Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Most of the adults in today’s world have developed on-screen reading habits, and children are the real sufferers. Many of them do not even know what a book in print means and how worthy it is.
They simply click google and get the information they want, but once they begin to leaf through the printed pages of a volume of their interest, they will know what reading a book is all about. So, if some of you wish to develop reading habits – not the on-screen ones as you are already addicted to it – you pick up a novel by Agatha Christie.
If it is twilight and if the sky is cloudy, sit beside your window. Don’t forget to keep a cup of hot coffee to sip in the midst of reading, and see how it works. Once you begin to sift through the pages of a volume, like And Then There Were None, you will soon get into stupor. You may even forget to sip the coffee you so fondly made and the dear mobile phone that you have never parted with, because you are just keen to know how the drama ends.
The landscape of an isolated island off the Devon Coast will dwell in your mind so much that you may even close your eyes to your mom’s call for dinner. The novel is the world’s best-selling murder mystery, and over 100 million copies of this book were sold. The golden era of writing detective fiction was the early 20th century. There were four writers who dominated the genre – Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers; and, of course, Agatha Christie who was the world’s best-selling novelist and most translated author.
Advantages of reading Christie
There are many pluses of reading the novels of Agatha Christie. You may begin a trip into her world a little slowly. The voyage makes you feel as if you had a sip of cup of hot coffee that you cannot gulp down at one go. Nor would you love to do it. When you complete the first ten pages of any of her novels, you find the mystery deepen. You want to move faster. Yet by the time such a thought strikes you, you have already fallen into Christie’s trap. Christie’s works are so lucid that all non-native English speakers can understand them.
In India, many schools suggest students to read her works to enrich their vocabulary and for better comprehension of the English sentence structures. BBC writes: Her works are seen as so easy to read, she’s a favourite author of people learning English. Intricacy is embedded in the plots of her novels consisting of diverse characters. She taught non-native English speakers how to use common words to scribble an out-of-the ordinary sentence.
They can help you improve your writing skill. Only an extra-ordinary mind can convert a nursery rhyme – Ten Little Soldier Boys composed by Frank Green in 1869 – into a master murder mystery that has thrilled people of all ages across the world. The deaths of her characters in the novel point to the circumstances mentioned in the rhyme.
The last line of the novel – And Then There Were None – has been used to title the book. Each line in the first chapter of the novel is replete with mystery. Christie wrote: “In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times.” We know what role Justice Wargrave plays in the novel only at the end. In his suicide note, Justice Wargrave, said, “Times of death cannot be stated with any accuracy by the time our bodies are examined.”
A Bollywood blockbuster, Gum Naam, was based on the novel.
On the train or in the train?
'The Murder on Orient Express' dispels all doubts over whether you should use ‘on the train’ or ‘in the train.’ It is of course ‘on the train’ as the title of the novel suggests. Then she tells you how to use the indefinite article: “It consisted of a kitchen and dining-car, a sleeping car and two local coaches.” As the dining-car is part of the kitchen, she did not use ‘a kitchen and a dining-car’ but she brought the indefinite article again – ‘a sleeping car.’ As the number also plays the role of an adjective, she used ‘and two local coaches.’ To understand such intricacies of the English language, you should have a critical eye. So, start reading Agatha Christie.
