Agatha Christie
She's one of those authors that you (and by 'you' I mean 'I') will let get away with almost anything because she's just so damned fun to read. Especially with a certain fussy, puffed-up little Belgian who can use his 'little grey cells'.
It's interesting reading some of her work from the 30s, say, Poirot Loses A Client and then something from the 60s, like The Third Girl and realize that she wasn't just a one-note roaring 20s and 30s writer. Her later stuff shows a keen sense of the changing world and a deep affection for the rebellion and energy of youth. Certainly, it was expressed in a radically different way than her own, but she seems to have avoided becoming locked in the past or vastly alienated from the (then) present in her later work.
Which doesn't mean that she didn't keep sliding some rather pointed and often wicked social commentary between the ribs of her readers throughout her career.
I think one of the reasons that her work holds up so well today (and I'd argue that Poirot holds up the best of all her work) is that social commentary. When written it was timely and insightful but it holds up just as well in transmuting what were light contemporary works into the very best of light period works.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that good writing stays good.
(In sharp contrast to the vast majority of say, New Wave SF or the gritty revenge/detective fiction of the 70s and 80s, which were enormously popular at the time and don't hold up well at all, these days.)
It's interesting reading some of her work from the 30s, say, Poirot Loses A Client and then something from the 60s, like The Third Girl and realize that she wasn't just a one-note roaring 20s and 30s writer. Her later stuff shows a keen sense of the changing world and a deep affection for the rebellion and energy of youth. Certainly, it was expressed in a radically different way than her own, but she seems to have avoided becoming locked in the past or vastly alienated from the (then) present in her later work.
Which doesn't mean that she didn't keep sliding some rather pointed and often wicked social commentary between the ribs of her readers throughout her career.
I think one of the reasons that her work holds up so well today (and I'd argue that Poirot holds up the best of all her work) is that social commentary. When written it was timely and insightful but it holds up just as well in transmuting what were light contemporary works into the very best of light period works.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that good writing stays good.
(In sharp contrast to the vast majority of say, New Wave SF or the gritty revenge/detective fiction of the 70s and 80s, which were enormously popular at the time and don't hold up well at all, these days.)