Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie's Belgian detective appeared in 33 novels and 65 short stories and is the only fictional character to be honoured with a front page obituary of The New York Times. The article appeared on the front page August 6, 1975. The headline read: "Hercule Poirot Is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective; Hercule Poirot, the Detective, Dies". He distinctly epitomizes the so-called Golden Age of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Belgian private detective made his first appearance in „The Mysterious Affair at Styles“ in 1916 and had his last in „Curtain“ in 1975.

He is a pensioned Belgian police detective who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1916 as a refugee of the Great War. Not taller than 1,62m, with an egg-shaped head, he had an incredible countenance. His distinct clothes, consisting of a brindled pair of trousers, a jacket, waistcoat and a pair of acute black leather shoes, must always be flawless. The gorgeous moustache, his greatest proud, is been taken care of vigilantly. Together with his cane he makes the typical effeminate French appearance that he is regularly taken for. In addition to his unfamiliar drinking habits, he prefers a barley drink every morning, he is the typical dandy. Altogether, he suits perfectly to criticise British provincialism and self-approval.

His stories are the stories of a chase. The chase of finding the truth. For him, there is nothing stranger, more interesting or more beautiful than plain truth. Therefore, he has strong moral principles and his cases are cases of the defeat of the bad and triumph of the good. In the end, justice always wins and murderers are convicted.

In the beginning, he shares a flat with his friend Captain Hastings in 14 Farraway Street. Later in the 30s, he rents a flat in Park Lane in the modern 28 Whitehaven Mansions, London, because he admires the symmetric architecture and the accurate proportions of the building. Poirot hates dirt and disorder, and favours order, method, and symmetry. He relies on his „grey cells“ and is said to be an „armchair-detective“, because he believes that crimes can be solved by thinking them through and putting the pieces together and by sitting in an armchair. Therefore, he has no trust in fingerprints or other modern methods of crime-solving. It is the psychology of murder that he is interested in. He takes his foreignness as an advantage at times, because even though he could speak proper English, he uses people‘s stereotypical thinking about foreigners to surprise them. In the end of a case, he assembles all involved persons for a reunion and, bathing in conceitedness, he suspensefully explains who he thinks is the murder and how he came to the conclusion.

In movies, he has been acted by many great actors. Starting with Austin Trevor, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov and David Suchet. Agatha Christie never saw David Suchet, who portrayed him from 1989 until 2009, but her grandson Mathew has said: „Personally, I regret very much that she never saw David Suchet. I think that visually he is much the most convincing and perhaps he manages to convey to the viewer just enough of the irritation that we always associate with the perfectionist, to be convincing!“

Hercule Poirot has his own facebook page which can be entered here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hercule-Poirot/14544356908

Sources:

http://agathachristie.com/christies-work/detectives-and-sidekicks/poirot/ (entered Jan 16, 19:10)

http://www.poirot.us/index.php (entered Jan 16, 19:10)

Ebert, Maria. Mord im Orient Express, in: Das Buch der 1000 Bücher. Werke, die die Welt bewegten. Gütersloh: Mohn Media Mohndruck GmbH, 32005.

Gripenberg, Monika. Agatha Christie. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 31999.