A Technically Perfect Ending

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had. J. K. Rowling
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/remembered.htm"

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jkrowlin454004.html?src=t_remembered

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jkrowlin454004.html?src=t_remembered

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jkrowlin454004.html?src=t_remembered

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jkrowlin454004.html?src=t_remembered

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/remembered.html

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had. J. K. Rowling
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/remembered.html

"I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had."
- J.K. Rowling 

Curtain. The final released Poirot novel by Agatha Christie. I already made a somewhat spoilery (the post has a picture with a spoiler) respect post about the book earlier here but now that I've completed the book last month and gathered my thoughts about it, I ofcourse want to write a bit about it. According to Wikipedia, Christie wrote the story ~30 years before the actual ending and had it stored in a bank during World War 2 to keep it safe. Curtain's purpose was to act as a "fitting" end to the series, which it in some ways is and in some ways isn't.

The setting and certain resurfacing ideas used in the book's story are, some more than others, symbolistic. The very first case and setting of the Hercule Poirot series is brought back in this final book as Hercule's old friend, captain Arthur Hastings, stars as the main character of the story. Hastings's purpose according to Poirot is to work as Poirot's five senses for trying to solve the case of the mysterious culprit "X," a person who Hercule Poirot says is his most formidable foe yet (X's presence was not presented as well as it could have been, though, for this to be all too true), who had "killed" multiple people in the past and is now hunting for more. Since the beginning Poirot knows everything of X, while Hastings knows practically nothing (well Poirot told him his few potential victims - as to hint at X's murder methods) and is looking for the culprit X and his murder methods in that way, while knowing nothing. In other words Poirot is missing clues for the culprit's methods as he can't prove X's part in the killings, and he is also looking for X's next victims, so he wants Hastings to look at the people of the newly remodeled Styles's Court building construct (from the first Poirot case) from inside-the-box point of view, and he wants Hastings to report everything he sees to Poirot himself.

Chavenage House (near Tetbury, Gloucestershire). Inspiration for Styles Court

Styles's Court is now a place for for people in need of extra help to continue their lives with help to live in, also with some extra guests that just come to relax there and spend some time. In other words the mansion has been turned into a nursing home.

The premise of the story is the usual; it has a place and a case. Arthur Hastings gets a letter from Hercule Poirot in which he wants Hastings to come to meet Poirot for old time's sake. One of Hastings's daughters, Judith, and a slew of other people are already waiting for him (well not really but they're there), and Hastings really wants to meet Poirot once more. Hastings's memories and nostalgia - the shared history with Poirot - is brought up multiple times. The cast of characters in the story is nothing spectacular but Christie does a well enough job in bringing the characters up multiple times for the reader to get used to who most of  them are. When I began to read the book at first, I felt very lost on who is who, but thinking back to the previous chapters made it easier to get into the flow of the story. The story itself is very basic, in fact so much so that it felt disappointing. It didn't take much (while reading I didn't mind it at all) from my enjoyment but I did think that the setting - a mansion in which a group of people are in, locked room murder and multiple other murders - and other such things were terribly uninspired and from that front not the best way for the curtain to fall. In this case I think Christie saw very far into the future (if the "writing 30 years before the actual ending" thing is true) when she wrote Curtain, as it was the perfect soft-boiled setting and the premise of the story with Poirot's age etc. being brought up for the case. However these things were too perfect for their own good as nowadays these are rather overused ideas to say the least.


Characters? They were okay. No one really outstanding, but Hastings's thoughts and personal motivations were well handled in this. Poirot's moments were pretty nice in a good and bad sense, I believe, while thinking back. There was a a particularly powerful line about dropping the curtain which Poirot himself made that sticks with me still. Dr John Franklin stood out in his slightly sudden character development ways also and Boyd Carrington was interesting. I guess Judith's attitude and the way the true culprit was handled in the backgrounds was impressive, very much so. I didn't think the story was as well thought out until the bomb was dropped in the end. Some may see it as a psychological babble but I believe that Christie simply didn't know how to put the methods the culprit used into better words (the murder method was put in very simplistic ways during the explanation), but, as far as mystery/detective fiction, instead of sci-fi, goes, it was handled better than in the story I'll be writing a review about after this - a story in which there's a therapist and suicide talk, alot.

The story repeats an old-to-new type of writing where Hastings and other characters compare past to

Past and present overlap with each other.

present, in more ways than one, probably on purpose to reflect on their journey. Despite Hercule Poirot's bad and near-death condition, he keeps telling Hastings that his brain works as fast as always. Hastings questions this couple of times: "maybe Poirot has gone senile and is only making up this story of X?" You could tell where the story was going. It was to be the final Poirot book, Poirot's condition, and ofcourse getting to know the culprit etc. by the end was also a given, but how the story unfolds is another thing. In the end Poirot had to send a letter after all to explain everything, which was disappointing despite the somewhat emotional open-ended ending which came before it. Had the book told more in the epilogue, it could have turned out to be better. It feels like the ending part was added on random to avoid backlash.

And finally, you'll probably not guess the culprit on your own. they're the one I least suspected. they weren't brought up that often. The hints were low in count but the hints that exist in the story were really subtle.