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A review by anhtran221
Agatha Christie: An Autobiography by Agatha Christie
3.0
This book would've benefited greatly from some editing. It feels like she tried to do a little bit in the beginning but then gave up later on. Overall, she lead an interesting life, and her outlook on life is refreshing. She tries to be fair and empathetic in her observations about people, which I think is how she writes her books and why it's relatable to so many people.
She had some interesting observations, some of which I don't agree with. Her view that the greatest joy of being a woman is to marry is a man is very outdated. She accepts as a fact that your lifestyle depends on the man you marry and even find it exciting, somewhat understandable since women didn't have a lot of options then. But she also blame mental health problems in her later years on the fact that women are more educated and have more options and expectations in life now? That's a very privileged view from someone whose parents barely had to work and she had servants all her childhood, her maids probably love that fact that they have more options in life than to clean chamber pots. I find it kind of ridiculous that her childhood household was not considered well off because they didn't have a butler or carriages, but still kept servants even when they were close to "ruin".
Side notes: Her observation of David having the upper hand in David and Goliath was the same observation mentioned in Outlier. Her journey on the Orient Express was like her version of Eat, Pray, Love.
Quotes:
"The Victorians looked dispassionately at their offspring and made up their mind about their capacities. A. was obviously going to be the pretty one. B. was 'the clever one'. C was going to be plain and definitely not intellectual. Good works would be C's best chance. And so on. Sometime, of course, they were wrong, but on the whole it worked. There is an enormous relief in not being expected to produce something that you haven't got."
Agatha Christie talking about the invention of airplanes and destruction of humans, "What will it all end in? Further triumphs? Or possibly the destruction of man by his own ambition? I think not. Man will survive, though possibly only in pockets here and there. There may be some great catastrophe, but now all mankind will perish. Some primitive community, rooted in simplicity, knowing of past doing by hearsay, will slowly build up a civilisation once more.
She had some interesting observations, some of which I don't agree with. Her view that the greatest joy of being a woman is to marry is a man is very outdated. She accepts as a fact that your lifestyle depends on the man you marry and even find it exciting, somewhat understandable since women didn't have a lot of options then. But she also blame mental health problems in her later years on the fact that women are more educated and have more options and expectations in life now? That's a very privileged view from someone whose parents barely had to work and she had servants all her childhood, her maids probably love that fact that they have more options in life than to clean chamber pots. I find it kind of ridiculous that her childhood household was not considered well off because they didn't have a butler or carriages, but still kept servants even when they were close to "ruin".
Side notes: Her observation of David having the upper hand in David and Goliath was the same observation mentioned in Outlier. Her journey on the Orient Express was like her version of Eat, Pray, Love.
Quotes:
Spoiler
"My dear, such a sad case,’ Grannie would murmur to her friends. ‘Such a poor little creature, deformed, only one passage, like a fowl.""The Victorians looked dispassionately at their offspring and made up their mind about their capacities. A. was obviously going to be the pretty one. B. was 'the clever one'. C was going to be plain and definitely not intellectual. Good works would be C's best chance. And so on. Sometime, of course, they were wrong, but on the whole it worked. There is an enormous relief in not being expected to produce something that you haven't got."
Agatha Christie talking about the invention of airplanes and destruction of humans, "What will it all end in? Further triumphs? Or possibly the destruction of man by his own ambition? I think not. Man will survive, though possibly only in pockets here and there. There may be some great catastrophe, but now all mankind will perish. Some primitive community, rooted in simplicity, knowing of past doing by hearsay, will slowly build up a civilisation once more.