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Murder on the Orient Express

I’ve long been a fan of Hercule Poirot, and it was so nice to seen him again. I’d read a short story collection of all his small adventures, and I liked how detailed this novel was and its length compared with the brevity of the short stories I was used to with M. Poirot. I’m pretty sure ‘M.’ stands for Monsieur, not Mister, because Poirot has always been Christie’s palate of exploring French language and culture. Did she herself know French? She must’ve known the basics, for I saw entire phrases in it in the dialogue between characters and numerous French titles like ‘Madame de Princesse’ which I deduced as just a respectable form to address a princess. I’m sorry, but my French isn’t that good yet. I do hope to be fluent soon, God-willing.

I’d read the book because it was mentioned in the new Netflix series The Residence where they discussed it near the ending. So, yes, it’d been spoiled; nonetheless, I very much enjoyed it. I loved the setting, the eccentricity of the entire cast of suspects, the allies in the investigation (M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine) with all their flaws, the setting being an oriental first-class/second-class train being stuck in the middle of nowhere because of the relentless snowy weather, the nature of the crime, and the motives behind it all. And of course, it had Hercule Poirot. My favorite detective. I never considered myself a connoisseur of detective fiction till I met M. Poirot (sorry to say, but I found Doyle’s Sherlock to be a tad dry). It was just a wonderful read. And it started off fiction very nicely this year!

I do consider myself a literary reader, and this certainly was a literary novel. The mystery was well-thought of and all the characters felt human and real, like actual breathing bags of flesh and blood. I loved the ending as well, and how sympathetic M. Poirot was to the suspects. He’s not just a great detective, but an entertaining and morally-responsible fictional human character as well.

The setting certainly helped to alleviate the mystery tone of the entire novel. It was a silent background, and made the perfect place for the murder of a well-to-do man; ah, a snowdrift luxury passenger train stuck in the middle of Yugoslavia (a former single republic that dissolved into many different states due to disputes between the numerous ethnic groups that comprised the population1)

I’d finished the novel within three nights. Once read, it must be finished. It was quite short, however, and divided into many short chapters, and the language wasn’t too archaic to read (ahem, unlike Doyle’s Sherlock short stories). This honestly just felt like a long short story, essentially a novella, of Hercule Poirot, since I was used to his short stories; I’d read the whole collection. I remember starting at The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I hope to continue my M. Poirot fascination by reading all his featured stories, and I mean all of them, before I die.

name & author: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christe rating: ★★★★ line: A slow-burn with an unexpected ending full of eccentric characters, livid words, and a captivating setting featuring my favorite detective ever. finished: on January 30th

  1. Got it from this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia ↩