Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 1 March 2018
Inside Christie’s world: Postcard from the Orient Express

By THOMAS ADAMSON writing came from, was her
Associated Press ability to observe people
ABOARD THE ORIENT EX- and situations and then
PRESS (AP) — Luxury travel make the leap — bizarrely
meets murder. — to murder,” Prichard said.
During his first voyage She’d have seen “glamor-
aboard the Orient Express, ous strangers dressed to
Agatha Christie’s great- the nines for breakfast, for
grandson reminisced on lunch, for tea, for dinner —
what first enamored the but who were they behind
Queen of Crime with the that theater?”
fabled locomotive that has And while the carriages are
recently been restored by beautiful, they are tight,
the French state. forcing passengers to brush
The storied train and its voy- against one another by Cu-
ages to the exotic east not ban mahogany paneling
only inspired one of Chris- and pressed glass window
tie’s most famous mysteries, reliefs if they were to pass in
“Murder on the Orient Ex- a corridor.
press,” but defined her. Christie frequently crafted
“The Orient Express her plots by putting dispa-
changed her life,” James rate characters together
Prichard told The Associ- in an exotic location, then
ated Press. This photo dated Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, and released by the 20th Century Fox shows James imagining the fallout from a
Christie first traveled on Prichard, the great grandson of Agatha Christie, aboard the Orient Express. murder. Not everything was
the train in 1928 during the Associated Press made up, though. In the
most painful moment in her riages refurbished last year when it disappeared from Why did Christie use the book, the train gets stuck
life, after Prichard’s great- by France’s national rail official timetables altogeth- Orient Express as a setting in a snow drift, giving Poirot
grandfather, Archie Chris- network, the SNCF. er. for something so dark? time to gather clues and in-
tie, walked out on her. It restored the splendor of The train is now France’s Prichard says the train’s terview each traveler.
“She wanted a holiday and the locomotive that cap- premier museum-on- unique mix of foreigners, Prichard notes that in 1929,
someone suggested she tured the imaginations of wheels, classified as a luxury and exoticism in an the real Orient Express train
went on an archaeologi- generations since its cre- French Historic Monument, opulent but confined set- got trapped by a blizzard,
cal dig in Syria,” Prichard ation in 1883 as it chugged and owned, along with ting made it “perfect” for and later, an Orient Express
said. For a woman traveling along the famed route, its famous name, by the a whodunit with the mus- train on which Christie was
solo in that era, the trip was from Paris to Constanti- French state. tached Belgian detective traveling got stuck in flood-
“extraordinarily brave and nople (today’s Istanbul), These days, it only travels Hercule Poirot. “One of the ing, with track sections
adventurous,” he added. weaving through mountain out “exceptionellement,” first things you need for an washed away.
She met an archaeologist ranges and Europe’s finest as the French say. Agatha Christie mystery As custodian and CEO of
on the trip, Max Mallowan, landscapes. But the 1934 publication of is an enclosed space,” the Agatha Christie estate,
who became her second Since the Industrial Revo- Christie’s novel saw the Ori- Prichard said. The train Prichard handles artistic
husband, and they trav- lution, the Orient Express ent Express become a sym- compartments offered “12 rights and must OK produc-
eled via the Orient Express was the ultimate symbol of bol of something sinister: people who couldn’t go tions using Christie’s work.
for years to digs in the Mid- travel’s golden age and a murder. A 1974 film won an anywhere,” all of them pre- He served as executive
dle East. “That was their byword for luxury. Oscar for Ingrid Bergman, senting a facade over their producer on the Branagh
commute, that’s how they In 1977, the route ended — and the story’s enduring true selves. adaptation.
got there,” Prichard said. victim, experts say, of the popularity in stage, televi- Riding the train provided The most popular novelist in
Prichard spoke about the proliferation of high-speed sion and cinema has for- days of study for the au- history, Christie wrote more
family matriarch while trav- trains and then served a ever bound the train to the thor. “She observed — and than 75 books that have
eling from Paris to France’s shorter route until 2009, murder mystery. that’s where some of this sold some 2 billion copies.
Champagne region on But despite her popularity
a train chartered by 20th as a writer, she preferred to
Century Fox to mark the watch people rather than
home entertainment re- talk to them.
lease this month of director She was “very reserved,
Kenneth Branagh’s movie very quiet,” Prichard said.
“Murder on the Orient Ex- “There was this stuff going
press” — featuring Judi on in her head, which were
Dench, Penelope Cruz and these plots, but if you’d met
Johnny Depp. her and you didn’t know,
Looking around a re- you’d have just thought in
stored 1920s passenger her later life she was a love-
car called “Etoile du Nord” ly older woman.”
that his great grandmother Prichard was 6 when she
likely rode, Prichard said died. It was only when he
he could see the unique saw news of her death
“beauty of the train.” leading the BBC when ar-
The art-style car with riving home from school
birch burl panels and ex- that he realized “she was
otic woodwork by famed something special, she was
French decorator Rene The Orient Express is pictured at the Gare de l’Est train station in Paris, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. something more than my
Prou was among the car- Associated Press great grandmother.”q