The book contains reference to Maugham's-The Moon and SixPence, how did Poirot know Angela was reading this?

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7 years ago
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Kaylie I also wondered this, so I googled it. The Moon and Sixpence is about an artist who dies of leprosy, and when Angela is mad at Amyas Crale she says she hopes he will die of leprosy. (All credit to Sergeant Cuff: http://cuffoncrime.blogspot.com/2014/...)

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Ayesha She says she recalls walking in a haze of delirium repeating the words "under the green translucent wave" to herself in those days. I always assumed it was a quote from that book. Poirot mentions it to Angela because he has a passion for exactitude and since he wishes to genuinely question a couple of characters about points he feels its only correct he should present each one of them with a single question after reading their accounts. Incidentally each question also shows his remarkable powers of deduction and Poirot was never averse to a little 'showing off' :)

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Bruce In response to Emily's answer: I could not find this quotation -- could you specify more precisely where it is? Plus, why does Poirot mention it to Angela right before the denouement? He never explains its significance. A tentative theory is that reading about an artist that abandons his family to visit Tahiti adds fuel to Angela's anger at Amyas.

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Roger The references to "The Moon and Sixpence" (and to "translucent wave") are only to be found in the UK version of the book. In the US version, published earlier in 1942 under the title "Murder in Retrospect", none of this appears and Poirot simply says he knows Angela has read "a life of the painter Gauguin". In both versions Philip Blake's narrative reports that on the day before Amyas' death Angela had shouted she hoped he would die of leprosy. I have no idea how these differences arose. The upshot is that in the US version the reference to Gauguin is almost entirely incomprehensible.

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Maridimi Because at one point Angela remembers her young self repeating a line she had read from some book, because she liked the words... apparently it is a line Poirot happens to be familiar with, and thus he could guess correctly the book she had been reading. It is very probable he has tread the same book himself.

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Lisa I am confused. I just finished reading, and Poirot knew Angela was reading a book about the artist. It was right before he gathered them all together, when he met with them individually the last time. I just re-read Angela's written account, and see nothing about "walking in a delirium..." Since the novel had a name change, maybe there are two versions?

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