Wednesday, August 11, 2021

A style to match the tale …

SOPHIE HANNAH ON THE LITERARY SIDE OF AGATHA CHRISTIE: "HER STYLE IS NOT SIMPLISTIC BUT, RATHER, BEAUTIFULLY SIMPLE." (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Her style is not simplistic but, rather, beautifully simple. Her genius is such that she can write book after book that seamlessly blends many opposite ends of many spectrums: the straightforward and the complex, the light and the dark, the resolved and the ambiguous, the traditional and the revolutionary. She is brilliant at conveying depth of character in her own way: a brisk and crisp way that allows far more page space for plot than for introspection—yet we learn every time that it is only by following the precise details of the plot, major and minor, that we are able, finally, to access the third dimension of each character, the part they keep hidden from the rest of the world and from the reader for as long as possible. Without plot, there is no reliable access to character; Christie understood this as well as anyone

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1 comment:

  1. The phrase "Curb your enthusiasm" exists for occasions like this.

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