The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
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Do you think the ending was a cheat?
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It was a good ending; and rather than being a cheat it means that it was a more honest mystery, since meta thinking should be left out of it. No one in the story would say "well, since you are narrating this, we know you didn't do it," so the reader shouldn't be allowed to make that assumption either.
It was a stroke of genius..similar to " I see dead people" in film
It was fun that there was at least one hint about the ending so I'd say no, it's not a cheat. Plus, this goes to show when you love writing and you want to pull a twist you have to know how to really pull it off... and Christie did!Plus on a side note I found another aspect of Poirot enlightening. He showed mercy to the character by presenting a chance for the person to admit it... and then later spoke to them privately, letting all comeuppance fall upon that one since the person wouldn't confess.
Makes me kind of like that detective character even more!
Yeah I found it a cheat. If the story had been presented as a series of memoirs rather than your typical first-person narrative it'd have been fairer for the narrator to leave out facts at will. The presentation of the story leads the reader to assume that the narrator is reliable.Even so I guessed the twist a few pages before the reveal...
Farhan wrote: "Some reviewers and even other mystery writers of Christie's time felt that the fact that the narrator himself turned out to be the murderer was dishonesty and cheating on the part of Christie. Do y..."You should have had a spoiler warning before you wrote that line! No, I think the ending was the best part of the book. It made it memorable.
I don't think it was a cheat at all. I loved it!
It was perfect for it. Really keeps you guessing and reading!
Don wrote: "I love the book. Christie doesn't do this in any other book and it was an original concept."That is not correct. She does it (at least*) one other time.
* I have to say "at least" because I haven't read them all yet. (But I'm close.)
It wasn't cheating, it was clever. I worked it out about 2/3 through the book (!) but am still fascinated with her technique; all the clues were there, although some not emphasized. Kept me reading.
Okay, maybe I too felt like a fool, but it is certainly an art to make people fools, isn't it? And it becomes all the more difficult when you fool someone in writing. I give it a Five-Star!
I didnt think it was cheating or something, as a matter of fact it was pretty inventive on Christie's part to have thought of this. But the part that gets me is that if you look this from the detective's point of view, it exposes a glaring fallacy. Just because you're looking from the narrator's angle, it feels fairly surprising when the truth is revealed. But when you see from a neutral perspective, it is clear and obvious that Dr. Sheppard is the one and only person who has been at all the wrong times in all the wrong places. Christie hides it pretty well, but it is kinda unnatural as well. Poirot can see that Sheppard is the only guy who is feeding him, the only one who hasnt been thoroughly interviewed, the only one who last saw the guy alive or talking or whatever.
I'm very interested in seeing how the Poirot series handles this problem in their interpretation of this novel.
I didn't think it was a cheat, I actually quite liked it - even if the transition from narrator to murderer was a little sudden in my opinion of the time (it's been quite a while since I read it, so I'm just a tad sketchy on the subject). However, after finishing that other novel of Christie's where she used the same trick, I was a little upset. I did not like it at all; that did feel like she was cheating purely for the fact that she had done it before. Or well, perhaps cheating isn't the right term. I thought it was lazy, at any rate, and that book is therefore my least favourite of Christie's, and the only one so far to leave a bad taste in my mouth upon completion.
It isn't cheating!Dr. Sheppard was a cheat. We knew it from his narration. He hid facts from everyone.
I kept thinking it was Caroline and I still do. There is nothing in the book that clears her off suspicion or explains why she was never suspected.
No, not a cheat at all. Even though I strongly suspected the narrator throughout the book because of some subtle clues in the first chapter, it was a great twist to keep readers guessing. I think it was brilliant of Christie, and it distinguishes this book from a lot of other mysteries out there.
I do agree that it was unexpected. I believe that some of us who didn't voice our doubts about the narrator might have done so because it's first person, so what choice do we have to believe what the narrator says? After all, if we can't believe him, how can there be a story?But I think that's wrong. The point of a mystery is not to give the reader the answer. It's to have the characters solve the mystery. It would have been a cheat if there were no clues, if the character's personality was clearly opposite of the murderer's, if we witnessed certain things happening that the narrator lied about. But see here:
The phonecall: we never actually hear what was on the other line. We weren't told an outright lie.
The murder: It says: "I looked back to see if I had left anything undone, but it seems I had not." It never said what happened in between Ackroyd not reading the letter and the doctor leaving.
Ralph: it never said exactly what the doctor did in between leaving the house and getting home.
I guarantee there was more. It was not cheating because there were clues, even if they were almost impossible to guess. The facts had all been given. Just like Poirot says, we were given the facts, and we must make what we can of them. We didn't guess, it seems, but it wasn't because she cheated: it was because she's a master.
Alberto wrote: "I'm very interested in seeing how the Poirot series handles this problem in their interpretation of this novel."I recently watched the Poirot episode with David Suchet and I gotta say I liked the way that it was presented.
Husein wrote: "The Brilliance of murder mysteries is that it leaves you guessing as to who the murderer is and sometimes you get it right and feel the satisfaction. Even if you get it wrong, the chances that the ..."
I agree
I agree
Farhan wrote: "Some reviewers and even other mystery writers of Christie's time felt that the fact that the narrator himself turned out to be the murderer was dishonesty and cheating on the part of Christie. Do y..."Farhan, this book is Christie's masterpiece and can often be found on lists such as "The Greatest Books of the 20th Century". And if you read it a second time (I have) you simply have to appreciate what Christie did: she in no way cheated (there isn't a word out of place, it falls together beautifully) and she created the greatest twist in all of crime literature. And, yes, there is another book in which she did this. It'd be a crime to reveal it, so I wont.
Carolina wrote: "Farhan wrote: "Some reviewers and even other mystery writers of Christie's time felt that the fact that the narrator himself turned out to be the murderer was dishonesty and cheating on the part of..."Yes, I read Endless Night just prior to TMORA and enjoyed Night much better. I guess I'm one of the few....still, nothing compares - in my opinion - to And Then There Were None.
*CONTAINS SPOILER* I don't think it was a cheat. I must say, I thought this new plot twist was something remarkable. So cleverly done- who would ever have guessed the narrator of the book could be the murderer! The fact that the story is told from his point of view as well.. it just seems impossible. Only Christie could have done this so cleverly. I think it worked well with the story. I did feel a bit stupid for not guessing him though at the end. Probably the cleverest plot twist I've ever read so far. Although I do understand other people's annoyance- Perhaps this Watson as murderer type of thing does't appeal to all. Guess we'll just have to admit- Christie fooled us!
Look forward to re reading the book and to try to pick up the clues I missed first time!
From now on, I'll always be suspicious of narrators, although I think this plot was just the only one of its kind. I say Good job Christie!
(Possible spoiler)It was not one of a kind. That's all you're getting out of me.
I was not really fooled , I thought there was a good chance the doctor was guilty. The detective pulled a columbo and became a friend of the suspect. I thought it was weird that the detective never really questioned the doctor--felt the detective was playing the doctor.
I thought it was a neat twist. I like unreliable narrators for some stories though
I actually adored the ending, the moment I realise narrator was the one, I thought "Okay, so why are you the one dictating everything that too in a molded way. You can speak straight facts " but then I liked how Agatha made the twist of why Dr was narrating it in a twisted away and justified the same.
it was a great twist, I was so happy when I read it I couldn't stop laughing on the train. Other passengers might think I was mad.
I don't really think it's cheating. I figured it out in the middle of the story and I was amazed with how brilliant it was written without fooling the reader. This is a great book in total but I can't imagine it'd be on the big screen.
Oh absolutely! And I think I can guess which book you were referring to *wink, wink, nudge nudge* but this one AGH!By the time I had read the last page, I was royally worked up. The most obvious reason being: it just wasn't fair play.
A mystery invites the reader to participate, to put themselves in the shoes of the detective, and see if they can out run the author to the conclusion. At least, that's how I've always felt.
With this one? I felt like the board was rigged, and the rules were rewritten, just so the Queen of Crime could have a laugh at our expense...
I've since come to respect her for pulling it off by the way :D It took some time, but it happened.
I thought it was brilliant. It may have broken some ‘golden rule’, but good writers take us to places we wouldn’t go on our own. Do all mystery authors write so that their readers can figure it out, or do they craft the story they way they see fit? I read so many classic murder mysteries and there is a formula. This one however, totally fooled me. Loved it.
Hmm. . . a cheat? Not exactly, but certainly a surprise. I read it just today and I'm trying to think if we were actually misled, but except for the "handy" sailor whom we were told about at the end, I think we had most of the information. i was a bit annoyed about him, though. It's not something we might have guessed (not me, anyway).I just reviewed it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I'm sure the original rules that were written down for detective novels in the Golden Age as per the Crime Club of the time were mostly tongue in cheek and Agatha Christie made a point of breaking them all if not most of them in her time. The ending may not seem so revolutionary now but it did cause a complete shock at the time because it was considered cheating and not playing fair by the expectations of crime readers. But it definitely works for me.
No. I don't think the ending was a cheat. It was a brilliant ending. Although many of my friends and myself could guess the answer to who-dun-it, I still found the book quite engaging and nicely-done. Besides, the idea was to read between the lines if one had to guess the killer. That appealed to me greatly!
I read it for the first time last week. About a third the way in, I considered the narrator as the killer, and thought, "If he is, then this is silly because Christie's not being honest with his reactions." The further I read, the more I thought it was the narrator, but the more I hoped it wouldn't be. Then it was. And I was disappointed. It didn't work for me.
For me the ending was obvious on two fronts:1. It isn’t told from Poirot’s POV, which instantly made me suspicious of the narrator; and
2. Being suspicious of the good doctor from the start, I questioned everything we were told from exclusively his point of view.
It was a good mystery to be sure, but easily “solved”. If you want a good mystery that rewards you for paying attention to clues rather than relying on an unreliable narrator twist, check out Christie’s superior “Five Little Pigs”.
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Agatha Christie did..."
There actually were rules. She was a member of the "Detection Society", which had some specific rules for writers who belonged.
She didn't care since the book was such a hit.