Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal.

When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Bookmarks: Reading Poirot

I and my boss have discovered that we share a passion for mystery stories. He is a huge fan of Hercule Poirot and has the entire Poirot collection. My regard for Poirot is second only to that for Sherlock Holmes. I have a small Poirot collection of 12 novels. We have agreed that we are going to exchange books. I am afraid it is going to be a one-way traffic of books. I have nothing that he does not already have. He has been lending me the novels two or three at a time for the past couple of weeks. I have already read Mrs. McGinty is Dead, Murder in the Mews, Lord Edgware Dies and the The ABC Murders. I am currently reading Appointment with Death. It is beginning to head towards its climax.
The book which had me most engrossed was, surprisingly, not a Poirot mystery but one without any detective.It was And Then There Were None. I read it over the weekend. I had asked for it even though Poirot is not in it. I had seen the movie Gumnaam a very long time ago. Someone had told me it is an adaptation of this book. I have been wanting to read it ever since. I was not disappointed. It is one of the most chilling murder mysteries I have ever read. Agatha Christie’s works usually appeal to the head and not the heart. This is an exception. I could not help sharing the helplessness and the fear of the characters as the unknown murderer selected his victims one by one. I had forgotten the movie sufficiently to be kept guessing till the end. And there was no hero to rescue the heroine in the book as was in the movie. I finished it in one sitting.

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