Agatha Christie - The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd - Episode 2 - Agatha Christies Masterpiece of Whodunit!

HI, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

And I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love lit podcast. This is our second and final episode discussing Christie’s breakout novel, the one critics claim is her very best, The Murder or Roger Ackroyd. Last week, we talked about the book in terms of it being a formal detective novel- a murder of manners as I read one critic describe the genre. We discussed the conventions of the style. We also introduced her most famous and beloved character, Hercule Poirot, and you left us, Christy, with a teaser saying you wanted to get back to the story of Christie, as in Agatha Christie and Poirot’s relationship before we finish by spoiling for everyone who hasn’t read it yet, who did kill Roger Ackroyd. So, Christy, and it is slightly confusing- calling you Christy and then her being Dame Christie. But even still,, here’s the question to start with, Did Christie really hate Poirot? He made Christie quite a bit of money over the years. How could she hate a character that had been so good to her?

Yes, I truly think she came to. The first reason I feel confident making this claim is that she wrote an essay titled “Why I got Fed up with Poirot”-

Well, that certainly conveys at minimum a slight frustration.

Yes- the title is a little catchy. I read the essay, and the first reason is simple, makes a lot of sense if you thnk about it. She was just saddled with him- she didn’t know when she made him up that she was going to closer to him than most husbands and she made him deliberately annoying to be around. Some of her final words in that essay were advice to future writers and she says this, “I would give one piece of advice to young detective writers: be very careful what central character you create- you may have him with you’re a very long time.”

HA! So basically, his eccentricities the ones people find hilariously annoying just got on her last nerves over time. She said once that he was a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”.  Which is, of course, a nasty way of saying some of the same things she’s said about him in her books, but often in her books she uses gentler terms. He IS annoying- that’s part of the schtick. He DOES brag and constantly reminds his suspects that he always uncovers their lies. Even in this book, up to the very end, he gloats and brags on himself from the beginning to end.

Oh for sure! And since she wrote him in 33 novels, two plays and over 50 short stories. I can only imagine he was with her, at least in the back of her mind, always. If he’s not like a husband, he’s certainly like her child, maybe that’s the right metaphor. But I do think it went even beyond her being annoyed with him, as a character. Poirot, in very obvious ways, limited her as a writer. In that same essay she also said this, “

My own Hercule Poirot is often somewhat of an embarrassment to me – not in himself, but in the calling of his life. Would anyone go and ‘consult’ him? One feels not.

So, it seems as if it bothered her that he wasn’t as realistic as she would have written him, maybe later in life?

I think it’s something along those lines. He was a great schtick, but there was schtick element to it, in many ways. He didn’t allow her to develop her writing or even her thematic ideas- he was just too silly. Her great- grandson, James Pritchard spoke to this to the BBC. He said that in her own words she wanted to “exorcise herself of him” but he was her- and again in her own words- “bread and butter”. He was of immense commercial importance to her, if not of great creative importance in some ways. According to Pritchard she had so many other ideas for books that weren’t appropriate for Poirot, but her agents and publishers would come back and remind her he was his most popular character. And so, there was the conundrum…although I have to admit, I’d love to have a problem like that.

Yes, I think many of us would, although I can kind of see where she’s coming from. We hear actors from time to time express ideas similar that. Famously, I remember George Reeves, who was the original Superman, complained all the way until his strange and mysterious suicide that he just hated always being Superman. Or more recently, one example that comes to mind might be Daniel Ratcliffe who noticeably has worked incredibly hard to demonstrate that he is not just Harry Potter, but a versatile actor. What I find interesting about Christie’s relationship with Poirot is that she was loyal or maybe even jealous of him.

Explain that.

She took great pains not to let anyone else have him. During WW2, Christie, like many patriotic British celebrities chose to stay was in London during the Blitz. In other words, not taking advantage of the privilege of wealth and fame to ride the war out in America or some other safe destination. If you remember, the Blitz is what we call the eight months during 1940-1941 when the Nazis sieged London as well as other large and important British cities with constant bombings. But choosing to stick it out during the bombings is not the same as not being concerned that the decision might cost you your life. Fearing she might not survive the attacks, she wrote two stories that killed off each of her most famous detectives – Poirot and Miss Marple. She included a provision in her will that the stories would be published if she were to die in the war. But fortunately for us, she didn’t die in the war and Poirot hung around to annoy his creator for three more decades.  

True, and it wasn’t until 1975, when her own health began to fail that , she finally published Curtain, the novel she wrote during World War II, which killed off Poirot. It wasn’t but a few months later, in 1976, that Christie herself died- so you can see, she kept him around her entire adult life. I would tell you how Poirot dies, but you never want to give too much away about Christie novels- the surprises are the fun part- but it is a really great conclusion. Oh and one more thing- and this is really to Poirot’s credit, maybe more than Christie’s, the public reaction to what Christie did in her final novel was so tremendous that Hercule Poirot was the first ever fictional character to get a front page obituary in the New York Times. On August 6, 1975, a headline ran announcing, “Poirot is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective; Hercule Poirot, the Detective, Dies”.

Incredible! Truly, so back to our story. Last week, we talked about all the ways, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd fits the bill for a traditional formal detective novel: the setting, the characters, the weapon, the investigative style, all of it cul minating in a happily ever after ending where the world is left back in an orderly fashion- where justice is served- you even brought up the mah jong game, and even suggested that Christie may even be constructing a subtle argument that life is better in community playing by the rules. Where life is better lived when and where people interact and engage each other deliberately- where people organize and live according to commonly agreed-upon rules of engagement…or something like that…And now this week, we are going to see that all that talk about rules is just a cruel joke to seduce us into a game where she is NOT going to follow the rules of the game. And here’s the spoiler, so if you haven’t read the book, unplug now…fair warning….drum roll for the reveal….. the narrator is the murderer!!! That’s unfair!!! Even according to Christie’s own set of rules.

And yet is it? and I assume, by rules you are referring to the rules of the Detection Club. In 1930, a group of mystery writers, Agatha Christie, among them but also others one example being, interestingly enough, the AA Milne who’s most famous for giving us Winnie the Poo. The Detection Club actually still exists, btw. You have to be formally invited, and obviously it’s prestigious. But, to be a member, you swear an oath- and of course, it’s a bit tongue in check but you are asked to foreswear any of the bad practices of mystery writing. Garry, read for us the oath.

“Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God?

It’s awesome, and gives you a distinct impression that this is a fun bunch to be associated with. The Detection Club hosts formal dinners and other social things, but also The members collaborate with ideas, encourage each other with their individual works and even at times have co-written books together. Beyond the oath though, they also have what they call the “fair play rules” of detective novels. There are ten of them. One rule is that the detective himself will not commit the murder. But here’s the one that people claim Christie broke with Dr. Shepperd. Rule number 9- let’s read that one

And I quote- The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.

What we have to recognize, and what is so awesome about how Christie wrote the book is that Dr. Shepperd, the narrator who is actually our murderer never lies tp us. He never conceals anything that happens during the investigation at all really- the facts are the facts. He faithfully relays...