Customer Reviews

Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?: The Mystery Behind the Agatha Christie Mystery

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you have not yet read Agatha Christie's THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, you are not doing yourself a favor by reading any of the reviews on this board, some of which give away the solution to that classic mystery. I strongly suggest that you read it first before going any further on this page.

Christie's controversial 1926 novel has long been considered a masterpiece of the genre, and for good reason. With its intricate plot and ingenious solution, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD is a first-rate mystery from a first-rate mystery novelist. Pierre Bayard's book, WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD?, is structured as a re-examination of the facts, and suggests--no, declares outright--that Christie's solution is the wrong one.

Quite a claim, really. And yet, readers who suspend their disbelief at the sheer audacity of the author's proposition and take the experiment at face value are bound to be disappointed, as I was. For only about twenty-five percent of WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD? is devoted to Bayard's new hypothesis (which is, by far, the most interesting part of the book). The other seventy-five percent is devoted to exposition on matters of literary theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. There's nothing necessarily wrong about that, except that I found much of Bayard's argument largely irrelevant, contradictory, and unforgivably pretentious.

Unfortunate, considering that a few of his points are actually quite astute; I found the chapters on "the paradox of the liar" and "the lie by omission" perceptive and thought-provoking. But when Bayard suggests more than once that not only could Christie's other mysteries benefit from further scrutiny, but that the detective story in general is full of potential holes...well, as a mystery fan, I didn't exactly appreciate the implication that my favorite genre was doomed to be an exercise in futility.

I was even more annoyed by Bayard's use of psychoanalysis as a tool in his argument, as though

Freudian theory matters a whit to Agatha Christie's (admittedly cardboard) characters. This section (four chapters!), in which Bayard introduces such ideas as "disorganized paranoid delusion" and accuses Hercule Poirot of having a "paranoid thought disorder," is easily the most unnecessary part of the book. Personally I consider it a shameless attempt by Bayard to peddle his psychoanalytic knowledge under the guise of an intelligent reading exercise. Certainly I respect him for his considerable expertise in this area, but really, couldn't he just publish these four chapters in a separate psychology textbook, rather than try to convince readers that he's actually doing something constructive with Christie's novel?

Finally we get to Bayard's conclusion regarding who really killed Roger Ackroyd. The revelation was certainly a surprise, and afforded me a moment of pleasure--which was immediately dashed by the realization that Bayard's shock revelation, unlike Christie's, was neither airtight nor carefully developed. I was hoping for a clever reworking of plot elements so that the result would be at least on the level of an above-average mystery novel. I guess being a Christie reader has inflated my expectations. Bayard all but ignores THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD's meticulously layered plot and instead uses a simplistic process of elimination to rule out all the suspects but one. Most unsatisfying. It's one thing to trash someone else's work, but it's another thing to try to formulate your own solution, especially when you're up against a pro like Dame Agatha. I shudder to think of the result if Bayard sets out to write a legitimate detective story of his own.

Maybe the idea behind this project was so misconceived, it was doomed from the start regardless of the execution. After all, the whole concept behind the book is rather pointless. In all great fiction, the story becomes so real to the reader that we forget that the author is pulling the strings, but that's no reason to go overboard and dictate "what really happened." Call me crazy, but when I read a book--ESPECIALLY when I read an Agatha Christie--I usually expect the author to have full control over the story and the characters' actions and what they think and say. Didn't the editors of this book (if there were any involved, I'm not sure) bother to note that Bayard makes just a little too much use of artistic license?

The most glaring problem with WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD?, however, is the fact that it doesn't even comply with its own manufactured rules. Bayard's novel is rife with self-contradictions. He attempts to use psychoanalysis to probe Christie's characters, even though judging them according to Freudian theory is akin to using calculus as a device for counting to ten. He attempts to furnish a new solution to the crime, even though he claims that the book's structure precludes any solid conclusions. He pooh-poohs the reliability of the mystery genre, but champions his own methods as a way to understand it. Finally, he completely ignores what makes Christie such an effective writer--her craftsmanship and her endlessly inventive plotting--and instead trots out some very elementary reasoning in a pitiful attempt to outwit her. If you must read WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD?, be forewarned that it does give away the solutions to some of Christie's best novels (many of them, in my opinion, even better than THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD), so hold off until after you've read them all. But by the time you've done that, you'll probably have a much deeper understanding of the writer and her work than what Bayard has demonstrated here.

First, a warning, Bayard's book contains long discussions of the methods used by Christie to hide the answer in many of her books. As such, it is best suited for Christie readers who have already read those works, or who do not mind having surprises revealed.

Otherwise, Bayard provides a good analysis of how Christie fools her readers, pulling back the curtain to reveal the magician's secrets. His taxonimy of the tricks is useful, although incomplete. This makes it a good guide for an aspiring mystery writer looking to see how Christie worked her magic.

Bayard's psychoanalysis of the crime is a bit more speculative. One can nit-pick his facts and conclusions, but the exercise is itself useful. Appling critical analysis to Christie's solution seems no less absurd than Tey's re-analysis of Richard III in Daughter of Time, the endless books on Jack the Ripper's identity, or decades of English literature classes convinced that the author is the last person to understand the significance of his own works.

In sum, worth reading for those who enjoy learning about the tricks of the mystery writing trade.

This book could never have been written by an Anglophone critic, who would treat the French reverence of Agatha Christie with the same bemused condescension as its apotheosis of Jerry Lewis (when Bayard lists the major writers who have discussed 'Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?' (Barthes, Eco, Robbe-Grillet, Perec et al), English-speaking writers are predictably absent). Coming from such an Anglophone culture as I do, it is startling to find Christie discussed not as a slick purveyor of narrow puzzles, but as a great writer of works of art, to be analysed with the same respect as Tolstoy and Flaubert. Bayard can make such claims because of his method - by focusing rigorously on the body of work, the texts and their techniques, and dismissing the irrelevant claims of biography, class, gender, history, context etc., he ironically opens them up, reveals their formal daring, their, their philosophical depth, their proto-post-modernist concern with the reader, the author and the stability of the text. In a comment on Durrenmatt's 'The Pledge' recently, I sarcastically referred to Christie as a modernist; after Bayard's book I stand disgraced.

so although this book's novelty and selling point is the idea that Christie got it wrong, that the solution to her most ingenious and controversial novel doesn't make much sense, it is really a celebration of how Christie got it innovatively right for decades, an achievement that went unnoticed because, as a writer of puzzles, she didn't produce the kind of books that get reread, unlike those of Flaubert and Tolstoy. so Bayard's book is also a celebration of the detective genre, a theoretical analysis of its structures of meaning, showing how they actually undermine their ostensible purpose, the restoration of order and clarity (e.g. the narration of any detective story is always an instance of bad faith, constructing false worlds in order to trick the reader).

The book is also a case for revivifying the waning practice of (specifically Freudian) psychoanalysis, especially in reading literary works - after all, the work of psychoanalysts and detectives, uncovering events in the past by an examination and interpretation of clues or signifcant events, are very similar (ditto literary critics).

Most ambitiously, it is a book about the acts of writing and reading - in a performance of Barthesian magnanimity, Bayard shows how Christie destroys the structures and assumptions of conventional narration, thereby liberating the imaginative and interpretive powers of the reader willing to take up the challenge. In finding links between detective work, theory construction and clinical delusion, Bayard endearingly begins chasing his own tail, and the book will be invaluable to readers of Raymond Queneau.

But, most pressingly, the book remains true to its promise - the self-sufficient theoretical analyses (largely readable, although I made heavy weather of the 'delusion' section) are firmly in the service of the book's mystery - who, then, really did kill Roger Ackroyd? - which in itself is constructed like an Agatha Christie-style mystery, with clues followed up, discarded or co-opted before a final, Poirot-like flourish, which is immensely satisfying, both at the level of the crime genre and the original novel, and and on that of open-ended, philosophical speculation. It'll make you rush to Christie's books with renewed awe.

The idea of a story entering the public domain and giving rise to a variety of interpretations and even, in the case of a mystery novel, to a new ending, is an interesting one. What a pity that Bayard lacks the analytical and writing skills to make a go of it. There is much wrong with this book, but I would like just to point out one glaring error. Bayard's 'solution' depends on Roger Ackroyd admitting the murderer through the french windows in his study. Unfortunately, there were no french windows in the study; they were in the drawing room. The study had sash windows. Although this invalidates Bayard's entire thesis, it is among the least of the problems with this book. The real mystery (more puzzling than anything Ms Christie could have dreamed up) is how this book got published in the first place.

Having picked up this book with great apprehension, given the pretentiousness of much of what poses today for literary analysis, I cannot say that I am surprised by its content. Bayard takes what is undoubedly one of the cleverest and most readable of all mysteries and deconstructs it in light of the psychoanalytical theories of Freud and the literary theories of Barthes. The result: an only occasionally interesting but overwhelmingly ponderous (amazing, given that it runs only 140-plus pages) work. Operating on the basis of the theory that detective novels have an indeterminate meaning, Bayard creates a new solution for the problem of who killed Ackroyd. The problem is that his solution is not nearly as clever as Agatha Christie's, nor is the book as engagingly readable. In place of Christie's sprightly prose, Bayard subjects his readers to reflections on the nature of literary reality such as "This incompleteness of the world of the work invites the thought that a whole intermediate world exists around every character that is partly conscious and partly unconscious, produced by the limited nature of statements and the impossibility of increasing the available data" (p. 106). If you love post-modernist epistemological rambling, you'll enjoy this book. If you love a good mystery, read (or re-read for its downright cleverness) Christie's original novel instead.

This book is an exciting analysis and alternative reading of Agatha Christie's masterpiece, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". The aim of the book is not to "improve" on the original by giving a "better" solution. Rather it is to present this (and more generally, any) detective novel in a different light than we, as average readers, are used to and comfortable with. We like to be surprised by a neat unfolding of a solution that we are convinced by, but have not expected. And on this count Christie delivers more often than most writers of detective fiction, and with consummate skill. Bayard's book analyzes how this is accomplished, and then probes further to show that as readers, we have the right to interpret the text in different ways. He comes up with an alternative murderer, and who knows, perhaps Christie herself had built in this ambiguity into her story!

Apart from a discussion of several stories by Christie, Bayard has an awful discussion about delusion (bringing the rating immediately down to 4 stars). But he makes up with an interesting description of Oedipus as a mystery story. Then, the book has several useful end notes, and many of the references are to be found only in French language journals. We, in the English speaking world, are fortunate to have a translation of this book.

The bottom line: after reading Bayard's book, I rushed out to the nearest used book store and got myself a few mysteries by Agatha Christie, including "Roger Ackroyd". And I intend to re-reread these after a gap of over a decade.

I recently recieved this most interesting book on request for my birthday. I started reading that evening, and I simply couldn't put it down until I finished. It's quite interesting, but probably not in the way M. Pierre Bayard planned it to be. The man writes very well, in a very informative style...too informative, in fact. One thing I could not stand is when Bayard gave away the endings to about a dozen or so of Christie's books to enforce his writing. Thankfully, being a life-long Christie fan, I'd read most of them, but some I did not. Bayard reveals some of Christie's most twisted, wonderful endings in a single chapter!

So, before reading Who Killed Roger Ackroyd, it would be a good idea to have these books under your belt: (unless you don't care) And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Endless Night, (There's a LOT about this one) The Pale Horse, 4:50 from Paddington, and Witness for the Prosecution --- For those of you who want to read this book without reading all those others, just skip the chapter on the Van Dine Principle. Problem solved. These are just a FEW of the books to which the miraculous endings are spoiled. I can't believe this guy. I mean, who writes an ENTIRE BOOK to prove another author wrong in her story? IT'S HER STORY, PIERRE!! Now, here's my solution to Pierre Bayard. And, of course, like Poirot's solution to the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I may be completely wrong. Bayard was reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. He had his heart set on one particular suspect as being the killer. Perhaps he has read more Christie mysteries, and figures he is pretty good at spotting the murderer before Poirot. When Poirot announces HIS solution, Bayard goes into complete denial. He re-reads crucial plot points of the book, then manipulates them into his own way of saying Poirot's suggested killer is innocent. His own weird way of Justice. I say Bull. You don't need to be a psychoanalyst to understand Christie's wonderful books. She wrote them for average, ordinary chaps like myself to understand them. Everything you need for a compelling story is RIGHT THERE IN THE BOOK! WHY? WHY??? Why contaminate Agatha Christie's books with all this psycho-crud? Most of us just want to read Christie and let that satisfying "warmth" settle into our hearts when her loveable sleuths clean everything up nice and tidy like.

<SIGH> Well, now that I've gone off and ripped into Bayard's book, I guess I should restate that it an oddly fascinating read. Again, skip the Van Dine chapter, and the one about Endless Night if you haven't read that book, and you'll be fine. Poor Christie.

I have read "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" several times. In fact I pretty much read it once a year just because it's so perfectly constructed and enjoyable. I never forget who the culprit is, of course, but I find that with each new reading I pick up a another clue or something that I had missed on past readings. Hence, I was intrigued by the idea of someone writing a book analyzing Christie's classic work and giving it a new spin, so to speak. "Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" was written partially in the style of a mystery, with Bayard wanting to lead the reader to what he considers a surprising new ending. However, I could see the identity of this new "culprit" coming a mile away. True Hercule Poirot fans will be disappointed in Bayard's take that the great detective was not only wrong in his assessment of the killer, but was almost reckless in his disregard for what Bayard pushes as obvious clues to a different murderer. What bothered me even more, though, was that he threw in spoilers for a bunch of other Christie books without warning, some of which I haven't read yet and am now very upset to know the outcomes.

Like everyone I was very surprised about the killer when I first read Who Killed Roger Ackroyd. In the following years, I read practically all of Agatha Christie's mysteries, and say practically, because I am sure I did re-read a few, and as all devotees, know some of the books are very much alike in setting, characters, denouement and of course the casual racism and classism. But you read them and then go on you way.

The great thing about Pierre Bayard is that he has taken the time to really read her books and in the process tease out a rather brilliant idea about "detective criticism". The idea is that there exists an ïntermediate"world between the world of fiction and the world of reality. In this intermediate world characters are unmoored from the expectations of the text and are re-viewed as if the author's intention was just another interpretation of the text on the same level as the informed reader.

Mr Bayard's insistence on the inviolability of the text allows the detective critic to revisit the text and using the text alone find other equally valid conclusions as to who the real murderer is. Mr Bayard buttresses his conclusions with psychoanalytic reasons (he is a trained psychoanalysist), as well as examples in Greek plays. But this support while enhancing the reading of the text and perhaps using it to delve into the mind of the author, does not in any way change one word of the text.

This book is for those who enjoy mysteries, and especially have read most of Agatha Christie's work as there are plot spoilers to a lot of her work.

I enjoyed Mr Bayard's book so much I went back and re-read Who Killed Roger Ackroyd, and it was amazing reading it and remembering Mr Bayard's insights.

I highly recommend this book, as well as the equally brilliant Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong - an inquiry into the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? was for me a disapointment. Offering an alternative solution to Agatha Christie's classic The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, the book suggests that an entirely different person is responsible for the murder. I prefer the author's original murderer. After all, she wrote the book. No one else. I can only think that Agatha Christie would have been shocked to find someone else write a book about her book saying that the killer was not the person Agatha wrote as the killer. But maybe I'm wrong. I can see the book as an excellent source for a psychoanalyst and those interested in this field of research. Oddly, I was not surprised by the ending. From the very moment in the prologue, when the suggestion was made that the killer Agatha Christie wrote as the killer was not the killer, I knew where it was headed. And I was right. Normally I am not. But I could see where this was going. As a Agatha Christie fan I didn't really care for it. But as someone interested in psycology, it was very well written. One thing to note is that it gives away the solutions of several of Agatha Christie's works. So, be aware of that before reading.