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All About Agatha Christie

A Hercule Poirot Amuse-Bouche: The Lost Mine by Agatha Christie

All About Agatha Christie

Catherine Brobeck & Kemper Donovan

Tv & Film, Books, Film Reviews, Arts

4.71.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There are so many things lost in this story: a mine; the papers pinpointing the location of said mine; the narrative facade whereby Hastings is supposedly the one telling us this story (more on this last point in our next episode).... But one thing we were sure *not* to lose was context, because boy is it necessary while wading through the colonialist Orientalism on display here.... So pull on your gaiters and wade with us. Along the way we get to hear Poirot call Hastings a "grumpus," so all is not lost.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to all about Agatha, the podcast dedicated to reading and ranking.

0:12.0

Every single mystery novel written by the Queen of Prime.

0:16.0

Dame Magath the Christie, I'm Catherine Brobeck,

0:19.0

and I'm Kemper Donovan.

0:20.0

And here we are bringing to you the short story, The Lost Mine, which was first published in

0:28.0

The Sketch on November 21st, 1923.

0:34.7

So let's get right down to it and talk about the victim.

0:38.6

All right, the victim is Wu Ling,

0:42.3

the Chinese owner of a silver and lead mine in Burma who is traveling to

0:47.0

London for the sale of shares in the mine.

0:49.9

He goes missing in advance of the sales meeting that he was supposed to attend and

0:54.2

his body is later found in the Thames. Right and it's slightly unclear if he

1:00.2

owns the mine or if he just seems to have the papers to it?

1:06.0

Right or if he's working for the Chinese conglomerate that actually owns the mine.

1:11.0

Like yeah, it's unclear I guess how

1:13.2

vaunted of a personage he is within the mining company

1:17.8

in China.

1:18.8

That are happening here are a little unclear in the story.

1:21.6

There's so much more troubling things going on in this story

1:25.4

that I didn't focus on that too much.

1:28.6

I did because I really get fixated on logistics,

1:32.0

but yes yes agreed there are other things happening here

...

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