History
The real life mysteries of mystery writers
-Shravan h
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains mentions of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, mental health issues, and death.
“Life imitates art.” Oscar Wilde propagated that famous saying in the late 19th century, and we have been fascinated with the idea since. While it is glamourous to think about how we see our environment through the lens of art, music, and literature, the proverb had slightly more direct, literal implications for two of the most renowned mystery writers and poets of the past two centuries - Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie.
Let’s start with Poe in the year 1849. Once known and lauded as a prolific mystery writer, his public image after his death was horridly twisted. He came to be seen as a violent, aggressive drunkard who completely embodied the ‘tortured artist’ trope - a man whose struggles with the world were so deep; he expressed it through his characters and his stories. His death was as macabre and eerie as his works, and to this day, its cause remains unknown.
The story goes that he disappeared from the city in late September, and was not seen for another week. Suddenly, he showed up on the 3rd of October in a bar, delirious and “in need of immediate assistance.” The man who found him took him to a hospital, and he refused to see anyone but the doctor. He was in a confined space with his health rapidly deteriorating. Finally, he died on October 7, mysteriously enough, of unknown causes. All the medical records and certificates were simply… lost.
And then we forgot about it. The man who led such an eventful life, just writing and writing about his characters, got so deep into it that he eventually became his characters. Be it the dwindling health and confinement of Roderick Usher or the excessive drinking and gambling of William Wilson, Poe’s final moments began echoing those of his famous works. The fear of death that possessed his characters became his own.
Agatha Christie’s story, however, is different. Her tale began in 1926 when she split up with her husband. Her life was chaotic and crumbling apart, and in the midst of it all, she disappeared. For ten days, England was obsessed with her sudden vanishing. And not just England, the story made the headlines of the New York Times. There were new rewards and bounties offered in exchange for finding her, but she remained in the shadows for another ten days. Then, she was finally found in a hotel registered under a fake name, a phoney birthplace, and fake ID. She was taken to her sister’s house and, again, confined with herself and no one else.
The theories for this mystery are plentiful: some say she wanted to embarrass her ex-husband publicly or frame him, some say she was driving herself to suicide, and some say she was using it as a publicity stunt. However, two doctors that treated her, and various others involved say she suffered from “the most complete loss of memory.” Her disappearance was a mystery only she could have written - and a secret no one else could solve. The incident was seldom mentioned by Christie again, and she simply said it wasn’t worth dwelling on.
But why do these mysteries matter? Sure, they’re interesting to learn about - our minds have always had some fondness for puzzles and some obsession with the things we don’t know. It may be neat, and in a way ironic, to think about how the cases of these prolific mystery writers went unsolved. However, they have a philosophical and psychological significance that often goes unnoticed, or casually skimmed through.
The idea of “anti-mimesis”, or as previously mentioned, life imitating art, is powerfully conveyed by incidents like this - what happens in our daily lives occurs because art influenced it. Agatha Christie might not have pulled off such a disappearance had she not been the Queen of Crime, and Edgar Allan Poe’s personality may not have come to be seen this way had it not been for his works. Anti-mimesis even answers one of the strangest questions about the brain: why are we so obsessed with the unknown? We get jumpy at the idea of a thriller novel. We all get excited listening to unsolved mysteries. We all love books, and poems, and movies about supernatural figures. But... why?
Anti-mimesis offers a simple yet perfect answer: because art makes us think that way.
Left: A newspaper clipping showing the ways in which Agatha Christie could be disguised
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Right: The obituary of Edgar Allan Poe
Noor-un-nissa
-Sanvi saraswat
“The life of a spy is to know not to be known”
-George Herbert
A quiet and a sensitive girl, a child psychologist, an air force recruit, a radio presenter, a Sufi poet, a princess by birth, and a children’s author,
She grew up amid the growing Sufi movement in Europe and learned music at the Paris Conservatory.
Well, Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan was all the above and more. She began her career by writing poetry and children’s stories and became a regular contributor to children’s magazines and French radio. In 1939, her book, “Twenty Jataka Tales”, inspired by the “Jataka Tales” of the Buddhist tradition, was published in London. She later joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and got trained in wireless operation. In spite of the fact that women were not usually found doing such jobs, she found them rather “boring.”
But as World War II drew close, she walked into the most dangerous post in all of Paris - that of the sole link between the rebel groups of France and their support system in England.
Running an entire circuit all by herself, the Sufi princess, a misfit in a world entirely dominated by men became a most unlikely secret agent who grew into one of the bravest SOE members. She grew into a Special operations executive, where a set of students were trained for a wireless operator in a closed territory. She was then sent to Beaulieu where the security training was capped with wireless operators. The ultimate exercise was the mock Gestapo interrogation. They did it to let the agents know what it would be like if the Germans captured or caught them.
As an SOE agent, Noor became the first female wireless operator to be sent from the UK into France to aid the French Resistance during World War II. It wasn’t a simple job as it involved keeping secrets and living in constant fear.
Noor-Un-Nissa: A hero to be remembered
She was later betrayed to the Germans either by Henri Déricourt or Renée Garry. Subsequently, she was executed at the Dachau concentration camp.
Imagine being turned in by someone you once called a colleague, being betrayed by a friend, a partner and being beaten to death and eventually shot. That was how Noor met her demise.
Fortunately, her efforts were rewarded, she was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949 and a French Croix De Guerre with Silver Star (Avec étoile de vermeil).
Noor died in honor. Brave, intelligent, bold, patriotic and a keen learner - an inspiring story known to very few.