Wikipedia page on Miss Marple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Marple
I close my eyes and breathe-in the cool, conditioned
air around me. I see letters; crimson letters silhouetted against the closed ianthine
background. They drop and pile pell-mell on the mackled yellow carpet of
creative prompts; and from this disorder a word is born: murder. Of course,
murder it is—delicious death. And this very thought of composing an entry on
murder leads me smoothly like ballet-feet on a shinning stage to the very topic
I want to write about: M for Miss Marple.
I wonder if for those of you who are ardent aficionados
of delicious murder mysteries like me, the name of Miss Marple is accompanied
by a thrilling sensation in the system. Having read all the Miss Marple
mysteries more than once, and even imbibed the television series (starring Joan
Hickson), I feel that indeed this elderly spinster-detective is an inspiration
for women in general, and creative writers in particular. This frail, wrinkled,
wool-clad maiden armed with an astute brain has solved some of the most
convoluted mysteries that Agatha Christie could ever mother proving that
age-drooped trees are also capable of bearing fruit. Despite being branded a “nosy
pussy,” this old woman has shown time and again in all the mysteries that she
appears in that when it comes to intelligence and observation, she is above average.
I especially remember the The Thirteen
Problems where Miss Marple proves the keenest of brains wrong by solving
all the thirteen mysteries that appear in the stories. Her triumph is the triumph
of the female sex often thrown into the box containing adjectives like “weak,” “stupid,”
et cetera.
However, my most favorite Miss Marple mystery is not
the aforementioned collection of short stories, but the novel A Murder is Announced. So delicious is
the plot of A Murder is Announced and
so shrewd is Miss Marple’s acumen therein that I am convinced that this story
is unequivocally one of Agatha Christie’s masterpieces. Of course, with Agatha
Christie you can never touch the nub and say “this is her best work”— still, among
the detective novels she prolifically composed, A Murder is Announced appears as an unputdownable baffling mystery upon finishing which you will be
forced to genuflect before the crumpled, fleece-enmeshed Miss Marple and say “you
are a genius, dear lady.”
For me, Miss Marple is a living character— clever and
complex, weak and energetic, ruthless and kind— a mixture of all the human
elements that make up vivacious characters. She has come out of the pages of
the novels she domesticated and now lives in the nest of fond memories of happy
reading experiences in our mind. I reckon this is what happens to immortal
characters of fiction; overtime they adopt a life of their own independent of
the clutches of their creator. And so Miss Marple happily dwells in all of us
who live our lives trying to solve those trivial mysteries of a pedestrian
existence that are of no importance to the world; and yet, when we hit upon an imaginative
solution to those little problems that life presents before us, we cannot but
feel happy and proud of the iota of creative ability we possess.
P.S. For me Joan Hickson is the perfect Miss Marple;
who is your favorite Miss Marple on television ?
