IN SEARCH OF MISS JANE MARPLE.

This evening, I watched Mystery! on the PBS channel. Currently running is a series based on Agatha Christie’s novels featuring her elderly female sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Tonight’s episode was the second part of What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw.

I’ve always adored British dramas. A&E used to run several of them on a regular basis, but no longer does so—which has really put a dent in the amount of television I watch. Now, I have to wait all week to see Miss Marple on PBS, played in this particular series by Geraldine McEwan.

Out of all the actresses I’ve ever seen in the role of Miss Marple, McEwan best fits my own mental image of the character created by Christie. If Christie were still alive, would she agree? I don’t have a clue—but I do think it would be interesting to know.

One of my readers used to send me letters in which she “cast” my own novels, detailing what actors she thought should play my characters’ parts in the event that any of my books should ever be made into a movie. I was always fascinated to read her choices, because they were seldom actors I myself would have picked for those same characters. So, obviously, her mental images of the characters I had created were different from mine.

The point is that when she read my novels, she took my characters and made them her own. So, too, when reading Christie’s books did I conjure up my own mental images of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and the rest. This is what readers do. That’s why I’m curious about McEwan and Christie, if how I’ve always envisioned Miss Marple is how Christie herself saw her when she created her. I think David Suchet is a marvelous Poirot, too. Again, would Christie agree?

Authors can give us physical descriptions of their characters and bring them alive for us in myriad ways. But as readers, we each bring our own perceptions and experiences to the novels we read, which color the mental images we see and the conclusions we draw about characters.

Miss Marple is a grandmotherly sort of character, but “grandmotherly” can mean many different things to people. When I remember my own grandmothers, I don’t picture either one as Miss Marple. But I do think that some of their traits, such as their sharpness, observance, wisdom, and insight into human nature, mirror Miss Marple’s own. So as a reader, I take what I know of those traits my grandmothers possessed and project them on to the character of Miss Marple.

But if you’re a Christie fan, your view of Miss Marple might be completely different from mine. Your “grandmotherly” mental image might be closer to how Gracie Fields, Margaret Rutherford, Angela Lansbury, Helen Hayes, or Joan Hickson portrayed the character. These actresses have all played Miss Marple in the past and brought their own interpretations of her to the role.

Which, if any, comes closest to what Christie herself actually had in mind when she developed Miss Marple as a character? As readers, we can only make our best guess. Whether we would be right or wrong is something only Christie, Miss Marple’s creator, could ever say for sure.