Customer Rating: 
Summary: WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK?
Comment: What "improvements" have been made for the Berkley edition? There are already major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further differences still in the Signet, Bantam, and Black Dog & Leventhal editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Poirot's Last Act
Comment: This was the last Hercule Poirot novel, the Belgian detective who sought refuge in England during the Great War and worked as a consulting detective ("private enquiry agent") after his retirement. Poirot's first murder case was at Styles Court. It was a classic English murder mystery where numerous individuals gathered at a country estate and murder was committed. [Does this scenario tell something about the psychology of those times?] Styles Court is now a retirement home for the lower middle class. Those who are wealthy can find a better place, those who are poor can't afford it. Poirot has taken residence there and invited Hastings to join him. We learn Poirot believes that a murder will take place and the solution will be the last act for a seriously ill Poirot (congestive heart failure). The conversations introduce the people who are staying there.
Does Hastings understand what is really going on? Are there little hints given about the clue to the suspected murderer? If a murderer does not have a motive how can he or she be suspected? Does character and psychology play a part in creating a murderer? Or is this Agatha Christie's personal bias? The wife of a scientist is found dead. Is it murder or suicide? Could it be some sort of mistake? Then a resident is found dead of a gunshot to the forehead in a locked room? Suicide, of course. Then Poirot does what all those who are born must do. What about his medicine? Hastings is puzzled over the inexplicable last words of Poirot.
Months after Poirot's death Hastings receives a last letter from Poirot (held back by his lawyers) that explained the mysteries. There is shocking news that seems unbelievable. It explained the behavior that Hastings noticed but didn't understand. Was Christie mocking her past work and the conventions of mystery novels? Does the ending seem forced as a way to tie up loose ends?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Novel
Comment: I didn't realize "Curtain" meant The End. I thought this was maybe a theatre mystery. Other than being somewhat sad, this is a wonderful mystery with extremely cleverly hidden clues that I had extreme trouble picking up on. I would like to read it again to see If I can spot them easier. I don't want to give too much away but I would comment that I think some people might be somewhat bothered by the fact that Poirot becomes an executioner in this one. He's often taken the law into his own hands, but I don't remember another story where he actually kills the guilty party. This story is told so well that it didn't bother me. The murderer was a serial murderer and would have kept on, so his end was justified. I think this is one of the more unusual Poirot stories and I liked it very much.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing ending, disappointing end
Comment: Wow. Having read several Agatha Christie books, including many with Hercule Poirot, I was really disappointed in this one. Not only is it clear from the start that this is his last case, it is clearly shocking (in a disappointing way) how it ends. I agree with the reviewers who say it ends with Hercule Poirot totally out of character and acting in a way that negates all the previous books. And it turns out the "murderer" is someone who is not really a murderer, but a manipulator. The expounder Poirot gives at how he arrived at his solution seems really far-fetched. This is the only one of Christie's novels that I have read so far that I have not really cared for.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poirot's last, and possibly least case
Comment: Curtain is subtitled as Poirot's Last Case and it is a true enough. Prospective readers should be aware that this is a fairly atypical Poirot novel and should probably be the last one you read, if you choose to read it at all. I found it far less satisfying than other Poirot novels for several reasons. First, Poirot himself is scarcely present. It is really a book about Captain Hastings stumbling around without a clue and reporting back to a wheelchair-bound Poirot each night. Because Poirot is an invalid, he is not present in most scenes and this largely robs the book of the trademark humor and charm that made the Belgian detective so popular.
Beyond the absence of Poirot, there are other problems with this story as well. First, the conclusion was shocking to me, but in a wholly negative way. I won't give it away, but Poirot is portrayed as taking action that I do not believe he would ever do. It is a violation of everything he has shown to believe in previous stories and I'm more than a bit surprised that reviews here don't seem to show any concern for such a blatant breach of the character's established patterns. Finally, it is also an oddity that the murderer apparently isn't a murderer at all. He/she is expert at manipulating people and manages to nudge them into killing others but that's it. While despicable, it is not at all clear to me that this constitutes murder but Poirot/Christie maintain steadfastly that it is.
Having dished all my negative comments about the book, let me hasten to add that this is by no means a poorly told story. Agatha Christie was far too accomplished a writer to write a truly bad novel. There are some interesting characters and there are a few moments (if far too few) with Poirot that are entertaining. There are some spoilers in here referring back to past cases, so again I would warn that this is far better reserved for after you have read all the prior Poirot stories (at a minimum, read Mysterious Affair at Styles: A Hercule Poirot Mystery first as that story is frequently referred to here).
|
