Reviewing "Absent in the Spring" by Agatha Christie

Absent in the Spring is one of the six novels Agatha Christie wrote under the nom de plume of “Mary Westmacott.” While it’s arguable that some of the books Christie wrote under her own name aren’t mysteries, all of the ones I’ve read (and I’ve read quite a few) have been either mysteries, thrillers, or had some sort of puzzle to solve.

This novel shares many characteristics of a usual Christie mystery: an exotic location, some rather stereotypical foreign characters contrasted with equally stereotypical, O-So-Very-British ones, and prose that follows the inner monologue of the focus character.

Yet this novel is very different. What’s fun about reading Christie is that her style is very unique—always engaging, with vivid characters and dramatic plots—but she also experiments with things: writing in first and third person, having the narrator be omniscient in one book, and unreliable in the next, allowing the protagonist to be the villain, and manipulating well-known tropes to misdirect the reader and lead up to a surprising conclusion. In Absent in the Spring, she departs from juggling various motives and storylines and focuses on a small, quiet piece. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't known Mary Westmacott's true identity, but the fact that Christie used a false name for this novel (which focuses on identity) added another facet to my enjoyment of it.

At its core, it’s a psychological portrait of the main character, the middle-aged Mrs. Joan Scudamore, who is on her way back to England after visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Baghdad. She’s a smug, insensitive snob who takes great pride in how she’s spent her life selflessly controlling the lives of her husband and three children. Joan is first introduced looking into a mirror that conveniently” happens to be across the room from her. That “conveniently” is telling, because it foreshadows just how self-ignorant and oblivious she is.

Sudden flooding on the route back home finds her stranded at a rest spot in the desert waiting for the train. Except for a few foreign servants—only one of whom speaks English—Joan finds herself completely alone for perhaps the first time in her adult life. She has nothing to organize, no “good deeds” to do, no events to plan, and soon has even run out of reading material to distract her. Soon she is left at the mercy of her own thoughts...and with this new sensation of introspection, the concept of her perfect life with the perfect husband and perfect children all begins to unravel.

That’s basically it. That’s the gist of the book’s plot. At first that might seem dull—and if you’re craving an adventure novel, you’ve come to the wrong place—but it really is fascinating how Joan’s memories begin to unfold, at first with her rose-colored glasses, and then slowly morphing to show the true image behind the psychological façade she’s erected for years.

This is nothing Christie hasn’t done before—delving into consciousness, examining the themes of memory and how we see ourselves is different from what others see—but it’s not distracted by any murders or extraneous characters. There are no red herrings, except perhaps the ones that Joan purposely tries to follow in order to avoid discovering the truth about herself. I’m not usually one for stream-of-consciousness novels, but this one is really well done and doesn’t fall into the gibberish nonsense that people usually use to emulate what really happens in the mind. Another thing I liked about this book was the symbolism. Joan is forced into an experience like Jesus’ spending forty days and forty nights in the wilderness.  She takes long walks into the desert while she embarks on long meditations on her own life…and, like losing her way back to the little outpost of the rest house, she’s in danger of losing her train of thought and succumbing to madness.

This novel had the surprising side effect of making me inwardly examine my own life, and even when I wasn’t reading Absent in the Spring I found myself thinking about various questions it poses to the reader:

• Am I who I want to be?
• Do others see me as that person?
• Do I see reality, or do I warp it in my memory and perspective to fit my own desires?

Recommended Reading Age: Older teens to adult. This is due to some profanity, thematic elements (such as adultery), and Joan's inherent prejudices against anyone of a different race or class. Besides, it's more likely a more mature reader will appreciate the book better, especially if they've read some other books by Christie prior to this, and have perhaps read some other psychologically-rich works such as those of George Eliot to provide some comparison.