|
Ariadne Oliver is a fictional character in the novels of Agatha Christie. She is a mystery novelist and a friend of Hercule Poirot. ==Profile== Mrs Oliver often assists Poirot in his cases through her knowledge of the criminal mind. She often claims to be endowed with particular "feminine intuition", but it usually leads her astray. She is particularly fond of apples, which becomes a plot point in the novel ''Hallowe'en Party''. In the books, Oliver's most famous works are those featuring her vegetarian Finnish detective Sven Hjerson. Since she knows nothing of Finland, Oliver frequently laments Hjerson's existence. In many of her appearances, Oliver – and her feelings toward Hjerson – reflect Agatha Christie's own frustrations as an author, particularly with the Belgian Hercule Poirot (an example of self-insertion). The self-caricature has also been used to discuss Christie's own follies in her earlier novels. For instance, in ''Mrs McGinty's Dead'', Mrs Oliver talks of having made the blowpipe a foot long (30 cm) in one of her novels, whereas the actual length is something like four-and-a-half feet () – the same mistake Christie made in ''Death in the Clouds''. In ''The Pale Horse'', Mrs Oliver becomes acquainted with the Rev and Mrs Dane Calthrop, who are friends of Miss Marple (''The Moving Finger''), thus establishing that Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot exist in the same world. In ''Cards on the Table'', there is a reference to Mrs Oliver's book ''The Body in the Library''; this title was used by Christie six years later, for a novel featuring Miss Marple. Books by Ariadne Oliver and by a number of other fictitious mystery writers are discussed by characters in ''The Clocks'' (1963). Like Christie, she is a member of the Detection Club. Christie even thought of placing a murder at the Club with Oliver being one of the suspects as well as the detective, but it came to nothing.〔''Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks'', edited by John Curran.〕(Although in ''Cards on the Table'', Mrs Oliver is both a suspect and a detective in a Poirot mystery of a murder during a bridge game). A family crisis for Oliver’s goddaughter Celia provides the plot in ''Elephants Can Remember''. Although Ariadne Oliver is consistently referred to as "Mrs. Oliver," nothing is known about her husband. An offhand reference to her marriage is made in ''Elephants Can Remember''. In a short piece in ''John Bull Magazine'' in 1956, Christie was quoted as saying: "I never take my stories from real life, but the character of Ariadne Oliver does have a strong dash of myself." The author of the article went on to state: "It is perfectly true that sometimes she works at her stories in a large old-fashioned bath, eating apples and depositing the cores on the wide mahogany surround."〔''John Bull Magazine'', 11 August 1956. Volume 100, Number 2615 (p. 3)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ariadne Oliver」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|