[HN Gopher] The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)
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The strange disappearance of Mrs Agatha Christie (2022)
Author : bale
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-09-23 17:21 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk)
| ta8645 wrote:
| It is fascinating to see how much misinformation was shared to
| the public by the MSM in this story. Long before the ills of
| social media were around to blame.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yellow journalism isn't a new term, and people aren't any
| different now then they were in the past.
| [deleted]
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| The 'fugue state' seems very unlikely to me. I'd guess that
| Agatha had some plot against her husband, and then used that as
| an excuse when things didn't go as planned.
|
| What the plot was though, I have no idea. It looks like she was
| framing him for her murder, but that would involve her going
| missing permanently. Which is both a big sacrifice and very hard
| to pull off when you are Agatha Christie.
| toyg wrote:
| Imho it looks more like a "look how easy it would be for me to
| kill myself, if you don't stop seeing that little whore".
| daverol wrote:
| For those interested in Agatha's life this book is worth reading:
| https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Agatha-Christie/Lucy-...
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Huh, recently watched Lucy Worsley's series on Agatha Christie
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0d9c9v5/agatha-chris...
| skymast wrote:
| [dead]
| computator wrote:
| The headline in the Daily Mirror in the article says, "Mystery of
| Woman Novelist's Disappearance", which tells me that she was much
| less famous in 1926 than she is today. Any headline about her
| today would have used her name (just as the feature article and
| the Hacker News title did).
| dhosek wrote:
| As Doctor Who fans know, she had amnesia after a struggle with a
| Vespiform and was in the Tardis for those missing days.
| mbork_pl wrote:
| Came here for this.
| rhuru wrote:
| I was here just to type this comment.
| UberFly wrote:
| Fenella Woolgar who played Agatha was the perfect choice. Fun
| episode.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > The written answer from the Home Secretary was that 'No members
| of the Metropolitan Police were specially detailed for the
| purpose, and no cost was incurred by the Metropolitan Police ...'
|
| Then
|
| > Agatha's husband, Archie Christie, responded to enquiries about
| his wife's state of mind by explaining that she was suffering
| from a nervous disorder and memory loss. The police approached
| him to request a contribution towards police costs, but he
| refused saying it was 'entirely a police matter'.
|
| So which is it?
| ivanbakel wrote:
| England has no national police force. The Metropolitan Police
| operate only in London (hence the name.) Christie disappeared
| in Surrey, which had (and has) its own territorial force, the
| Surrey Police.
|
| Note in particular the concern was that _multiple_ forces had
| been involved in the search i.e. more than just the Surrey
| Police, and therefore the concern that London police resources
| had been spent unnecessarily in the search - hence the question
| to the Home Secretary.
| SilasX wrote:
| > The Metropolitan Police operate only in London (hence the
| name.)
|
| Which are also known as Scotland Yard, so you don't get to
| claim there's some dependable relationship between names and
| jurisdiction :-p
| [deleted]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| When being a liar has no consequences, your profession never
| gets any good at it.
| [deleted]
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Quite the story! I never heard about this before, and I'm a huge
| fan (admittedly that's fan of the books though, rather than the
| author herself). The story/novel mentioned in the article (The
| Murder of Roger Ackroyd) is famous in literary circles for
| $reasons - if you haven't read it and you enjoy reading that sort
| of book, you're missing out!
|
| (It does look like she staged a murder scene from her books
| intending to frame her husband then came to her senses, doesn't
| it?)
| ruph123 wrote:
| I have read similar recommendations about the book and read it
| because of those.
|
| The problem is that if you recommend the book for it's "unique
| plot twist", the reader will keep looking for clues on how the
| resution may not be the most obvious and figure it out pretty
| fast. Then it is actually no surprise at all anymore. At least
| this happenend to me.
|
| It would serve the book better if it was recommended as a great
| (but traditional) murder mystery novel and that's it.
| genter wrote:
| TBH, most of her books have the common theme of the murderer
| is the last person you'd expect. Although admittedly Ackroyd
| is the most extreme example.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| That's a fair point. I've lightly edited my recommendation
| accordingly :)
|
| I read it making my way down a random list of "greatest books
| of the 20th century" without any expectations; I should
| probably offer others the same courtesy.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Hey that's a very good point. My friends often will say "just
| wait for the twist" and are confounded why that is a spoiler
| throwanem wrote:
| > It does look like she staged a murder scene from her books
| intending to frame her husband then came to her senses, doesn't
| it?
|
| Sure, if that's what you want to see. Or if the tabloid
| journalists of the day, who even by contemporary standards
| behaved themselves professionally with serene disregard for
| anything resembling honesty or morality, think it'll sell more
| papers to make it look like that.
| radicality wrote:
| If you never watched the Hercule Poirot series with David Suchet,
| I highly recommend it. He filmed all the stories which spanned 25
| years. He's also got a good book on it and what it was like to be
| Poirot for that long.
| jononomo wrote:
| I was interested to learn that Agatha Christie is the best-
| selling author in history (ahead of JK Rowling by well over 1
| billion copies sold). Only Shakespeare rivals her.
| somat wrote:
| Hah, that marriage certificate. the condition column.
|
| bachelor is fair enough(man who never married)
|
| but spinster(woman who never married?)
|
| nowadays the terms, especially spinster, have a sort of
| connotation with age. 24 is not that old but would younger
| people(18-20) have a different condition.
|
| and now I am curious what other "conditions" there are. my guess.
| widow/er divorced(are there archaic gender specific terms
| for this?)
| messe wrote:
| Divorce / divorcee, perhaps?
| solution-finder wrote:
| Fascinating. Reminds of Gone Girl
| ycan wrote:
| > Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a keen spiritualist, even
| consulted a medium to attempt to solve the mystery of her
| disappearance.
|
| This bit was the most surprising part of the article for me,
| given the themes of science and materialism in Sherlock Holmes
| books. Looking a bit into it, Doyle really seems to have been
| into Spiritualism for some bizarre reason [0].
|
| [0] https://arthurconandoyle.co.uk/spiritualist
| n3storm wrote:
| At that time "mesmerism" was sold as possible new branch of
| science that will properly explain after life, ghost, etc.
| without religion.
|
| Obviously was a reboot/remake/remix "product" perfectly crafted
| for a new public as sceptics like Sir Conan Doyle.
| vajrabum wrote:
| Maybe, but the chronology is a little off--Franz Anton Mesmer
| (1734-1815) famous for mesmerism (hypnosis).
| babyshake wrote:
| It's easy in hindsight to see these types of things as being
| ridiculous and obviously bunk. We do have the equivalents
| today, although YMMV on what you think is the modern day
| "mesmerism".
| tomcam wrote:
| Even more interesting is the fact that he and Harry Houdini
| were friends, but they were split over the life after death
| question. Houdini was sick of all the charlatans, and made the
| focus of his life's work in his final years to prove them
| wrong. It obviously created a wedge between them.
|
| Houdini by that time was a megastar. He was easily the most
| famous person in the western world for about a generation. His
| fame dwarfed that of people like Doyle, Agatha Christie, or
| Oscar Wilde.
| mongol wrote:
| Was he more famous than Chaplin?
| TylerE wrote:
| Their careers mostly didn't overlap. There were a few
| years, but Houdini was earlier.
|
| Even given that, I'd say yes.
|
| The thing about Houdini was not just that he was famous M,
| but he really didn't have any competition.
|
| Chaplin, even at the height of his fame, there were others
| that weren't far behind (Buster Keaton, say)
| mongol wrote:
| That argument seems to depend on how famous he was
| relative other celebrities. But in absolute numbers, how
| many people knew about them, I think should count higher.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It's not really a surprise that some men of science try to
| apply a materialist approach to the spiritual. Wolfgang Pauli's
| work on the Pauli-Jung conjecture on synchronicity being
| another example.
| jahnu wrote:
| Well Newton was seriously into alchemy so you never can tell.
| pcl wrote:
| From a scientific standpoint, nuclear fission is pretty much
| alchemy, right? I feel like we use the term to dismiss
| quacks, but changing one element into another is literally
| something we now know how to do.
|
| Lead (atomic number 82) isn't even that far from gold (atomic
| number 79).
| COGlory wrote:
| Alchemy, by virtue of association with hermeticism, gets an
| unnecessarily bad reputation. We know it to be mostly false
| today, but it really did help develop chemistry.
| pests wrote:
| We live in an age of technical marvel but the goalposts
| have constantly shifted so nothing feels amazing anymore.
| krapp wrote:
| Except the alchemists weren't practicing nuclear
| physicists, nor did they actually ever turn lead into gold
| through nuclear fission, nor would anything in their
| philosophy have led to doing so, either in theory or
| practice.
|
| Just because it happens to be physically possible to turn
| lead into gold using a model that alchemists would never
| have even comprehended (as their principles were based on
| hermeticism and religion, not experimental science) doesn't
| mean they weren't quacks, or that they were half right.
| They were quacks, and it's OK to see them as such.
| permo-w wrote:
| chemistry is harder than physics
| pvorb wrote:
| that's relative
| ghkbrew wrote:
| Chemistry is physics.
| gumby wrote:
| Conan Doyle was into a lot of pseudoscientific stuff and it
| runs through his Holmes stories. He didn't think of it as
| "pseudo-" at all so just presented it as run of the mill
| science, like the hoary "10% of your brain" nonsense. Holmes'
| "reasoning" processes were often pretty dubious too.
|
| I read those stories as a kid (we had a huge single volume for
| some reason) and tried to figure out how to emulate Holmes'
| thinkings so I could be as smart as him (and not be the hapless
| Watson). That resulted in quite a bit of time in the library
| chasing things down which caused me to learn that things in
| books aren't always true and that adults were often idiots. So
| I can't say that reading Sherloc Holmes stories were bad for
| me, but the process destroyed any interest I had in anything
| Holmes related.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Really? Most of the stories are well done even if not every
| bit of his "ratiocination" holds up. I feel like one can
| enjoy them for what they are without trying to take them as
| real-life forensic science.
| tetris11 wrote:
| It just sits a bit bitter when you used to look at him as
| an unconventional man who employed the scientific process
| of deduction to solve his cases.... only for you to later
| realise that he was applying abductive reasoning the whole
| time, whilst claiming otherwise and chasing down any lead
| like a mad dog. Holmes wasn't smart, just driven.
| krapp wrote:
| That's one of the problems with mystery writing - the
| protagonist can never be smarter than the author. The
| books can say Sherlock Holmes is a genius polymath
| intellect with brilliant deductive capabilities but he
| was written by a guy who believed the Cottingley Fairies
| were real, so...
| emodendroket wrote:
| A lot of people speculate it had something to do with his son's
| death.
| TylerE wrote:
| A bit like CS Lewis and Tolkien. Lewis is the one you'd expect
| to be religious based ont heir popular works, but nope.
| maleldil wrote:
| Lewis was quite religious himself. He wrote more nonfiction
| books, many of them Christian books, than fiction.
| smegger001 wrote:
| Yes but he started out as an atheist and converted largely
| due to the influence of his friend Tolkien.
| [deleted]
| bbarnett wrote:
| _have been into Spiritualism for some bizarre reason_
|
| Most religions have afterlifes, and that implies some kind of
| spiritualism. And a mere 50+ years ago, Christianity was almost
| universally accepted in the West.
| morelisp wrote:
| Spiritualism is a specific movement which all major branches
| of Christianity and most other major world religions reject.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| But the concept of an invisible spirit, which leaves your
| body upon death, (or is created by an omnipotent being upon
| death), is the commonality.
|
| Spirits are spirits, be they called souls, vapours,
| spirits, or what not. And everyone believed in life after
| death, in the spiritual form.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first rejected the
| Catholic faith of his Irish mother and father, and then
| passed through a phase of agnosticism.
|
| Speaking of rejection, Agatha Christie was so deeply
| devoted to the Tridentine form of the Catholic Mass, that
| she signed a petition that resulted in Papal permission to
| extend celebrations of this Mass beyond the reforms of the
| Second Vatican Council. That permission became known as the
| Agatha Christie Indult.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie_indult
| boomskats wrote:
| Newlands Corner sits at the top of a pretty steep hill by UK
| countryside standards, so it's not that unlikely that a 1920s car
| would have struggled around there. I just cycled up that hill
| earlier today and it wasn't fun. There are a few photos around
| [0] from the original incident.
|
| However, the whole thing is fairly universally assumed to have
| been a publicity stunt. This is a fairly well known story
| locally. Here's a local tabloid [1] with a few original newspaper
| articles, and a sprinkling of sensationalism for good measure.
|
| [0]: https://www.prints-online.com/agatha-christies-abandoned-
| mot... [1]: https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/nostalgia/agatha-
| christies-...
| throwanem wrote:
| Bit silly as a publicity stunt, I'd think. But presumably that
| photo was taken after her car had been recovered, because the
| incident report describes it being piled nose-first into
| undergrowth not evident here. That suggests the accident
| started with a loss of control - which, at night on an unlit
| road in a century-old deathtrap like that one, wouldn't just be
| easy to do but likely quite hard to avoid.
|
| I've been in enough car wrecks, and those in modern cars, for
| it to strike me as arrantly foolish no one ever seems to
| consider the possibility she got her bell rung. Even an airbag
| will do that sometimes - I've had two of those go off in my
| face, and one of them did exactly that; it's more than anything
| else like taking a hard, well-aimed punch, and even if it does
| save you ending up with much worse, you still are liable not to
| be thinking right for a while after. And that's _with_ a
| hundred years of safety engineering! Christie 's car wouldn't
| even have had seatbelts or safety glass - it's got to be at
| least half a miracle she made it out alive.
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(page generated 2023-09-23 23:00 UTC)