Really, Agatha?
Nov. 12th, 2013 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litlover12When The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was named best crime novel ever, I opined on Facebook that of course it isn't -- Gaudy Night is. As it happened, I hadn't read Ackroyd -- I just knew it couldn't beat Gaudy Night! But then I thought, well, I should probably give Ackroyd a try. So I picked it up at the library.
Guess what? I was right. Less than halfway through, I'd already spotted the murderer. To be fair, I had a little help -- I'd seen someone mention somewhere that there was a trick in it, so I was on the lookout for a trick, and sure enough, there it was -- same old tired trick she used in another novel, which never fails to drive me up the wall.
Granted, it's a very, very clever trick, one that not just any writer could pull off, and I'm sure it seemed fresh and brilliant, even revolutionary, and not tired at all when she used it here. But one clever trick does not necessarily a wonderful novel make, especially when you have to plow through a lot of Christie's stilted writing to get to the reveal. Oh, she has a savory turn of phrase now and then ("She gave me a handful of assorted knuckles and rings to squeeze" is fantastic), but only now and then. The rest is choppy paragraphs, Highly Significant Murmurings, and lots of italics. It's really bugging me that, now I know the solution, the completist in me won't let me just put the thing down and walk away. Whereas, with Sayers's novels, you can enjoy them as novels -- wonderfully written, well-rounded novels -- not just as clever puzzles.
Sorry, Agatha. The prize still belongs to Dorothy, as far as I'm concerned.
Guess what? I was right. Less than halfway through, I'd already spotted the murderer. To be fair, I had a little help -- I'd seen someone mention somewhere that there was a trick in it, so I was on the lookout for a trick, and sure enough, there it was -- same old tired trick she used in another novel, which never fails to drive me up the wall.
Granted, it's a very, very clever trick, one that not just any writer could pull off, and I'm sure it seemed fresh and brilliant, even revolutionary, and not tired at all when she used it here. But one clever trick does not necessarily a wonderful novel make, especially when you have to plow through a lot of Christie's stilted writing to get to the reveal. Oh, she has a savory turn of phrase now and then ("She gave me a handful of assorted knuckles and rings to squeeze" is fantastic), but only now and then. The rest is choppy paragraphs, Highly Significant Murmurings, and lots of italics. It's really bugging me that, now I know the solution, the completist in me won't let me just put the thing down and walk away. Whereas, with Sayers's novels, you can enjoy them as novels -- wonderfully written, well-rounded novels -- not just as clever puzzles.
Sorry, Agatha. The prize still belongs to Dorothy, as far as I'm concerned.
