[Re-release] Christie's Characters: Harley Quin

Transcript

Speaker: Hi, it's Sarah. Brooke and I are taking a short break from recording new episodes to catch up on our reading lists and plan for the next season of Clued in Mystery. While we're off, we are re-releasing a few of our favorite episodes.

Speaker: We hope you enjoy.

Speaker: Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Brooke. ah Sarah, it is so good to be talking with you again. The highlight of my week.

Speaker: Exactly. We have a really fun topic today. We're returning to our little mini-series we're doing on Agatha Christie's lesser-known sleuths. And today, we're going to talk about Harley Quinn. So I'll start us off with some background.

Speaker: Before DC Comics mischievous henchwoman, there was another Harley Quinn, Agatha Christie's mysterious and elusive sleuth, Mr. Quinn. Now, to be fair, both of them owe their origins to the Harlequins of the Commedia dell'arte, an early form of professional theater that originated in Italy.

Speaker: These traveling acting troupes were popular throughout Europe between 16th and 18th centuries, And one recurring character in the plays was the Harlequin, what we might think of as the court jester.

Speaker: He wore a dark mask and bright diamond pattern clothing. He was originally the clown or fool in the dramas, but by the 18th century, Harlequins had evolved into these romantic heroes.

Speaker: And this connects really well to Christie's character, where love or affairs of the heart are at the core of most of his mysteries. so In fact, I would say love and death are the themes that the stories portray.

Speaker: Agatha's Harley Quinn is almost magical, often suddenly appearing to his friend, Mr. Satterthwaite, in a flash of light or in a scene with really bright colors.

Speaker: In each story, Quinn assists Mr. Satterthwaite by guiding him to the solutions of a crime. Like a kind teacher, he inspires Satterthwaite to trust his instincts and keen observations. so But as each story unfolds, Mr. Quinn's physical form becomes more and more unclear until we question whether he exists at all or is simply a hidden part of Satterthwaite's personality.

Speaker: The New York Times Book Review from May 4th, 1930, when the first anthology came out, started by saying, "...to call the tales in this collection detective stories would be misleading, for though all of them deal with mystery and some of them with crime, they are nevertheless more like fairy tales." And when I read a few of these, I also went back and forth as to whether Quinn was really there or just in Mr. Satterthwaite's imagination.

Speaker: And I would need to do a deeper ah review to remember, did anyone else see Mr. Quinn or is it just Mr. Satterthwaite who's always referring to him?

Speaker: m This made me think, you know, did Agatha beat Chuck Palahniuk to the punch by creating this character with an imaginary alter ego pulling the strings?

Speaker: Dame Agatha wrote a total of 14 short stories featuring Harley Quinn. Most of them were published in magazines before being compiled into that anthology in 1930 titled The Mysterious Mr. Quinn.

Speaker: According to her autobiography, Quinn and Satterthwaite were her favorite characters, and she only wrote stories featuring them when she felt like it. The short story, The Coming of Mr. Quinn, became a silent film retitled The Passing of Mr. Quinn in 1928, so very early.

Speaker: It starred Stuart Rome, but Christie was never really satisfied with the portrayal of her beloved character, and since then, no other screen adaptations have ever been made.

Speaker: The stories are available on audiobook, and Hugh Frazier, known for his role as Hastings in the ProRo TV series, voices several of them, and I found them to be very good.

Speaker: And then in 2015, brand new digital app titled Mr. Quinn was created by the Agatha Christie Limited Company, and it features the two ah beloved characters.

Speaker: There's an interesting crossover. Mr. Satterthwaite appears in the Poirot novel Three Act Tragedy, where the plot involves the theater. So, Sarah, I think it's so interesting that this very enigmatic, mysterious character was one of Christie's favorites to write. And I hope we can discuss what you know that might reveal about her.

Speaker: Well, before we do that, Brooke, thank you for such a great overview of Mr. Quinn and and his companion or his his colleague, Mr. Satterthwaite. I read as well, doing a little bit of research um before we spoke today, that Agatha Christie really enjoyed writing these characters. And you can kind of tell that in the stories. Yeah.

Speaker: And there's definitely that kind of supernatural element. i think one of, at least one of the stories features a seance. um And, you know, we know that that is something that she was, um she didn't just write the Marple stories or the Poirot stories that, you know, she did write some um spookier tales. So, um yeah, i know i I really enjoyed reading reading these stories.

Speaker: I did too. I was so struck by, you know, and as you just said, she had, we've mentioned before that she does it all in the world of mystery. You know, she writes thrillers, she writes what we, eat what you might consider cozies, romantic suspense, some action adventure with mysterious elements. I mean, she really covers the gamut, but this is the first time that I think I've picked up one of her stories and was surprised that she had written it because it felt so different than her other work.

Speaker: um And I think it's what you kind of what you said that you can tell that she had maybe a different relationship with these characters. She does a lot more than I have seen in anything I've read. and again, I have not read all of Agatha Christie's work, but yeah,

Speaker: um I feel like in these stories, she goes on, for lack of a better word, more tangents, like more like thoughtful commentary about the world, about art, about, you know, kind of her thoughts.

Speaker: One of them I read, which was the Harlequin tea set is written much later, like in 1971, I think. And she talks a lot about, um or rather Satterthwaite talks a lot about aging and memory and the way things get cloudy and trying to recall the way situations unfolded you know correctly. And I just feel like we get a lot of insight into maybe what Agatha's world.

Speaker: Yeah. ah So I really liked ah what you read from the the New York Times review where they were referred to as fairy tales. And, you know, I remember the kind of, I think one of the first conversations that we had about Agatha Christie and how she had all of these imaginary friends that kept her company.

Speaker: And, you know, so I wonder if there's some relationship between that imaginary world that she lived in And these stories in particular.

Speaker: Oh, I had not put that together. I forgot about her, i imagine her group of imaginary friends. That is lovely. And I think that is, oh, that ties in really well. You're getting my imagination going, Sarah. um Because one thing I think, you know, i I alluded to, you know, Fight Club or whatever, because we don't know how real Mr. Quinn is. He kind of goes in and out of being an actual,

Speaker: physical person and just being ah the Jiminy Cricket, so to speak, sitting on Satterthwaite's shoulder. um And I think I came away from it feeling like maybe Agatha was using him as a way to describe the muse. He visits and he solves or she, the muse visits and solves problems and gives story answers.

Speaker: They're mysterious. You don't always know when they're going to show up. And, um, and they, you know, they bring everything together sort of like Mr. Quinn did for Satterthwaite. And then, you know, they're gone again.

Speaker: Um, and that ties in so nicely with the idea of these imaginary friends that, um, I think we know authors have these different characters, so to speak, that kind of live with them. And I i just think that there's a much deeper conversation with this group of stories than maybe any of the other ones that we've talked about with Agatha.

Speaker: Yeah, i I think you're probably right, Brooke. I had the same thought as I was reading the stories because I didn't do any research ah into them until after I'd i had read them.

Speaker: And it was ah towards the end of one of the last stories that I read where I was like, Is Harley Quinn even real? Yes, me too. At the beginning, i didn't I didn't have that sense because I think in that first story, i think he is seen by other people. You raised that question in your introduction, right? Because he knocks on the door of this house. It's New Year's Eve or or you know around Christmas time, I think.

Speaker: And he says his driver is repairing the car. Can he come in and sit? And that's when he tells this story, right, of I think they're, you know, one of the previous owners of the home, if i if i if I'm remembering that correctly.

Speaker: So in that one, he's interacting with other people. But I'm not, i I think you might be right. If we looked back at the other ones, he may not interact with anybody else except for for Mr. Satterthwaite.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It's very mysterious. And there're there, that's where I felt like, wow, this is so different than anything else that she's written. I thought it was really fun that she only wrote these when she felt like it. You know, she was certainly under contractual obligation writing.

Speaker: probably a certain number of Poirots or Miss Marples or whatever throughout her career. But she reserved these to only write when she had the muse visit her and felt so inclined. And I thought that was really special and a great thing for her to do because she was so prolific. And anybody who reaches her level of authorship,

Speaker: you know It definitely becomes a job, right? it was it was work and and obligations to continue to write stories, but she saved these for for her fun times and for her um her enjoyment.

Speaker: So one of the things that I really liked about these stories is Mr. Satterthwaite travels differently than ah some of Agatha Christie's other characters.

Speaker: I mean, one of, at least one of the stories, he goes and investigates, you know, goes and speaks to somebody, actually comes to Canada to to speak to somebody. And then he, he returns to the UK for kind of the rest of the story.

Speaker: And I don't remember um of the of the other Agatha Christie novels that I've read. i don't remember Poirot doing that. Like he's you know, if he's in ah Baghdad, he's in Baghdad, right? Like he doesn't he doesn't go anywhere else.

Speaker: um So I kind of like that, like, you know, the idea of have picturing this guy kind of getting on the on the on the the boat and then on the train to get across the country. um But he he travels a lot. He's in Spain, Monte Carlo, Cannes.

Speaker: And Parker Pine traveled. Remember when we spoke about him, like he did a bit of traveling and androov obviously does some traveling. And I think that reflects Agatha Christie's life as well.

Speaker: Right. Like she, we know she did a lot of, ah a lot of traveling. But I just thought it was interesting that the way that Satterthwaite travels is a little bit different than in some of the other books.

Speaker: Yeah, you're right. I didn't pick up on that, but I don't think that I can think of any of your other stories where, except maybe Tommy and Tuppance, where they're on more of an action adventure and they're moving to different locations. But still, that I believe that would just be within one country, probably.

Speaker: um But yeah, like that's a really unique point in these stories as well. And I think that Christy was so unique for being able to write in so many different locations because she did so much travel.

Speaker: That is just something that only i think she has because she did so much traveling and knew so much about so many different parts of the world. and And at a time when most people didn't do a lot of traveling.

Speaker: Exactly. Yeah, that was super rare. And she was and adventurous when she got there. We know that she liked to surf. Yeah. ah Another question that I had as I was reading these is, you know, these are categorized as as Harley Quinn being the sleuth.

Speaker: But... He's not actually doing any of the the legwork. It's all Mr. Satterthwaite. He's the one who's piecing things together. He's, you know, gently nudged by Quinn.

Speaker: But I feel a bit bad for Satterthwaite because he doesn't get this, the the the credit. Yeah, you're right. Mr. Quinn is his mentor, maybe, but Satterthwaite does all the work.

Speaker: And to the point, we don't even know his first name. I don't believe he has a first name. He's only ever referred to as Mr. Satterthwaite. So yeah. And again, it's like, what is she saying there?

Speaker: I just find this whole thing so fascinating. And there's so many layers you could pick apart. So that's a great point. what What is she saying? So I liked how, and you mentioned this in in the introduction, kind of um romantic element, matchmaking, if you will, and the detection. And she she blends that in these.

Speaker: um And you can kind of um feel that romantic thread that I think she had herself. And so that was kind of nice.

Speaker: You know, I think the the stories were originally published in the nineteen twenty s right? Most of them. Um, and we know that that was a, a rocky period for her in terms of her romantic life.

Speaker: Um, so yeah, I wonder if there's anything that if we did a little bit more digging, we could, we could learn about that way. Yeah. And it's different because we also mentioned this in the Parker Pine stories that his, he was solving love dilemmas as well, but it's very different. I feel like it's his dilemmas were solved in such a black and white, almost legal matter.

Speaker: And then these are written much more lyrically and romantic and, Again, ive i find it hard to believe that the same person wrote both of them.

Speaker: I'm not questioning that. Of course, she did. It just shows what a range, what a broad range she had and and of talent. Yeah, absolutely. yeah As you say, the Parker Pine stories, there's definitely, um you know, he's, he's fixing some, some romantic situations, but the tone of those, the feel of those is very different from, from these.

Speaker: Yeah, the tone of the tone of these is just is, is very different. and as you say, she's just got such, um such a great range. her So, Sarah, have you read Poirot novel Three Act Tragedy where Mr. Satterthwaite appears?

Speaker: No, I haven't read that one yet, Brooke. How about you? No, I haven't either. But I love that it involves the theater, you know, so she is drawing in that Harlequin thing.

Speaker: theme, I guess, somehow. I'm anxious to see what role Mr. Satterthwaite plays in that story. And I also love that Christy did that, where she put different characters, and she doesn't do it a lot, but there's little um bits here and there of characters doing crossovers in her worlds. And it just makes it feel like genuine.

Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's such a neat thing um that, that she was doing that. And ah yeah, I'm definitely going to, going to track down the three act tragedy.

Speaker: Well, Sarah, this was a great conversation about another one of Agatha Christie's lesser known sleuths. I agree, Brooke. It's, it's so fun to look into some of these other characters that, um that we know that Christie wrote, but maybe haven't, haven't yet had a chance to read.

Speaker: Yeah, and I hope that it inspires our listeners to go find some of these other stories that maybe aren't the first ones that everyone thinks of. So thank you all for joining us today on another episode of Clued in Mystery.

Speaker: I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at SilvermanSound.com.

Speaker: Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at CluedInMystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.