評論
打印
And I think she is a person who really got on the way
我認為她真正掌握了
this feature of crime fiction
犯罪小說的一個特性
that terrible things happen in rectories,
那就是恐怖事件發生在神父寓所
in vicarages, sleepy picturesque villages and so on.
牧師住宅，寂靜漂亮的村莊等等
The titles of her novels often bring this out with incongruity,
她的小說名字通常以不協調的方式表達出來
The Body in the Library, The Murder at the Vicarage.
書房命案,寓所迷案
And during the First World War in Turkey
在第一次世界大戰期間
Agatha Christie worked as a volunteer nurse,
阿加莎·克里斯蒂在土耳其志愿做護士
which again was very influential on her fiction.
這也對她的小說有重要影響
She worked in the hospital dispensary
她在醫院藥房工作
which actually seems to be a rather sinister establishment.
實際上是一個兇險的地方
Because she had a boss who from her counsel was extremely creepy.
因為她的上司是一個令人毛骨悚然的人物
He liked to walk around with a lamp of poison curare in his pocket.
他喜歡把一瓶箭毒放在口袋里四處走動
Because he said he gave him a sense of power.
因為他說這樣會讓他充滿力量
And poison is actually,
事實上，毒藥
poison considered fairly non-messy mode of murder on the Holmes,
被認為是福爾摩斯小說中最干凈的謀殺方式
especially in the way is present in Agatha Christie's novels.
尤其是在阿加莎·克里斯蒂的小說中
That's the means of murder that she really loves
這是她非常喜歡的謀殺方式
on my reckoning 83 of her characters die of poisoning.
據我了解，共有83個角色死于中毒
In the very first, one someone is dispatched
在第一部小說中就有人被一杯
with a lethal cocktail of potassium bromide and strychnine.
加了溴化鉀和馬錢子堿的致命雞尾酒毒死
And one of her very best novels I think is
我認為她寫的最好的一部小說是
one called Sparkling Cyanide.
萬靈節之死
And she has always said that of all the reviews
她一直說，在她一生中收到的
she received in the course of her very long life time of writing
所有關于寫作的評論中
the one that gave her most pleasure and satisfaction
給予她最大快樂和滿足，最值得自豪的評論
and made her fell proudest was one that appeared in of all places,
是刊登在一本隨處可見的雜志上的
the Pharmaceutical Journal.
藥學雜志
And complemented around the fact
事實說明了
that her knowledge of poisons could not be faulted.
她在毒藥方面的知識毋庸置疑
I said earlier on the Colonel Hastings in
我之前提到過，斯泰爾斯莊園奇案，中的
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
黑斯廷上校
had been invalided home from the Western front.
從西部前線上被遣送回家
Poirot is also a Belgian refugee,
白羅也是一個比利時難民
another kind of casualty of the First World War.
一戰中的另一種受害者
And it is sometimes argued that
有時候人們爭論
the enormous popularity of crime fiction after the First World War
一戰后涌現出的大量犯罪小說
was related to the carnage on the Western Front.
跟西部前線的殺戮有關
That after all that meaningless slaughter,
在所有這些無謂的屠殺之后
readers liked to be taken into a world
讀者們更傾向于接受的現實是
where violence could be explained and resolved and got rid off.
暴力是可以解釋，可以化解，可以消除的
There was something slightly therapeutic there,
關于這些書有些非常治愈的東西
something consoling and relaxing and reassuring about the books,
有些安撫的，放松的，慰藉的元素
even though the dealing with violent material,
即便采用的是暴力的素材
And certainly Agatha Christie was the person
而使之廣為傳播的人
who helped to get this widely into circulation.
無疑是阿加莎·克里斯蒂
