false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172116806m/140314.jpg 140314 6 <B>Penzler Pick, August 2000:</B> Edmund Wilson, the famous literary critic, once inquired disdainfully (in an essay explaining his inability to develop the mystery-reading habit), "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" In a single sentence, with its reference to the notorious plot of Agatha Christie's sixth novel, <I>The Murder of Roger Ackroyd</I>, he struck deep at the collective spirit of a community of like-minded souls: the detective fiction readers of the world. Ever since 1926, when the novel in question was first published, helping to insure its author's reputation as the ruling queen of crafty crime, mystery fans have indeed cared. Passionately.<p> But until the arrival of this provocative rereading of the case, written by a psychoanalyst and translated from the French, it is likely that not one of them ever doubted the validity of the solution as worked out by the redoubtable Hercule Poirot. After all, if the author's own detective had incorrectly followed the clues laid down for him, what kind of unsteady ground was the reader left standing on?<p> Although Bayard makes it clear that those picking up his book don't necessarily have to return to the original text--he does give a very concise summary of the principal characters and actions of Christie's story--it is an exercise, really a pleasure, that I urge you toward. <I>The Murder of Roger Ackroyd</I> is such a landmark of the genre that it is not just a bit of nostalgia, a form of genial time travel, but also a reminder of what the Golden Age of the mystery novel was all about: the matching of wits between writer and reader, with puzzles that truly puzzled and were made all the more satisfying by the operative credo of fair play.<p> To address the actual plot of <I>The Murder of Roger Ackroyd</I> is to risk spoiling the fun. Let's just say there is an English village, King's Abbott, in which a bluff country squire, the much-mentioned Ackroyd, resides until his untimely death, [stabbed] by an unknown assailant. Unfortunately for the murderer--or so one used to think, pre-Pierre Bayard--there is also in the village a retired Belgian police inspector, the unparalleled M. Hercule Poirot. Poirot's celebrated "little grey cells," those he uses to form his theories of a case, steadily power the investigation to its startling conclusion, one that has always been as magnificent for its shock value as for its apparently irrefutable logic. That Professor Bayard's delicate probing of the book's structure manages to turn it convincingly in a fresh direction, toward an actual murderer <I>never even suspected</I>, is a triumph of scholarship that is at once playful and serious.<p> How we approach classic texts should never be as static an experience as we generally allow it to be, a truth proved anew by <I>Who Killed Roger Ackroyd</I>? It now joins a list of other similarly clever literary treats, among which I include Rex Stout's "Watson Was a Woman" and Frederick Crews's <I>The Pooh Perplex</I>. <I>--Otto Penzler</I> 637325 1998 Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?: The Mystery Behind the Agatha Christie Mystery total:70|5:22|4:18|3:24|2:5|1:1| 70 265 113 2 3 0 false false Tue May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 12:24:33 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 09:35:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jul 13 09:36:54 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 09:36:54 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Dec 02 20:52:28 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 02 20:52:28 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sun Nov 01 04:06:16 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 01 04:06:16 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Mon Oct 26 19:12:37 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 19:12:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Oct 20 17:40:17 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 17:40:17 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Oct 08 18:49:29 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 18:49:29 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 04 20:52:15 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 20:52:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Oct 03 09:37:50 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 09:37:50 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Oct 03 08:43:43 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 08:43:43 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Sep 25 11:45:50 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 25 11:45:50 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Sep 20 13:22:15 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 13:22:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Sep 12 13:00:28 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 12 13:00:28 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Aug 27 15:22:23 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 15:22:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Aug 26 15:57:23 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 15:57:23 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Aug 20 15:55:52 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 15:55:52 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Aug 12 16:16:23 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 16:16:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jul 20 03:52:51 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 03:52:51 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jul 14 23:33:59 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 14 23:33:59 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Jul 03 02:15:22 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 02:15:28 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=140314