La Vérité sur Ils étaient dix

by Pierre Bayard

Aucun lecteur sensé ne peut croire en la solution invraisem­blable proposée à la fin du célèbre roman policier Ils étaient dix. En donnant la parole au véritable assassin, ce livre explique ce qui s’est réellement passé et pourquoi Agatha Christie s’est trompée. Ce livre est paru en 2019 sous le titre La Vérité sur Dix petits nègres.« Avec son talent habituel, Pierre Bayard mêle la précision d’une enquête policière, le sérieux d’une étude littéraire, la finesse du psy et une bonne dose d’humour pince-sans-rire pour bousculer nos certitudes et nous rallier à sa thèse. Outre une étude poussée des cas de meurtres en chambre ou en espace clos (le roman se passe sur une île), l’écrivain justicier nous renvoie à notre aveuglement collectif (fait d’illusions d’optique et de biais cognitifs) pour expliquer comment la police et le lecteur se sont fait berner. Le fantôme d’Agatha Christie, s’il est fair-play, sera magnanime : le crime de lèse-majesté de Pierre Bayard s’apparente à du grand art. » (Philippe Chevilley, Les Échos)

Genres: Nonfiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 7, 2021

About the author

Pierre Bayard (born 1954) is a French author, professor of literature and connoisseur of psychology.

Bayard's recent book Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus?, or "How to talk about books you haven't read", is a bestseller in France and has received much critical attention in English language press.

A few of his books present revisionist readings of famous fictional mysteries. Not only does he argue that the real murderer is not the one that the author presents to us, but in addition these works suggest that the author subconsciously knew who the real culprit is. His 2008 book L'Affaire du Chien des Baskerville was published in English as Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles. His earlier book Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? re-investigates Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. His book on Hamlet which argues that Claudius did not kill Hamlet's father remains untranslated into English.

Reviews

[Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

No, no, and no!!! Three stars for effort, but no! Three stars because it’s Pierre Bayard and I love him, and because this book’s still great fun to read, but no!!

Bayard is right that the solution proposed by Agatha Christie at the end of And Then There Were None is loopy. But the solution he proposes is EQUALLY loopy, inconsistent, unrealistic, and inelegant.

I loved his book on Hamlet, the theory of which I was completely convinced by, and the one on Roger Ackroyd, where I accepted the new theory as an alternative, equally fascinating text to Christie’s.

But this one - no. It does not hold water.

That being said, it’s Pierre Bayard, and even when he’s drowning in wrongness, he still says plenty of stuff that is correct. This book has some very interesting points to make about misdirection, the relevance of this novel to The ABC Murders, and the “lives” endowed to fictional characters depending on your critical stance. He is also, as said, correct that Christie’s original solution to ATTWN doesn’t hold up.

Christie ends her novel with the line, “a riddle nobody can solve”. Yep, I think it’s remained that way. The true killer on Soldier Island has, as yet, remained undiscovered.

*SPOILERS BELOW*

First of all, Bayard criticises Christie's original solution for not being "elegant" enough. Apparently, it is "inelegant" for Wargrave to carry out his mission and then die without escaping the island. Bayard opines that it is more 'elegant' if the character carries out their mission and then escapes alive. But, surely, it still makes sense, given that Wargrave is dying anyway and that he wanted to go out with a bang (as it were). The whole point of the crime was that it was a final waltz, balancing his love of justice with his love of murder.

This is not to say that the Wargrave-solution is bulletproof (it's not), but I don't think the "inelegance" of him not surviving the ordeal is enough to disprove it. Frankly, Bayard's solution - that the killer, Blore, ships a man who resembles him onto the island just to kill him and have him replace his body and then escape - is far less elegant! It's less self-contained, very convoluted, and completely unguessable for any reader. Also, given Bayard's claims that 'elegant' solutions need to be 'simple'...I'm sorry, what part of "getting a doppelganger onto the island and killing him and hoping nobody sees you" is simple?

Now let's examine the plan: Blore decides to fake his death by finding someone who resembles him enough, signalling for them to come onto the island when the time is right, killing them, and dressing it up so that this murdered man appears to be him. This is as absurd as it is unguessable. Where does this mysterious doppelganger come from? I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who resembles me enough to pass as my corpse...or how I'd go about finding him. The book is mysteriously lax on details on how this man was found.

Not to mention, when Blore is supposedly faking his death, the text says that his head was "crushed and mangled by a great block of white marble", which can't be right if Blore had just applied a bit of blood onto his head and laid down (as Bayard attempts to claim). It contradicts what is said in the text, which no alternative solution should do!

This plan also relies on Lombard and Vera being too scared to examine his body for a pulse, which is bafflingly risky. If Blore were lying there alive with blood smeared onto his intact head (again, not what the text says, but let's humour Bayard), there is no way he could have known that Lombard wouldn't feel his pulse. The characters have hitherto been quite used to dead bodies - how could Blore have possibly chanced that Lombard or Vera wouldn't check that he is dead?

The motive is equally loopy. If Blore wanted to "disappear" and fake his death (as Bayard suggests), but still mask it with the illusion of one of many killings, there are far simpler ways (and far fewer required deaths!) than inviting ten people onto an island and inventing a cock-and-bull story about Mr Owen wreaking justice through a nursery rhyme. Why not a bullet through this doppelganger's head, mash his face up to obscure the identity, and then kill a couple of other police officers to make it look like an attack against the police? Or anything else, other than this bonkers, risky, absurd island plot?

And come on, Bayard, try as you might, you cannot just explain away Armstrong's death by claiming it was suicide. Why on Earth would he have committed suicide? Because he was scared of "Mr Owen" killing him? He killed himself because he was too afraid of dying? Nice one.
Bayard claims that the lack of injuries on his body proves it wasn't murder. Bunkum. The shock of hitting the cold water may have been enough, especially combined with the speed of his fall and the high chance of drowning.

This hypothesis conveys the image of Bayard frantically trying to explain away Armstrong's death to make his theory stand up. Nice try, but no. There's a complete lack of motive and textual verifiability!

The paragraph he spends debunking Christie's original theory is (mostly) on the money, and often quite hilarious. (They carried Wargrave's body up the stairs and didn't notice he was alive? Come on.)
I am so down for the "let's-relitigate-ATTWN's-murder-solution" conversation, but oh my word, this new solution isn't it. I would also argue that Bayard chooses the least interesting character to assign as the killer, which again takes away the solution's elegance and appeal. (But then, that is subjective.)

[Monsieur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il s'agit du premier Bayard que j'ai lu. Sur le papier, le projet est séduisant : réexplorer le roman d'Agatha Christie, dans un texte mêlant essai et roman ludique, pour en proposer une nouvelle interprétation.

Dans les faits, l'exercice atteint très très vite ses limites : si j'ai beaucoup aimé la théorie de l'autonomie du personnage de roman, j'ai eu la sensation d'un grand vide au milieu du livre, rempli par des théories assez généralistes, notamment sur les biais.
Et la solution proposée par l'auteur à l'énigme du roman originel semble bien peu ambitieuse, pour un ouvrage qui place l'élégance en vertu cardinale du genre policier.

Je n'ai peut-être pas lu le meilleur Bayard pour commencer. Mais je ne ressors pas ébloui de cette nouvelle visite de l'île aux dix cadavres.

[Elisala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bon, je ne sais pas si c'est censé être drôle (c'est trop long pour être drôle), ou si c'est censé être une analyse un peu sérieuse de "ils étaient dix", je ne sais pas et en vrai je m'en fous un peu, je n'ai pas accroché. Trop de théorie inutile à mon goût, trop de blabla. Bof.

[Anna ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad es que me esperaba más de este libro. Al presentarse como una alternativa a la versión de Agatha Christie creí que encontraría mucha más trama, un verdadero nuevo misterio con su tensión y desenlace. Si bien hay algunas partes interesantes como en la que se habla sobre los misterios en espacios cerrados y como los autores han ido jugando con las varientes, lo que realmente vamos a leer si nos embarcamos en estas páginas es un montón de teoría. Me ha resultado pesado y diría que también algo pedante. Me cansan los libros que no hacen más que recurrir a otros (menciones, citas, etc.) para rellenar el suyo propio y demostrar cuanta literatura saben, el autor incluso llega a referirse a su propia obra lo cual ya me pareció el colmo la verdad 🙄. Lo que podría haber sido algo curioso y entretenido a acabado por no suscitar ningún interés.

[Mouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'auteur nous embarque dans une méta-enquête qui nous révèle ce qui s'est "réellement" passé dans l'oeuvre bien connue d'Agatha Christie, Ils étaient dix.

Une réécriture plutôt fun et engageante qui utilise aussi bien des ressorts et références littéraires que des explications scientifiques. Ça se lit vite et avec plaisir. Je tenterai sans doute les autres titres du même cycle, histoire de voir ce que l'auteur a à nous révéler sur Hamlet ou Oedipe (pour ne citer que ceux-là) ;)

[Guizotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toujours une démarche très intéressante que celle de Pierre Bayard, qui reprend une intrigue ultra connue et qui en propose une tout autre vision. J'ai aimé aussi que la frontière entre fiction et réel soit devenue si floue qu'un personnage de fiction montre à quel point son inventrice est complètement passée à côté de ce qu'il a fait, tout en restant parfaitement fidèle à la narration et à ce qui figure dans le texte même du roman.

[Pauline]

les raisons pour lesquelles la solution d'Agatha Christie est insuffisante sont super bien montrées (la tempête !) mais la solution choisie par Pierre Bayard n'est pas du tout convainquante non plus + certains passages de théorisation sont complètement inutiles

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agatha Christie a toujours été l’une de mes autrices préférées. Cette critique de Pierre Bayard sur Ils étaient dix m’a donc tout particulièrement attirée et je n’ai pas été déçue. Ce livre s’intéresse à tous les détails livrés par Christie et met à jour la conclusion de son roman sur le meurtrier. Le tout est très bien expliqué, très intelligent, et très satisfaisant. Une pointe d’humour comme il faut et un suspens à son comble pour enfin découvrir qui a commis tous les crimes, un livre absolument parfait