Poirot Retrospective #12: After the Funeral

 

Poirot Retrospective #12: After the Funeral

Good, not great. This might be the most "average" Poirot yet - solidly in the middle of the pack. Nothing wrong with it at all, but doesn't tower above any others either. 

This is a very late one - published in 1953, about ~75% or more of the way through the Poirot novel chronology. In this he's a semi-retired old man, and the text makes a point to call him "elderly" repeatedly. I think it's supposed to take place in the late 1940s, and there are many "after WWII, England has really gone to hell for rich people" comments made throughout. 

This is actually very interesting, because Christie's settings are almost always upper crust environs - full of the wealthy being served by a professional, dedicated, (ideally) unthinkingly loyal serving class (with tradesmen at their beck and call). 

This is the first one I've read where rich people have few-to-none remaining servants (and those who remain are very aged) and the once-wealthy complain a lot about taxes and Labour Government and socialists. I imagine these are Christie's own beliefs - she seems to say that the rigidly structured society of the '20s and '30s was a far better place. 

This leads me to a point I've noticed for some time now and wanted to comment on: Christie REALLY prefers traditional families. Husband, wife, children, servants, in that order, and that pattern should be replicated in every generation, forever. This isn't so unusual - I think conservatives in our time want essentially the same value system - but what is fascinating is that Agatha Christie punishes abnormal/atraditional family structures, and does so repeatedly. 

People who upset the natural order are almost inevitably murdered. People who engage in same-sex relationships face harsh penalties (this book has a strongly implied lesbian relationship that ... ends badly). Love triangles tolerated only if they are casual - mere dalliances - but if any serious feelings emerge, ones that might upset a nuclear family, they are handled harshly and swiftly and almost always through murder. It's quite fascinating. Another decidedly old world value system. Whose funeral is the title referring to, exactly?

OK, enough half-baked observation. The plot is simple: the eldest patriarch in a once-prominent family dies suddenly. One filterless family member at the funeral blurts out "but surely it was murder?" ... then that same filterless family member dies violently the very next day. What is going on? The family lawyer is very disturbed, and consults his old pal Poirot. 

Despite yet another "retirement," Poirot takes the case. This is yet another novel (like The Hollow) where Poirot has very little to do until a third of the way into the plot or more. But he has all his usual panache. 

I confess that I guessed the murderer wrong - in fact, I got the entire theory of the crime wrong. I will say, to Christie's credit, there ARE clues planted here and there about the actual guilty party and - more importantly - why. But they are very subtle and I will bet 99% of people are misdirected here. It's a very difficult crime to guess. In fact, I am not 100% sure Poirot could really develop his theory of the crime based on the clues here. On the other hand, as an old man whose entire LIFE was based around solving obscure murders ... why not?

There are many comments here about rich vs poor and the vagaries of modern British post-war society, which are intriguing to me (as noted above). She also very occasionally (3-4 times) makes a broader psychological statement that resonates. 

All in all - interesting, worthwhile, but not truly exceptional.