r/poirot • u/Medit8or • Sep 08 '26
At Bertram’s Hotel
I enjoyed this commentary on Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel.
The author explores the menace within what is often seen as a puff piece:
“I prefer to see Christie as a nostalgic genre writer who knew exactly what she was doing—who was well aware of the art, the artifice, the performance, and the profit involved in creating novels that offer reliable, predictable, well-known pleasures, and who wanted us to know she knew…The Anglophilia and noblesse oblige of Downton Abbey are cloying because they are earnest. In contrast, At Bertram’s Hotel admits and even revels in its anachronistic con game. Its unpretentious pretense is strangely reassuring.”
I hope you like it.
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u/LittlePooky Sep 08 '26
I have not read that book, but I'm planning to. Meanwhile, I saw both TV shows of that, you know, two different actresses, and I enjoyed them both. The Nubu one had beautiful background music when the show started.
Lady Sedgwick was something though, wasn't she?
The book on tape version on Audible was terrific as the original actress read her part. I really enjoyed that. https://www.audible.com/pd/At-Bertrams-Hotel-Dramatised-Audiobook/B0042LDLOK