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WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD?

THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE AGATHA CHRISTIE MYSTERY

On the other hand, all but the most devoted theorists will catch a whiff, sooner or later, of a conference paper run amok.

Psychoanalyst Bayard takes a moment away from teaching French literature to reopen one of the most celebrated murder cases in fiction, with surprising results.

To those readers (probably Bayard’s entire audience) who object that the culprit has been obvious ever since Agatha Christie published The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1926, Bayard has a whole battery of answers. The evidence against the self-acknowledged killer, who nowhere explicitly confesses to the crime, is flimsy at best; Christie’s work is “a model of polysemy” that generates more meanings than any single ending can control; Hercule Poirot, the detective who solves the crime, may well be delusional. (On this last point, Bayard’s psychoanalytic training makes his argument as dense as it is unconvincing.) More generally and provocatively, Bayard insists that “all mystery fiction in effect implies the narrator’s bad faith” and is therefore subject to endless reinterpretation, despite Poirot’s conceited faith in his little gray cells. Bayard’s investigation is hampered by several schoolboy errors and an often unidiomatic translation. One of the major suspects in the novel is omitted from his cast of characters; Christie’s novel Five Little Pigs is confused with Ten Little Indians; and so many of her other titles are mistranslated that it becomes an intriguing minor mystery to figure out which novels are identified as The Valley, The Poisoned Pen, The Prothero Affair, and The Indiscretions of Hercule Poirot. Eventually, however, Bayard escapes these byways to propound a new solution that answers his objections about the one Christie gives. Even readers impatient with the subtleties of his entertainingly perverse argument are likely to find this solution satisfying.

On the other hand, all but the most devoted theorists will catch a whiff, sooner or later, of a conference paper run amok.

Pub Date: June 7, 2000

ISBN: 1-56584-579-X

Page Count: 176

Publisher: The New Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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