Lucy Worsley takes on the mystery of Agatha Christie

Lucy Worsley 向你揭开神秘的阿加莎·克里斯蒂

At the heart of her biography is the novelist’s 11-day disappearance in 1926

本传记的核心是阿加莎1926年消失的11天

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman. By Lucy Worsley.

《阿加莎·克里斯蒂：一个神秘的女人》作者Lucy Worsley

1. On Friday December 3rd 1926 Agatha Christie left her husband and young daughter and went missing for 11 days. Using detective work befitting one of Christie’s novels, Lucy Worsley puts this mysterious disappearance at the heart of her colourful new biography, piecing together what really happened that winter.

1926年12月3日，星期五，阿加莎·克里斯蒂离开自己的丈夫和年幼的女儿，消失了整整11天。

利用阿加莎作品中的侦探手段，Lucy Worsely把这段神秘的失踪事件放在了其新传记的核心位置，希望拼凑出那个冬天到底发生了什么。

2. According to Christie’s own account of those 11 days, she lost her memory after crashing her car in a half-hearted suicide attempt. But her comments on the matter were misreported by the press, inflicting lasting damage on her reputation. Dismissive of her testimony as a female writer, the papers preferred the more salacious story that she had framed her adulterous husband for murder.

据阿加莎自己对那11天的叙述，她在半自杀状态下撞上了一辆车，然后就失去了记忆。但是，她对此事件的评论却被媒体错误报道，使其声誉遭受了长期的损害。

因为女性作家的身份，阿加莎的证词被轻视，报纸更愿意相信不光彩的故事版本，即她设计谋杀自己出轨的丈夫。

3. Ms Worsley’s version of events hews closer to Christie’s and is far more convincing. The novelist was seriously ill from a combination of depression and “dissociative fugue” (or stress-induced amnesia). The pain of her mother’s death, her husband’s infidelity and the possible loss of the family home did indeed culminate in a suicide bid, followed by a stay at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, under a false identity. Ms Worsley calls the press’s treatment of Christie at this time “the great injustice” of her life.

Worsley对该事件的表述与阿加莎的很接近，因而更加令人信服。抑郁和精神涣散让阿加莎病得很重。

母亲的去世，丈夫的不忠以及可能保不住的住宅确实成了她走向自杀的催化剂。

以假名在约克郡的哈罗盖特酒店住下后，阿加莎是打算寻短见的。Worsley认为当时媒体对阿加莎的态度“极其不公正”。

4. A more impenetrable mystery is why, when she died in 1976, her estate was worth only £100,000 (in today’s money, £550,000 or $630,000). Ms Worsley describes the drain on Christie’s finances of tax bills and the upkeep of assorted properties, but is at a loss to explain how the world’s bestselling author was consistently strapped for cash. She is on firmer ground in her poignant portrait of the complex relationship between Christie and her daughter, Rosalind, who was shipped off to boarding school and “internalised the fact that she was less impressive, less important, than her mother”.

更让人不解的是为什么在阿加莎去世的1976年，她的财产只价值10万英镑（约合今天的55万英镑或63万美元）。

Worsely在书中提到了阿加莎的税务账单以及各种财产的维修费，但对于这个世界畅销书作家常常捉襟见肘的情况感到迷惑。

Worsley确信阿加莎和自己的女儿Rosalind之间有着复杂的关系。Rosalind被送去寄宿学校，所以，她自己认定“她没有母亲重要，也没有母亲引人注意”。

5. Family life was eccentric. Christie, a teetotaller, quaffed glasses of cream in lieu of champagne and hosted generous parties at Greenway, a house in Devon that she crammed with art and silverware. She developed an impressive ability to churn out detective fiction without her guests ever seeming to witness it. Rosalind had to compete hard for her mother’s attention, yet was among the few people who could reassure her that she was a bona fide novelist. As Ms Worsley notes, Christie suffered from a lifelong case of impostor syndrome: even in her 80s she remarked that she didn’t truly feel like an author, preferring to present herself as a regular housewife.

家庭生活不寻常。阿加莎一个禁酒主义者会用奶油代替香槟大口地喝下，并在装满了艺术品和银器的位于德文郡的房子里大宴宾客。没有任何一个客人发现阿加莎写作侦探推理小说的能力。

Rosalind不得不努力赢得母亲的注意，然而仅有少数几个人认为她是一个真正的小说家。

正如Worsley所写，阿加莎长期遭受“骗子综合症”：即使在她80多岁时，她评价自己并不是真正的作家，而更愿意把自己看作是个一般的家庭主妇。

6. But as this book ably demonstrates, the little girl born into a conventional Victorian household turned out to be anything but ordinary. She loved travelling (and went surfing in South Africa “in a pearl necklace”), had a weakness for fast cars and embraced psychology during periods of mental illness. She became a writer at a time when women of her background were expected to marry rather than work. This book concludes that she “redefined the rules for her social class and gender”.

但是这本书巧妙地向你展示，这个出生在普通维多利亚家庭的小女孩是个非比寻常的人。

她喜欢旅游（曾带着珍珠项链在南非冲浪），不敢开快车，在患心理疾病时学了心理学。

在女性应该嫁人而非工作的时代背景下，她成了一名作家。这本书在最后总结道，阿加莎“重新定义了自己的社会阶层和性别规则。”

7. Ms Worsley herself writes engagingly, with a smattering of racy phrases (Archie Christie, that adulterous first husband, is said to have been “incredibly hot”). She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays—making the case that, in her themes and formal innovation, Christie was much more than a writer of formulaic potboilers.

Worsley用保持了原味的语句动情地写作（Archie Christie，阿加莎出轨的第一任丈夫被描述为“非常火辣”）。

对写作主角近乎狂热的支持以及对阿加莎作品和戏剧的深度分析，本书作者得出：就主题和创新性而言，阿加莎不是一个粗制畅销书的炮制者。

8. In the end, though, why the “queen of crime” was so self-effacing is never quite clear. Much about this “elusive genius” appears destined to remain secret. She seems to have preferred it that way. ■

但是，在最后，“犯罪女王”为何如此谦逊没有给出清晰的答案。关于这个“神秘的天才”似乎注定是个迷，阿加莎似乎希望如此。

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