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
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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