It would only be thought that some pious Moslem (sic) had painted it in luminous paint on his vehicle.’”Ģ) “It was the workmen that made me laugh.
‘This type’ was a particularly wild-looking Berber… This type here, he will tell you about it.’ ‘Besides - I rather think we’ve all got a bit of the savage in us - if we can think up a good excuse for letting it rip.’”ģ) “‘The hand of Fatma has been seen as you foretold. ‘There are different kinds of civilization…’ said Bob vaguely. She ran her fingers through her dark, tightly curling hair.”Ĥ) Prince Ali Yusuf of Rabat: “‘But we are not savages! We are civilized nowadays.’ Honoré girl was a magnificent creature with a torso of black marble such as a sculptor would have enjoyed. And, as you say, our race does not forget.’”ĥ) “Victoria Johnson rolled over and sat up in bed. There was a silence, and then the old man drew himself up proudly. ‘It was not as a Greek I meant,’ said Poirot. ‘A Greek?’ murmured Papopolous, with an ironical smile. ‘And how he picked out the sheep’s eye and gave it to you, and Uncle Bob nudged you not to make a fuss and to eat it?’”Ħ) “‘Seventeen years is a long time,’ said Poirot thoughtfully, ‘but I believe that I am right in saying, Monsieur, that your race does not forget.’ ‘D’you remember that sheik’s feast we went to?’ said Jennifer.
So quiet as to make one uneasy.”Ĩ) “Zeropoulos spread out a pair of Oriental hands.”ħ) “‘African chiefs have the most polished manners,’ said her father, who had recently returned from a short business trip to Ghana. Now, observing her more closely, he noticed the high cheekbones, the dense blue-black of the hair, and an occasional very slight movement of the hands that was distinctly foreign. She should have been on a balcony, a rose between her lips, a piece of black lace draping her proud head, and there should have been dust and heat and the smell of blood - the smell of the bull-ring - in the air.”ĩ) “Until she spoke he had not realized that she was not English. The sad proud eyes of the South… It was all wrong that this girl should be sitting in this train among these dull drab looking people - all wrong that she should be going into the dreary midlands of England. Black hair, rich creamy pallor - eyes with the depth and darkness of night in them. Rereading Christie has been pleasurable - even though I’ve read them before, I can still never predict those twisty mysteries - but now I can’t help but notice her underlying prejudice, and fall out every time.Īnd so I give you, Agatha Christie’s Top Ten Orientalist Moments, selected by me:ġ0) “This girl was different. Cristina Odone apparently had a similar revelation. How did I overlook this before? My childish eye managed to gloss over the many examples and shades of orientalism and racism that my adult postcolonial self simply cannot. But then there is the current of bigotry throughout almost all of her other work. There are the obvious things (for example, her famous novel Ten Little Indians was originally published as Ten Little Niggers). Recently, I have worked my way back through my (embarrassingly complete) Christie collection, and Ohmygod guess what? Agatha Christie was a huge racist! I sort of knew this already. I devoured pretty much everything she wrote. Something about her quiet, wry setups, the Edwardian charm of country houses and dressing for dinner, secretive dramatis personae, well-plotted threads and twisty revelations - were very appealing, especially because the milieu was so different from my own. When we immigrated to the States, some of my literary tastes changed, but I always preferred Christie to her transatlantic counterparts. Wodehouse, the Victorian stalwarts, and - of course - the grande dame of British mystery, Agatha Christie. Like most other Anglo-Colonial Indian kids, I grew up on bread and butter English authors: Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, P.G.
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