Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan

I am so glad I discovered Come, Tell Me How You Live (1946) by Agatha Christie. It gave me a look at quite a different side the famed mystery writer. It is billed as an archaeological memoir but it is not in the least bit as dusty as the places she writes about.

I thought it would be a somewhat dry retelling of days spent digging in the dirt and cleaning bits and bobs of found broken pottery.

Not so.

Instead, it is her delightful perspective of the people, customs and culture of Syria in the 1930s, the time she and husband Max Mallowan, archaeologist, were there. 

Her stories of the eccentricities of the servants, the tribal conflicts among the workers, the personalities of the house dogs and cats, her hopes for a good meal, the hospitality (and a bit of greed) of the sheikhs, the fussy rules and regulations of the French government officials, changing weather, flooded wadis, temperamental automobiles, fashion faux pas, language barrier mishaps, the handling of medical emergencies, and encounters with giggling veiled women and dirty children with runny noses, are all quite amusing.

It is more of a travel journal than a treatise on the exploration of archaeological sites. And it is quite funny which for some reason I didn't expect. Ms. Christie has quite a sharp eye for the amusing detail.

In the epilogue, written in the spring of 1944, she states that the book is a result of the rough notes and diaries that she kept during their seasons in Syria. It wasn't until after the war that she gathered her notes together as a way of looking again at experiences she "not only had but still has."

For it seems to me that it is good to remember that there were such days and such places, and that at this very minute my little hill of marigolds is in bloom, and old men with white beards trudging behind their donkeys may not even know there is a war. 

Inshallah, I shall go there again, and the things that I love shall not have perished from this earth...

In Which We Celebrate the Queen of Crime's Birthday

Dame Agatha Christie at her typewriter
(15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976)

This is Dame Agatha Christie's birthday. Today, her cake would have to be large enough to hold 123 candles.

If you are a fan of this mystery writer, as I am, you will never run out of things to read as she penned almost 70 books, over 100 short stories, as well as plays - those with original plots as well as those adapted from her novels.

I saw her play The Mousetrap at St Martin's Theatre in London twice - once in 1982 and again in 2002. I was just as surprised upon the revelation of the murderer the first time as I was twenty years later! It is the longest running play ever. It had its 25,000th performance last November and is still going. I do remember that the audience is asked to keep the ending a secret - my lips are sealed. 

There is much to be learned about this beloved author online and I will let you do your own research if you are so inclined. To get you started though, here is a link to a short video about her courtesy of Biography.com.

Agatha Christie, An Autobiography was published in 1977, the year after her death. I have added it to my TBR list even though it is some 600 pages long! I am currently reading her memoir, Come, Tell Me How You Live, which is a very amusing tale of her experiences with her husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in the Middle East. 

Ms. Christie's former home in Devon is open to the public and contains many of her family pieces. It would be a wonderful place to visit. For a glimpse, here is a link to the National Trust's page featuring Greenway Estate.

For tonight, to celebrate her birthday, I rented the DVD The Murder on the Links with David Suchet as the dapper M. Hercule Poirot (my favorite of her detectives). I recently read the book and wrote about it here. It will be fun to watch the story unfold on screen. As I remember, the plot has many twists and turns. Just what this mystery writer is famous for.

How will you celebrate Dame Agatha Christie's birthday?

Do You Think I Shall Have Room for All These?

An amusing look by Agatha Christie on packing with her husband Max for their first archaeological journey together in Come, Tell Me How You Live:

Packing!

There are several schools of thought as to packing. There are the people who begin packing at anything from a week or a fortnight beforehand. There are the people who throw a few things together half an hour before departure. There are the careful packers, insatiable for tissue paper! There are those who scorn tissue paper and just throw the things in and hope for the best! There are the packers who leave practically everything that they want behind! And there are the packers who take immense quantities of things that they will never need!

One thing can safely be said about an archaeological packing. It consists mainly of books. What books to take, what books can be taken, what books there are room for, what books can (with agony!) be left behind. I am firmly convinced that all 

archaeologists pack in the following manner: They decide on the maximum number of suitcases that a long suffering Wagon Lit Company will permit them to take. They then fill these suitcases to the brim with books. They then, reluctantly, take out a few books, and fill in the space thus obtained with shirt, pyjamas, socks, etc. 

Looking into Max's room, I am under the impression that the whole cubic space is filled with books! Through a chink in the books I catch sight of Max's worried face.

'Do you think,' he asks, 'that I shall have room for all these?'

The answer is so obviously in the negative that it seems sheer cruelty to say it.

In Which, Thank Heavens, You Can't Tell a Book By Its Cover

Agatha Christie in the Middle East
Photo source: The British Museum

In preparation for my research paper on Ladies in the Field, female archaeologists of the Victorian era (here), I began reading Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie.

It was published in 1946 and recounts the adventures with her husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in Syria and Iraq in the 1930s.

Although I have read many of Christie's mysteries, my knowledge of her life is spotty at best, so I am getting to know her a bit.

I am surprised at how funny the writing is and am so enjoying it. Ms. Christie, although not formally educated in archaeology, nevertheless is fascinated with the findings at the digs - pots, jewelry, and sometimes bones - long buried in the sand. She helps out by cleaning pieces in between murdering characters on the page at her typewriter.

It is written more in the form of a journal and the immediacy of that style is very appealing. There is more about the people and the culture and the mishaps than any sort of long-ago history of the places they stay. It is quite an eye-opening account into the area and I can't imagine putting myself in the middle of the desert with its many hardships - which she seems to take very well...most of the time. She does reach her limit with mice, though.

My big complaint is that the physical book is absolute junk. The text looks as if the publisher (William Morrow) simply photocopied the pages in an original edition and printed them. The words are fuzzy on the page. There are some black and white photographs included and they are pretty much just a blur. Not at all helpful.

The paper itself is so soft and woody that my pencil pushes through it when I underline or mark any place names or particular descriptions for my research. (That is another thing - I hate marking in books but I see no way around it this time!)

The cover is of that smooshy sort - soft and flimsy. It is creepy to hold it feels so, well, smooshy.

I am very disappointed in the quality of the edition. The cost of the book should have been four dollars instead of fourteen!

Shame on you William Morrow.

In Which I Make Preparations to Dig

Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie
Archeaologists

I belong to a local organization - the Monday Afternoon Club - which has as its mission "the encouragement of culture among women". It was founded in 1887. It meets in a community room at the library from October to April.  We begin the year with a very civilized tea complete with silver tea service at a member's home and end each year with a luncheon.  

In between those two social events, each Monday afternoon a member presents a research paper on a subject in one of three broad categories chosen by the 35 members the previous year. We have a short business meeting, one member presents Current Events - highlights from the headlines of the preceding week - and then the week's paper is given. 

It is all very enlightening.

Which leads me to tell you that this year I will be giving a paper in the category of "Unearthing History". My subject will be the Middle Eastern archaeological adventures of Dame Agatha Christie. I started nosing about for stories on female archaeologists in general and discovered that Ms. Christie wrote what she called 'an archaeological memoir' - a tale first published in 1946 of her experiences investigating ancient, dusty ruins with her husband Max Mallowan. Some of her most delightful mysteries take place in or around those foreign excavations.

I have taken the title of my paper from the title of her book: Come, Tell Me How You Live.

The book arrived yesterday along with another volume of stories of seven female archaeologists by Amanda Adams entitled Ladies of the Field (2010). It takes a look at Victorian ladies - including Ms. Christie - who gathered up their skirts and went off to seek adventures far from home. 

So I will be spending the next month or two reading and researching these brave ladies and then comes the most fun - writing the paper. 

This will be my fifth presentation to the club and although it causes quite a bit of nail-biting, hair-tearing, and heavy sighing, in the end it always proves to be an enriching experience and one that I look forward to. I do think it will be quite fun Unearthing History.