Book: Agatha Christie - Treze à mesa (Thirteen at Dinner/Lord Edgware Dies)
Challenges: TBR Pile, Mount TBR, European books (UK), Books in translation, Bookshelf love, Feminist reading
Purchase details and misc: Espejismo gave it to me for free. Well... I met him together with Cristina, and he brought two Agatha Christie books, for us to decide who takes which one. I was a bit disappointed because it's much easier for Cristina to get a Christie book in Portuguese (and she's not even learning it). We finally sorta settled on me taking both, reading one until the end of her stay in Moscow and giving it to her. I picked Death on the Nile which I'd read in English before, but the challenge just seriously demotivated me (despite the awesomeness of Cristina assuming it would be no big deal for me to read the book in a few days
) The book also got somewhat damaged by snow. I did half-heartedly try to set up another meeting with Cristina on the day she left, but she caught a bad cold/flu. I decided that I would read the other book more carefully and give it to Cristina. (that was all last February) I'm not really speaking behind Cristina's back here, but if she doesn't come across this post, please don't point her to it
Learner's notes: Don't know whether it's common for Agatha Christie, but this book does have a narrator. It seems like he's meant to be less intelligent than the reader. I think being in the first person makes the book easier. And as always, the good thing about her works is that you can look up any amount of words - only a few or many, or none at all. The book will remain interesting.
Representation notes: Christie's usual minor sexism, racism, ableism, some femmephobia too (and apparently some anti-semitism was edited out too...). I did like the variety of the female characters.
Other: I wanted to reread the part leading to the murder several times, until I found the solution. I ended up "just" making sure I understood everything, and I started a mindmap with some things from the book. That's really awesome, I'll try to use mindmaps more now. Nevertheless I still couldn't predict the solution of the two main mysteries, partially because of the historical context of the book.
After being undecided for a week I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads. It wasn't perfect but too good to get less than that.
Favourite quotes:Com maior percepção do caráter inglês, servi uma forte dose de uísque com soda e coloquei-a na frente do desditado inspetor.
(With more insight into the English character, I poured out a stiff whisky and soda and placed it in front of the gloomy inspector.)
—Então o senhor tem uma teoria?
—Um detetive, M. Martin, sempre tem uma teoria. É o que se espera dele. Pessoalmente, não chamo de teoria. Digo que é uma ideiazinha. Essa é a primeira fase.
—E a segunda?
—Se a ideiazinha for acertada, então eu sei! É bastante simples, como se vê.
—Gostaria que me dissesse qual é a sua teoria... ou ideiazinha.