Poirot

I have been reading my way through the complete collection of Agatha Christie's Poirot short stories. I'm surprised by how stripped down the stories feel to me. Perhaps that's what makes them so readable. It's as if there's no prose to get in one's way. But they're magic too, and the more I read the more they seem to fill out.

I have, like millions before me, quite taken to the fussy, obsessive, conceited detective Hercule Poirot. I like how he has no compunction about speaking to his brilliance and greatness. Yes, it occasionally alienates and frequently antagonizes those closest to him, but over and over he justifies his claims. I try to take inspiration from this.

You see, much as Hercule Poirot is the greatest detective in the world, I am the greatest blogger on the Internet. I have occasionally dabbled in modesty on this score, but what's the point? I'm not trying to trick anyone into agreeing with me, and I'm not making an argument. Also, if my readers are antagonized by my freely blunt assertion, readily repeated, that I am the greatest blogger on the Internet, I'm not selling anything. They are free to flounder around in some other blog seeking the solutions to life's existential mysteries. But, as with those who eschew Poirot, if what they really want is the solution, they'll be back here.

Yes yes, I know this all makes a person, me, for instance, look faintly absurd. One of the repeated treats of the Poirot mysteries is where even we, the reader, get a little sucked into thinking Poirot's eccentricities have led him completely off the trail. Even though we know he will not fail, sometimes he becomes so absurd and inscrutable that some part of ourselves can't help but wonder.

But as with clerkmanifesto, in the end, the truth outs, and the mystery is solved.