Talk:The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Missing controversy

The lead section describes this book as "one of Christie's ... most controversial novels". However, I could not find any explanation of what was controversial about it. Is that explained anywhere in the article? That is the only direct mention of controversy in the article. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

It was controversial because as described in the article, the narrator is the murderer. Some of the criticism section touches on this and it is also alluded to above in the sections about spoilers.Sbishop (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

The body of the article should explain this. If the lead is going to say that, then somewhere in the body of the article it should say the book was controversial and why, providing a couple of examples of commentary or events to illustrate that there was some controversy about it. I don't see that currently. And comments here on the article's Talk page are obviously not part of the article. Also, the statement saying it was controversial has three citations, but they are all to offline sources so I cannot verify whether those sources actually say it was controversial. OK, so the narrator is the murderer, but what is controversial about that? It may be surprising, or clever, but what's the controversy? Did someone say she shouldn't have written it that way? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the view that evidence for a controversy should be inserted. What was controversial is alluded to in the sentence:

John Goddard produced a thorough analysis of whether Christie 'cheats' with her sensational solution and concluded that the charge of cheating fails. That is to say, some readers felt that Christie was in some ways being 'unfair' by having the murderer narrate the novel.That of course is a subjective point of view, and one could equally say that it's a writer's job to confound expectations, especially in a genre work like a detective novel.Sbishop (talk) 17:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

That is indeed what the article says, but it provides no support for the statement in the lead that the book is or was "one of Christie's ... most controversial novels" (my emphasis). MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:36, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

In order to support the idea that the book was controversial (and even more than that, to say it is one of the most controversial of Christie's novels), we should be able to describe some large number of people who said that the way the book is written was not acceptable – that it is an especially terrible book – e.g. because having the murderer be the narrator would encourage sympathising with murderers generally and might encourage others to commit murder, whereas murderers should simply be thoroughly condemned and we should never be tricked into seeing the world from their perspective. Did anyone give a speech in parliament saying the book was especially corrupting to society and should be banned? That would be a description of a controversy. Goddard apparently thought about the plot device and concluded it was OK, which is no indication of a controversy at all. For that matter, Poe wrote at least three stories that are told from a murderer's perspective about a century earlier, so that idea does not seem especially innovative or controversial. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:45, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

That's absolutely right, and I'd be very happy for you to replace that wording in the lead with something better. MichaelMaggs (talk) 06:38, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

"that the way the book is written was not acceptable – that it is an especially terrible book" Not that kind of controversy.

• During the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, mystery writers established sets of rules concerning the boundaries of the genre and the expectations of the reader. Among them was the following by Ronald Knox: "The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know." The Murder of Roger Ackroyd defied the convention by having the narrator be the murderer, and using the unreliable narrator trope. The narrator was lying by omission throughout the story, and the reader was familiar with his opinions.
• For much of her career, Christie subverted the conventions of the genre by defying the rules set by her contemporary writers. "The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover." Hercule Poirot was instead systematically secretive about the clues he had encountered, typically withholding information until the end of the novel. "No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right." Miss Marple often depended more on her intuition than the physical evidence. She deduced the personality traits of people involved in her case, by comparing them to people which she had met before. "The detective himself must not commit the crime." Subverted in Curtain, where Poirot commits murder-suicide. Also subverted in Three Act Tragedy and The A.B.C. Murders where one member of a group of detectives is the actual killer, and Crooked House where the amateur sleuth was "investigating" her own murders in an attempt to get attention by her not-so-loving family.
• Because she did not play by the rules, Christie was repeatedly accused of "cheating" her readers. Dimadick (talk) 12:30, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

  By all means let's add that to the body of the text, with appropriate sources. The newly-sourced text can then be reflected in an improved lead. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:42, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

  Bravo – that is the sort of insight the article needs. Or a link to it; since that commentary spans across multiple novels, perhaps it belongs best in the article about her, rather than the article about this book. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:05, 26 May 2023 (UTC)