Meet the detective: she heaves herself out of the car, scattering apple cores and hairpins, chattering volubly about the plausibility of a plot point she just worked out. She’s a bestselling writer and she has the key detail written down—it’s just in an address book from eleven years ago.
Alas, Agatha Christie’s indelible character Ariadne Oliver never actually gets to be the detective. She’s the sidekick, the foil, the mouthpiece for Christie’s own mistakes and second thoughts. She may have intuitions and they may be correct, but she’s never the hero, the real detective. The real detective is rational. The real detective doesn’t let their imagination take control.
In creating Mrs. Oliver as a comic figure, and in giving her very little to do, Christie did an injustice to her own achievement. (It’s easy to see injustices when rereading Christie novels, with the occasional racist aside reminding us that the books were written from the heart of Empire.) Mrs. Oliver is a barely disguised version of Christie herself (scatty, excessively creative, exasperated by the products of her own imagination), and this is proof of her potential greatness as a detective — because, of course, Mrs. Oliver’s model and creator is the bestselling mystery writer of all time.
Ariadne Oliver appeared in only eight books, mostly paired with Hercule Poirot, whose obsessive neatness and tidy mind only exaggerate Ariadne’s lack of those same qualities. In her first appearance in a novel, Cards on the Table (1936), she is an absolute caricature of a woman and of a detective novelist, comically referencing her infallible intuition and tendentiously declaring that things would be different if a woman ran Scotland Yard. She intuits the murderer’s identity at the beginning of the book and, though she doubts her gut and changes her mind several times, her initial instinct is absolutely correct.
Throughout the books, Ariadne is often portrayed as stereotypically feminine and unreliable. In fact, her one feminine vanity is played for laughs: She has piles of wild grey hair that she can’t help but arrange and rearrange according to her whims. The elaborately architected hairstyles that don’t suit her always come down with an avalanche of hairpins. Her house is similarly ridiculous: Her parlor is wallpapered with gigantic tropical birds that make Poirot shudder but give Ariadne ideas. Later, she replaces the birds with huge cherries, which nobody thinks is a good change.
Despite this, she is never portrayed as brainless, just rather muddled. “Mrs Oliver was a singularly muddle-headed woman,” says Poirot, “and how she managed somehow or other to turn out coherent detective stories was beyond him, and yet, for all her muddle-headedness she often surprised him by her sudden perception of truth.” Mrs. Oliver understands that people are moved by emotions, hunches, things they can’t quite articulate. Her own hunches about people are rarely wrong. It’s when she tries to justify and rationalize her hunches that she gets in trouble.
Mrs. Oliver is also a convenient mouthpiece for Christie’s expressions of frustration over her own creative process and success. In Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1953), Mrs. Oliver’s second appearance, she looks through a rack of her own books at a shop:
‘The Affair of the Second Goldfish,’ she mused, ‘That’s quite a good one. The Cat It Was Who Died—that’s where I made a blowpipe a foot long and it’s really six feet. Ridiculous that a blowpipe should be that size, but someone wrote from a Museum to tell me so. Sometimes I think there are people who only read books in hopes of finding mistakes in them.’
This is one of Christie’s own famous mistakes, from Death in the Air (1935). Ariadne goes on:
‘What’s the other one of them? Oh! Death of a Debutante—that’s frightful tripe! I made sulphonal soluble in water and it isn’t, and the whole thing is wildly impossible from start to finish. At least eight people die before Sven Hjerson gets his brainwave.’
Besides the implausibility of some of her plots and the ways her readers have responded, Ariadne also complains about another product of her imagination, her detective. Like Poirot, Sven Hjerson is a foreign detective with stereotyped mannerisms that she now must continue because of her readers:
‘How do I know why I ever thought of the revolting man? I must have been mad! Why a Finn when I know nothing about Finland? Why a vegetarian? Why all the idiotic mannerisms he’s got? These things just happen. You try something—and people seem to like it, and then you go on—and before you know it, you’ve got someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life. And people even write and say how fond you must be of him. Fond? If I ever met that bony gangling vegetable eating Finn in real life, I’d do a better murder than any I’ve ever invented.’
Toward the end of her career, this was indeed Christie’s feeling toward Poirot. “Hercule Poirot, my Belgian invention,” said Christie in her autobiography, “was hanging round my neck, firmly attached as the old man of the sea…I ought to have abandoned him after the first three or four books”.
Agatha Christie
But all this is less revealing than Ariadne’s discussions of her own unruly, fecund imagination. “’It is never difficult to think of things,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘The trouble is you think of too many, and then it all becomes too complicated, so you have to relinquish some of them, and that is rather agony.’”
Christie was also irrepressibly creative. “Plots come to me at such odd moments,” she confessed in her autobiography, “when I am walking along a street, or examining a hat shop with particular interest, suddenly a splendid idea comes into my head, ‘Now that would be a neat way of covering up the crime so that nobody would see the point.’” She famously wrote her ideas in piles of mixed-up notebooks:
I jot down my splendid idea in an exercise book. So far so good–but what I invariably do is lose the exercise book….[W]hen looking vaguely through a pile of old notebooks, [I] find something scribbled down as: Possible plot–do it yourself–Girl and not really sister–August--with a kind of sketch of a plot. What it’s all about I can’t remember now: but it often stimulates me, if not to write that identical plot at least to write something else.
Similarly, words and ideas pour out of Ariadne. On one drive, she can develop ten new plots. When the plots go wrong Ariadne is devastated — as in Dead Man’s Folly (1956), in which she develops a “murder hunt” for a party that ends up with a dead guest. (The incomprehensible plot of the murder hunt resonates with the overstuffed plot of the novel.)
At least once, intuition was a site of betrayal for Mrs. Oliver. In Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, she sits in the car while a murder is committed in the house nearby. “’I am afraid,” said Poirot, ‘that your women’s intuition was taking a day off…’” In the rest of her appearances, however, Mrs. Oliver either intuits the solution correctly, leads Poirot or the protagonist to the correct solution, or is simply not given a chance to speculate on the solution, as in Halloween Party (1969).
It’s not all deathly serious. Christie has a sense of humor about herself, and so does Mrs. Oliver. She knows she is ridiculous and she appreciates that it makes her lots of money.“My books bring me in quite enough money,” says Ariadne in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, “— that is to say the bloodsuckers take most of it, and if I made more, they’d take more, so I don’t overstrain myself.”
For Ariadne, it’s very comfortable to have a lot of money–it keeps her in apples and hairstyles and interior decorations–but the point is the writing. In general, Ariadne says she’s lucky:
She was not unduly modest. She thought the detective stories she wrote were quite good of their kind….But there was no reason, far as she could see, to make anyone think she was a noble woman. She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read. Wonderful luck that was, Mrs. Oliver said to herself.
Luck is like intuition: acknowledging that you have it sometimes requires you to dismiss your own work. And this is the major problem with Ariadne as a character: creativity, sensitivity to others’ emotions, an abundance of ideas, different ways of knowing things—these are all undervalued qualities, and it is likely Christie did not fully value them in herself. No kind of knowledge is essentially gendered, of course, but that is how intuition and this particular type of fertile creativity was constructed in the context of many Christie novels (“’Men are so slow,” said Mrs Oliver disparagingly. ‘I’ll tell you who did it….Give me a day or two to look round, and I’ll spot the murderer. A woman’s intuition, that’s what you need’”). This unintended, internalized misogyny is why Mrs. Oliver is a comic figure in the novels, not an example of a successful businesswoman.
In my hypothetical Agatha Christie opera, Poirot, Miss Marple, and Ariadne Oliver would band together to solve the infamous mystery of what exactly happened to Agatha when she disappeared for eleven days in 1926 and was found at the Swan Hotel in Harrogate under an assumed name. Poirot would marshal the facts (Aria: The Little Grey Cells), Marple would remember a fishmonger in the village who did a somewhat similar thing (duet with the police detective, a baritone), but Mrs. Oliver would know, deeply know, immediately and intuitively, what happened. (Aria: Intuition). Would anyone believe her?
I love Ariadne Oliver and I love this and I think you’re marvellous for having written it.
I once wrote a very long poem about what happened to Agatha Christie when she disappeared, and I think it’s the best thing I have ever done.
I think I need to see this poem.
For science.
Oh, would you share that poem, please?
Thank you!!! I love Ariadne and her apple cores and her hairstyles. I’m always happy when she shows up in a Poirot.
I have always loved Ariadne Oliver, both in the Poirot books and in BBC adaptations and have often felt (felt? that feminine intuition again!) what is articulated so well in this article: that she is both a stand-in for and a joke at Christie’s own expense. Really great piece, I think the idea of forms of gendered knowledge in relation to the author’s internalised misogyny, is really rich and interesting. It’s also a very timely article, what with the final season of Poirot (with David Suchet in the role) just having been uploaded to Netflix. Good stuff! Thank you.
YES. I could never tell how much of Ariadne was self-deprecation vs. internalized misogyny. And it always made me a bit sad when reading her. But, that being said, the newer film adaptations with Zoë Wanamaker are simply brilliant. She rides that line so we’re always laughing with her, not at her.
I think it’s a careful mix of both, in that Agatha Christie knew exactly what people’s reaction was to a successful female crime writer. So Ariadne is her chance to say all of those things herself, in the context of a narrative and character set which she herself controls.
I’ve been on a Christie rereading tear lately (why are all the Tommy and Tuppence mysteries so badly plotted when they are clearly the superior chracters?), but it’s come close to being ruined for me several times lately by the misogyny and racism, particularly (lately) the misogyny (because I wasn’t as conscious of it the first time through). Kind of disturbed by how much of this I must have internalized when I started reading these books at age 9 or 10.
The absolute worst was Taken At The Flood (also published as There Is a Tide), which was very good but ends with a otherwise good female character deciding she loves a man LITERALLY AS HE IS CHOKING HER AND HE DOESN’T STOP HIMSELF EITHER, HE HAS TO BE STOPPED BY HERCULE POIROT AND THIS IS A HAPPY ENDING
I may take a Christie break after this. What scratches the itch with a little less misogyny and Empire? (I love Sayers, and have read Elizabeth Peters’ and Laurie R. King’s entire oeuvres.)
related, I could write an entire listicle of “things I suspected were racial slurs while reading Christie and had to google and yep they are”
my google search history is probably thinking horrible things about me
Have you read Jacqueline Tey? I quite enjoyed my first-time read of her oeuvre, though it is still period, but not quite as objectionable as Christie, I believe.
I can tell you I’d about murder someone for that cardigan Zoë Wanamaker’s wearing in the promo photo.
Zoe Wanamaker’s portrayal of Mrs. Oliver brings me so much joy. Everything about her is a delight, and I want to be her, right down to the way she gets her hair into the cutest styles held up with a single pencil.
I sometimes find myself rewatching the episodes with her in them more than I do the episodes with the “Big Four” of Poirot and his entourage, which is practically sacrilege, I’m sure. Maybe it comes down to the fact that the Ariadne episodes come so much later in the canon, and have more cinematic production values than the early ones with Hastings, which were almost Jeeves & Wooster-ian in everything from the film colors to the opening credit typeface, which is the absolute peak of Clive Exton-ness.
Now you’re making me curious to check out these later series runs. I kind of wandered off from Poirot after the first few rounds. (Gods, they’ve been making those things for HOW LONG NOW?)
Most of the later ones are really great. I forget the details, but somewhere in the last several seasons the production team changed and breathed a lot of new life into the series, esp. re style. David Suchet’s book “Poirot and Me” talks about how many times the series paused and came back over its 25 years, and how each season came to be picked up, production/script/direction choices, etc. It’s so interesting!
As of a couple years ago they official shot all but one of Christie’s Poirot stories, which was deemed “unfilmable.”
WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT
which poirot is unfilmable
A really short story called The Lemesurier Inheritance. I re-read it recently and while I think it would have taken a bit of creativity, it definitely could’ve been one of those 50 min episodes, although I suppose I appreciate them refraining. I was really disappointed by The Labours of Hercules, because I really love those little stories and they changed it so much to make an episode.
OMG thank you. We just watched The Labours and while the film version was great, it was *not* my wonderful series of Poirot being smug and solving little crimes and making jokes about being Hercules.
Interesting, I’ve never heard of Lemesurier Inheritance!
The Labours of Hercules was… odd, and I say that as someone who actually *liked* the tonal changes they made to the most recent Orient Express. So many people hated it, I was surprised! It fit in with the whole feeling that the show/his life were charging inevitably and frantically toward an ending. It’s like, as the show has changed from being those hilarious little comedies with Hastings, they’ve transitioned into darker and more expansive territory, and he was growing more reflective and his thoughts were shifting about being so resolutely black and white toward the outcome of justice.
Yes I thought Orient Express was great! Definitely get Suchet’s book; he talks a lot about his choices for Poirot in general (which include a list of scores of little points gleaned from Christie’s works), but specifically for that film and how he fought for it. Gave me a real appreciation of what they were doing.
Labours of Hercules — no comment. None at all.
I also liked it. I think Labours felt a bit more like a real closing than Curtain did, in tone at least. Very lonely and a bit like if Poirot was in purgatory.
I would kickstart the hell out of that opera, just saying.
SECONDED. And would promote the hell out of it to like-minded friends. Let’s make this happen!
I am sadly not familiar with Ariadne Oliver (I never really got into Christie? Which is probably silly when I love Sayers and Tey and Ngaio Marsh, but maybe I just tried reading her at the wrong time in my life), but it occurs to me someone* could write a fascinating paper comparing her and Harriet Vane as mystery writers/sidekicks.
*Not me, so feel free to snaffle the idea if it appeals!
I actually just watched my first Christie featuring Ariadne yesterday! I loved her right away, and felt immediately that she was a stand in of sorts for Christie herself.
I’m coming to Christie rather embarrassingly late. I admit I prefer watching the BBC adaptations rather than reading the books themselves. I adore Sayers and wish she could get the proper BBC treatment as well!
There were a few decentish adaptations: http://www.amazon.com/Dorothy-L-Sayers-Mysteries-… but the production values are very bad. Duchess of Duke Street bad.
YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH ABOUT DUCHESS OF DUKE STREET
Ariadne was always the most fun (I’ve only seen the BBC adaptions with Zoe Wanamaker) and I would watch the hell out of a series of her as the main detective
I love her as well – I haven’t seen the Wanamaker ones though, must hunt them down! I always thought of her as being quite at one with herself, recognising both her good and bad points, so bneing realistic about who she is and what she can and can’t do, rather than it being internalised misogyny or self-deprecation. She’s not shy about talking about what she’s good at.
If you’re in the US, the every ep of the series is on Netflix now! Just as of a couple weeks ago they released the final season.
I am not, but i will keep an eye out for it coming to the UK one.
“the occasional racist aside reminding us that the books were written from the heart of Empire”
dude I love some of Agatha’s work but she was like the grandmaster flash of unthinking white supremacism. “occasional racist aside” doesn’t really capture it.
Yeah, sometimes I have to put down a book because of the racism (and can we talk about the homophobia in Nemesis?).
I've been on a Christie rereading tear lately (why are all the Tommy and Tuppence mysteries so badly plotted when they are clearly the superior chracters?), but it's come close to being ruined for me several times lately by the misogyny and racism, particularly (lately) the misogyny (because I wasn't as conscious of it the first time through). Kind of disturbed by how much of this I must have internalized when I started reading these books at age 9 or 10.
The absolute worst was Taken At The Flood (also published as There Is a Tide), which was very good but ends with a otherwise good female character deciding she loves a man LITERALLY AS HE IS CHOKING HER AND HE DOESN'T STOP HIMSELF EITHER, HE HAS TO BE STOPPED BY HERCULE POIROT AND THIS IS A HAPPY ENDING
I may take a Christie break after this. What scratches the itch with a little less misogyny and Empire? (I love Sayers, and have read Elizabeth Peters' and Laurie R. King's entire oeuvres.)
related, I could write an entire listicle of "things I suspected were racial slurs while reading Christie and had to google and yep they are"
my google search history is probably thinking horrible things about me
I know this is probably the most minor of quibbles, but I’ve always found it ever-so-slightly worrying that when choosing the “in-universe” version of Hercule Poirot for Mrs. Oliver to write about, Christie then committed the howler of naming the Finnish character like she did. I mean, Hercule Poirot at least sounds like a possible name in a French-speaking country, whereas Sven Hjerson has nothing to do with the Finnish language or culture. Oh well, I know I’m being pedantic, but it makes me sad as a Finnish person.
My way of coping with this (I grew up in a part of the midwest that is overwhelmingly populated by people of Finnish heritage, and with a 100% Finnish stepfamily) is to choose to believe that Sven is a finlandssvenska, as niche of a choice as that would be for Oliver, and then put it out of my mind. >.<
It could also be part of the joke, I guess? That Christie/Oliver knew so little about what she was doing creating Sven that his name wasn’t even Finnish? But it seems sadly more likely that it’s just a kneejerk “Finland is near Scandinavia” mistake.
I love Ariadne Oliver, and I ADORE how she is portrayed by the actress who plays her in the TV series. I want to be her when I grow up. But maybe more boastful. (I am a soprano, after all)
I love Ariadne Oliver, and I ADORE how she is portrayed by the actress who plays her in the TV series. I want to be her when I grow up. But maybe more boastful. (I am a soprano, after all)
Yeah, sometimes I have to put down a book because of the racism (and can we talk about the homophobia in Nemesis?).