Ain't Nobody with Sleuths Like Us: Agatha Christie vs. Ian Fleming

In my last blog post I compared Agatha Christie's 1954 espionage novel of sorts, Destination Unknown, somewhat unfavorably, in terms of its level of sheer visceral excitement, to the contemporary thrillers by Ian Fleming about British secret service agent James Bond. Agatha Christie herself expressed some thoughts on the Bond novels in a 1966 interview.

Christie first admitted that the charms of her great Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot, had worn a bit thin on her after nearly half a century spent with him:

"a shrewd knowledge of human nature"
Christie's Hercule Poirot

I invented Poirot as a Sherlock Holmesian kind of thing.  I'm a little tired of him now, although a new Poirot, Third Girl, comes out in London next month.  I'm frankly surprised he's lasted so long in popularity.  He's not the kind of private eye you'd hire today, is he?  Not if you wanted a man to go out and get tough with people.

Interjected the interviewer, "Like James Bond?"

"I've read some of those," a "smiling" Christie answered.  "They're fun and they have that gadget appeal to youngsters...."

Christie went on to note, however, that she personally preferred reading the crime fiction of Georges Simenon ("those characters") and Elizabeth Daly ("scholarly writing, real people and plots arising from real-life situations").

licensed to kill
Fleming's James Bond

A year earlier, in 1965, a literary critic had speculated, concerning the question of the popular durability of the recently deceased Ian Fleming versus that of the still very much alive and kicking Christie, that the latter had the advantage because her crime fighters were not impossible superheros but rather ordinary humans endowed with "shrewd knowledge of human nature."

Regarding the Bond saga, the critic opined:

Gadgetry will date a story faster than slang, and, unfortunately, in 25 years James Bond will seem as dated as the mad-scientist movies of the 1930's do to us today....I do not mean to derogate Mr. Fleming, and I have seen every one of the Bond movies to date, but they really contain very little about human nature in them.  The characters...bear little relation to reality.

A half-century later, Anthony Horowitz has published a new authorized Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, and Spectre, the twenty-fourth Bond film, will open around the world in November, the previous Bond film Skyfall, having earned over 1.1 billion dollars worldwide, making it the most popular Bond film, I believe, since the great heyday of the franchise back in the Sixties.

On the other hand, Sophie Hannah's authorized Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, was published a year ago (admittedly not to resounding huzzahs from yours truly); and this year British television has already seen a new television series based (purportedly) on Christie's early Tommy and Tuppence tales and a three-part television film adaptation of her bestselling novel, And Then There Were None, will air in December 2015/January 2016.

Looks to me like both authors (and their series characters) are holding on with the public rather well!

One more Christie post later today, as Christie Commemorative Week comes to a close at The Passing Tramp.