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Description
Over the course of her long, prolific career, Agatha Christie gave the world a wealth of ingenious whodunits and page-turning locked-room mysteries featuring Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and a host of other unforgettable characters. She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha's millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.… (more)
User reviews
What surprised me most was how adaptable she was to her surroundings. I think I've been carrying around a inaccurate mental image of the Christie; one of a woman who enjoys her comforts and wouldn't be the type to be roughing it in tents in the Syrian wilderness, but what was presented in this memoir was the complete opposite. Christie had no problems going camping on route to the various digs that her husband was scouting out, but at the same time, she certainly didn't mind returning to London after several months abroad. It was very interesting to "see" firsthand what it was like to work on one of these archaeological digs in the 1930s-40s.
The only thing that I found lacking in the book was just a personal observation. She mentions writing one of her books during one of the seasons in Syria, but she never says which one it is! I would love to know which book she was writing at the time to see if her experience on the dig influenced the tone or feel of the story that she was writing.
Overall this was a fun little book and a nice departure from the usual Christie mystery fare. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie, I'd highly recommend giving this book a read. It's been out of print for awhile, so you may need to see if your library can get a copy for you, but I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Reading this is like entering another world. I never gave a thought
Come, Tell Me How You Live is a memoir very much of its time, reflecting the attitudes and prejudices of its day. Though progressive for her day, Christie's attitudes will appear backward by modern standards. The final section of Chapter 12 and the Epilogue show that, even as she compiled this volume, Christie was more concerned with the memory of happier times while living in the latter days of World War II than in providing a sound academic record of archaeological digs in the period. Fans of Christie's writing or scholars of the period are sure to find insight in this volume, but it may not appeal to the casual reader.
Agatha Christie Mallowan was funny. She was observant. She was self-deprecating. And she's eminently readable. Undertaken to explain Christie Mallowan's life and experiences in the Middle East, the memoir, firmly grounded in the pre-WWII time period, was started and then put aside, only being finished at the close of the war, after the world she was chronicling was already slipping into memory. From detailing her preparations to leave England, such things as the necessity of vast quantities of pens and watches and shoes (the latter being Christie Mallowan's desire), the difficulty of finding appropriate clothing in a large enough size, and trying to jam too many books into already over stuffed luggage to the realities of life in the dusty and hot fields, the delicate dance of propitiating the ruling sheikhs, the sometimes seemingly inexplicable conflicts between local workers, the different personalities on the dig, and observing the attitudes towards women in contrast to British attitudes at the time, no detail is too small for Christie Mallowan's pen to capture. She shares crazy and unpredictable adventures as well as the every day domesticity of living in tents and in native homes. She writes of the archaeological practices of the day, some of which probably make modern archaeologists wince, and of the nerve-wracking practice of splitting finds between the country of origin and Britain. Her very real love and affection for the people and the place come through her casual, chatty narrative.
Christie Mallowan is very much a woman of her time in terms of her attitude toward to native people and some of her observations clearly come from a place where she is the vaguely paternalistic "civilized onlooker" as compared to their position of "noble savage." But her own self-deprecation helps to mitigate this for modern readers and most of her observations generally come off with an air of old-fashioned charm. She is, after all, writing about people, both European and Middle Eastern, who no longer exist as they are drawn here. Because of this vanished way of life, disappeared to both the reader and to Christie Mallowan equally, and perhaps because she herself didn't finish writing it until it was gone, there is a real feel of nostalgia for a simpler, bygone era in these pages. But the nostalgia is not the whole story; it's not even the majority of it. The majority is a fascinating look into the growing field of archaeology, the people who practiced it, and one remarkable wife who turned her pen to explaining it in a mostly lighthearted, funny, well-written book. When the reader turns the last page it is with true regret that there is not more time to be spent in the sandy, stifling heat and blinding sun of 1930s Syria in the delightful company of their witty dear friend Agatha Christie Mallowan.
A charming memoir of life on archaeological digs in Syria in the 1930s, in which Agatha Christie comes across as a much more humorous and likeable person than I had expected. I especially enjoyed the poem at the beginning of the book.
This memoir and travelogue clearly shows the author's happiness at that time, which she conveys so wonderfully in this brief book,
There is little about archaeology, it is about the sights, sounds, smells and above all the people that she encountered. I was enchanted.
I read this having previously read "The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express" by Andrew Eames. This memoir is a far better book, but if you enjoyed it, you will probably find Andrew Eames' attempt to recreate the journeys that Agatha Christie made interesting.
There's little in detail about archeology in here, this is the archeologist's wife describing day to day life and the things that crop up to surprise them. Which she does with great charm and humour.
Unlike her
When I read about her having a fever of 102 degrees I immediately worried that she had caught the Covid-19, but I supposed local events have seeped into everything I see and hear.
This is a thrilling answer to all the questions asked her about the adventure (hence the title question) told in a surprising humorous and light-hearted manner. A very good read indeed.
I found it to be a fascinating look at this part of the world before "development" and before Europeans had dug up every last inch of ancient cities. BUT I did