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《東方快車謀殺案》《尼羅河上的慘案》 環環相扣的線索和娓娓道來的推理， 這就是推理女王阿加莎的作品。
推理女王曾經消失過11天， 傳記作家Lucy Worsley也展開自己的“推理之旅”， 告訴你阿加莎在那11天到底去了哪里。 這是一個女人關于另一個女人的故事。 本文來自《經濟學人》的書評。 A life of crime犯罪人生Lucy Worsley takes on the mystery of Agatha ChristieLucy Worsley 向你揭開神秘的阿加莎·克里斯蒂At the heart of her biography is the novelist’s 11-day disappearance in 1926 本傳記的核心是阿加莎1926年消失的11天
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman. By Lucy Worsley.
《阿加莎·克里斯蒂：一個神秘的女人》作者Lucy Worsley 1. On Friday December 3rd 1926 Agatha Christie left her husband and young daughter and went missing for 11 days. Using detective work befitting one of Christie’s novels, Lucy Worsley puts this mysterious disappearance at the heart of her colourful new biography, piecing together what really happened that winter. 1926年12月3日，星期五，阿加莎·克里斯蒂離開自己的丈夫和年幼的女兒，消失了整整11天。 利用阿加莎作品中的偵探手段，Lucy Worsely把這段神秘的失蹤事件放在了其新傳記的核心位置，希望拼湊出那個冬天到底發生了什么。 2. According to Christie’s own account of those 11 days, she lost her memory after crashing her car in a half-hearted suicide attempt. But her comments on the matter were misreported by the press, inflicting lasting damage on her reputation. Dismissive of her testimony as a female writer, the papers preferred the more salacious story that she had framed her adulterous husband for murder. 據阿加莎自己對那11天的敘述，她在半自殺狀態下撞上了一輛車，然后就失去了記憶。但是，她對此事件的評論卻被媒體錯誤報道，使其聲譽遭受了長期的損害。 因為女性作家的身份，阿加莎的證詞被輕視，報紙更愿意相信不光彩的故事版本，即她設計謀殺自己出軌的丈夫。 3. Ms Worsley’s version of events hews closer to Christie’s and is far more convincing. The novelist was seriously ill from a combination of depression and “dissociative fugue” (or stress-induced amnesia). The pain of her mother’s death, her husband’s infidelity and the possible loss of the family home did indeed culminate in a suicide bid, followed by a stay at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, under a false identity. Ms Worsley calls the press’s treatment of Christie at this time “the great injustice” of her life. Worsley對該事件的表述與阿加莎的很接近，因而更加令人信服。抑郁和精神渙散讓阿加莎病得很重。 母親的去世，丈夫的不忠以及可能保不住的住宅確實成了她走向自殺的催化劑。 以假名在約克郡的哈羅蓋特酒店住下后，阿加莎是打算尋短見的。Worsley認為當時媒體對阿加莎的態度“極其不公正”。 4. A more impenetrable mystery is why, when she died in 1976, her estate was worth only ￡100,000 (in today’s money, ￡550,000 or $630,000). Ms Worsley describes the drain on Christie’s finances of tax bills and the upkeep of assorted properties, but is at a loss to explain how the world’s bestselling author was consistently strapped for cash. She is on firmer ground in her poignant portrait of the complex relationship between Christie and her daughter, Rosalind, who was shipped off to boarding school and “internalised the fact that she was less impressive, less important, than her mother”. 更讓人不解的是為什么在阿加莎去世的1976年，她的財產只價值10萬英鎊（約合今天的55萬英鎊或63萬美元）。 Worsely在書中提到了阿加莎的稅務賬單以及各種財產的維修費，但對于這個世界暢銷書作家常常捉襟見肘的情況感到迷惑。 Worsley確信阿加莎和自己的女兒Rosalind之間有著復雜的關系。Rosalind被送去寄宿學校，所以，她自己認定“她沒有母親重要，也沒有母親引人注意”。 5. Family life was eccentric. Christie, a teetotaller, quaffed glasses of cream in lieu of champagne and hosted generous parties at Greenway, a house in Devon that she crammed with art and silverware. She developed an impressive ability to churn out detective fiction without her guests ever seeming to witness it. Rosalind had to compete hard for her mother’s attention, yet was among the few people who could reassure her that she was a bona fide novelist. As Ms Worsley notes, Christie suffered from a lifelong case of impostor syndrome: even in her 80s she remarked that she didn’t truly feel like an author, preferring to present herself as a regular housewife. 家庭生活不尋常。阿加莎一個禁酒主義者會用奶油代替香檳大口地喝下，并在裝滿了藝術品和銀器的位于德文郡的房子里大宴賓客。沒有任何一個客人發現阿加莎寫作偵探推理小說的能力。 Rosalind不得不努力贏得母親的注意，然而僅有少數幾個人認為她是一個真正的小說家。 正如Worsley所寫，阿加莎長期遭受“騙子綜合癥”：即使在她80多歲時，她評價自己并不是真正的作家，而更愿意把自己看作是個一般的家庭主婦。 6. But as this book ably demonstrates, the little girl born into a conventional Victorian household turned out to be anything but ordinary. She loved travelling (and went surfing in South Africa “in a pearl necklace”), had a weakness for fast cars and embraced psychology during periods of mental illness. She became a writer at a time when women of her background were expected to marry rather than work. This book concludes that she “redefined the rules for her social class and gender”. 但是這本書巧妙地向你展示，這個出生在普通維多利亞家庭的小女孩是個非比尋常的人。 她喜歡旅游（曾帶著珍珠項鏈在南非沖浪），不敢開快車，在患心理疾病時學了心理學。 在女性應該嫁人而非工作的時代背景下，她成了一名作家。這本書在最后總結道，阿加莎“重新定義了自己的社會階層和性別規則?！?/span> 7. Ms Worsley herself writes engagingly, with a smattering of racy phrases (Archie Christie, that adulterous first husband, is said to have been “incredibly hot”). She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays—making the case that, in her themes and formal innovation, Christie was much more than a writer of formulaic potboilers. Worsley用保持了原味的語句動情地寫作（Archie Christie，阿加莎出軌的第一任丈夫被描述為“非?；鹄薄保?。 對寫作主角近乎狂熱的支持以及對阿加莎作品和戲劇的深度分析，本書作者得出：就主題和創新性而言，阿加莎不是一個粗制暢銷書的炮制者。 8. In the end, though, why the “queen of crime” was so self-effacing is never quite clear. Much about this “elusive genius” appears destined to remain secret. She seems to have preferred it that way. ■ 但是，在最后，“犯罪女王”為何如此謙遜沒有給出清晰的答案。關于這個“神秘的天才”似乎注定是個迷，阿加莎似乎希望如此。 |
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