusses on which character would have committed a murder, rather than could, and seems constructed to make that point, but is done very well -- the four suspects are consistent in their characters, and their actions do hang together psychologically. Who might do something out of panic? Who would take a bold chance? Etc etc. And the foreward admits up-front that it's a not a trick subverting one of the premises (as in, "this seems impossible -- how" mysteries), but it genuinely is one of the four suspects for the reason established in the first few pages, and the question is which.
However, I also felt that didn't take sufficient account for the possibility that someone might act in a way you don't expect because they knew something that made them more or less desperate, or made the risk seem greater or lesser, than you supposed -- I think that's more common than not.
I'm torn on Poirot himself. He's very vivid, the way he embraces the role of a pompous foreigner, but is really on the ball inside. But didn't seem to have much character himself, no fears or hopes, no loves or hates, (I don't know if there's more in other books).
Probabilistic reasoning
I touched on this above, but when I'm evaluating something, I try to think "how likely is this? how likely is it that my premises are flawed in some way?" Because at some point, the "most" likely explanation is less likely than "you missed something" or "something unlikely happened meaning people were acting at cross purposes somehow".
It's particularly evident in detective books, because it's usually the case you're supposed to take some things on trust, and distrust others, but exactly which is generally established by implication and convention, and if it's not what you expect you can feel cheated. And it's hard to avoid, because setting up a good mystery often involves some unlikely coincidences, which you're not supposed to quibble with too hard, but you're also supposed to evaluate the suspects with an eye to spotting deception.
I find it quite hard to think probabilistically, I can do "but it COULD be this...", but it's hard for me to go to "but probably it isn't", I tend to be too completionist. And sometimes that spots me interesting "out of the box" solutions which turn out to be right. But I can be quite bad at spotting normal "which of these suspects is actually guilty" mysteries, because I find it hard to say "well, it's not certain, but this is the best interpretation available"...
The nature of crime
Sometimes murder is specifically planned -- by someone desperate to silence the victim, by organised crime, etc. And often it's an extension of other violent crime -- a mugging, an argument, etc, where one or both parties kept escalating with no control. And the second is probably more common, but the first might be more common in mysteries.
But this book made me think about it, because the different types of motive for murder the suspects evinced, desperation, or hatred, or whatever. And also wonder -- how much is crime a product of selfishness, and how much a product of short-term thinking? I suspect, a lot of both.
ghoti found me an Agatha Christie in a second hand bookstall -- I'd never read any Christie before.
I enjoyed it a lot, it was a good detective story, and hung together well. She recommended this particular one because the murder occurred during a bridge game, and part of it is wondering which person slipped away when playing dummy.
It focusses on which character would have committed a murder, rather than could, and seems constructed to make that point, but is done very well -- the four suspects are consistent in their characters, and their actions do hang together psychologically. Who might do something out of panic? Who would take a bold chance? Etc etc. And the foreward admits up-front that it's a not a trick subverting one of the premises (as in, "this seems impossible -- how" mysteries), but it genuinely is one of the four suspects for the reason established in the first few pages, and the question is which.
However, I also felt that didn't take sufficient account for the possibility that someone might act in a way you don't expect because they knew something that made them more or less desperate, or made the risk seem greater or lesser, than you supposed -- I think that's more common than not.
I'm torn on Poirot himself. He's very vivid, the way he embraces the role of a pompous foreigner, but is really on the ball inside. But didn't seem to have much character himself, no fears or hopes, no loves or hates, (I don't know if there's more in other books).
Probabilistic reasoning
I touched on this above, but when I'm evaluating something, I try to think "how likely is this? how likely is it that my premises are flawed in some way?" Because at some point, the "most" likely explanation is less likely than "you missed something" or "something unlikely happened meaning people were acting at cross purposes somehow".
It's particularly evident in detective books, because it's usually the case you're supposed to take some things on trust, and distrust others, but exactly which is generally established by implication and convention, and if it's not what you expect you can feel cheated. And it's hard to avoid, because setting up a good mystery often involves some unlikely coincidences, which you're not supposed to quibble with too hard, but you're also supposed to evaluate the suspects with an eye to spotting deception.
I find it quite hard to think probabilistically, I can do "but it COULD be this...", but it's hard for me to go to "but probably it isn't", I tend to be too completionist. And sometimes that spots me interesting "out of the box" solutions which turn out to be right. But I can be quite bad at spotting normal "which of these suspects is actually guilty" mysteries, because I find it hard to say "well, it's not certain, but this is the best interpretation available"...
The nature of crime
Sometimes murder is specifically planned -- by someone desperate to silence the victim, by organised crime, etc. And often it's an extension of other violent crime -- a mugging, an argument, etc, where one or both parties kept escalating with no control. And the second is probably more common, but the first might be more common in mysteries.
But this book made me think about it, because the different types of motive for murder the suspects evinced, desperation, or hatred, or whatever. And also wonder -- how much is crime a product of selfishness, and how much a product of short-term thinking? I suspect, a lot of both.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-19 02:32 pm (UTC)If you want Poirot as a character with emotions and fears instead of just a detective, there's a limited number of books you need to read. Actually, I think it's pretty much just Curtain, but you shouldn't read Curtain without at least reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles, because even though Styles doesn't have much Poirot-as-character, the emotional resonances Christie establishes in Curtain are largely dependent on Styles and the arc of the Poirot/Hastings friendship it establishes.
In the better Poirot novels, Poirot is able to make good probabilistic judgements about guilt, but he then tests them experimentally with the expectation that he'll sometimes be wrong. I feel the books are weaker when it's just Poirot sizes up the situation and knows who's guilty, though usually in those books Christie stretches out the story by giving Poirot motive to not instantly reveal whodunnit, whether it be lack of proof or some other undesirable consequence of an instant reveal that he's sensitive to.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-19 03:58 pm (UTC)In the better Poirot novels, Poirot is able to make good probabilistic judgements about guilt, but he then tests them experimentally with the expectation that he'll sometimes be wrong.
That makes sense. A small dose of confirmation can make a chain of reasoning a lot more conclusive.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-19 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-19 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-19 04:03 pm (UTC)I remember someone saying people often wanted half a dozen books in a detective series before they'd start reading; one reason might be to absorb those implicit rules.