Agatha Christie's Literature Of Convalescence

This episode of The Allusionist is about the literature of convalescence. The show’s host asked people what they read to make themselves feel better. From the hundreds of answers that she received, a pattern emerged: people chose escapist stories (JRR Tolkien, Jane Austen), things they read in their childhoods, Harry Potter (“Wizard problems, not real life problems!”) and Agatha Christie. The question is: why would crime stories make us feel better?

Guy Cuthbertson, an academic who works on early 20th century history and literature, and Jane Gregory, a clinical psychologist working with obsessive compulsive disorder, make sense of this mystery. Cuthbertson offers social and political context to Christie’s work and describes Britain as a nation in recovery after WWI. Agatha Christie’s novels offered “visions of domestic comfort” and avoided “traditional ideas of heroism and masculinity, which are where the hero has to often prove themselves through acts of killing and violence themselves.” There’s no straightforward violence in her works, the detective finds clues and meets with suspects in country houses or on cruise ships.

“And obviously the important thing about detective fiction is that at the end of the story we feel that the problem has been solved and that we can go back to a calm and happy society. There is that sense of reassurance, that, yes, there was this period of evil, this period of horrible experience, but now we're over it and we can recover.” 

Jane Gregory prescribes novel-reading to patients with obsessive compulsory disorder (OCD) to keep ruminations away and replace them with something absorbing. Gregory, too, says that the standard shape of the detective story is in itself soothing, because people get to experience a beginning, a conflict and a resolution.

“Now, we’re not saying that reading novels is a miracle cure. Don’t prescribe yourself a book in place of seeking professional medical guidance. But as a supplement, why not?”