Revisiting Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'

Some time ago, after consulting various reviews and analyses, I read Agatha Christie's renowned novel 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd', and was left feeling slightly underwhelmed. It had been described as one of the greatest novels ever published in the crime-fiction genre, but it did not leave any great impression with me. At the same time I sensed that my understanding and appreciation of the book might be altered if I read it again when I was subject to a different mood or changed personal circumstances.

My literary inclinations, in fiction, tend towards philosophical novels and realism, with richness of characterisations, and plentiful socio-economic context embroidered around them. As alluded to in the previous paragraph, my attitude towards more 'far-fetched' stories, and those which appear less 'literary' than my usual choices, even those with some psychological complexity, seems to vary according to my state of mind and environment at the time of reading. 

As I rather suspected, when I recently revisited this novel, my antennae and my senses were more receptive than when I first journeyed through its pages. A stark picture of the human condition emerged on this occasion, the unpalatable spectre of those travails, traumas and temptations which few, if any, of us are spared. The 'sparsity' of the writing only accentuates this feeling, and imbues the story with a modern, 'out-of-time' immediacy. 

In 2020, the book has had a pointed and vivid effect on me, the realisation of the foibles of human behaviour being more oppressive and acute when one's own personal situation and horizons are undergoing a period of uncertainty. The world can seem an unfriendly and daunting place when the harsh realities of life jump from the page and find their mark. The format of a novel can sometimes bring home disagreeable truths more cogently and trenchantly than any amount of unfocused ruminating.

As has been observed my some people, 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' makes its impact on more than one level. The 'resolution', and the unmasking of the culprit, startle us on the first reading, but its other dimensions emerge on subsequent visits, when the reader indulges in a touch of 'reverse engineering', and is animated by realisation of the truth about the narrator. Being in possession of additional understanding and perspective strengthens our grasp of, and curiosity about, the motivations and outlook of the participants in the story.

The relative lack of historical and contextual 'padding' helps to strip away some preconceptions, and brings into enhanced focus the central human tragedies of the case. The tautness and 'minimalism' of the text, with its dearth of detailed characterisations and settings, leaves the reader to draw his or her own conclusions concerning the social factors which informed events in a broader sense, if indeed such factors can be said to have weighed onerously here, and how far we can empathise with the people involved. It is perhaps the case that the absence of context, and the 'universality' of the forces apparently at work, lead us to feel that we could ourselves be afflicted by similar weaknesses and insecurities to the character who perpetrates terrible deeds.

One thing which is difficult to overlook is my ambivalence about the Hercule Poirot character. On the one hand, certain of his traits I find irritating, such as his occasionally mildly condescending attitude towards others. Equally, his observational skills and powers of logic and analysis are things which we should admire and aspire to. The make-up of his personality certainly gives this novel some additional bite, and Poirot is impossible to ignore.

So this novel's 'glories' loomed larger on this second occasion, and the legacy, the 'after-taste', so to speak, will I suspect linger longer. That said, I now have a yearning to once more immerse myself in realism and practicality!  I might equally reflect on the possibility that imagination and psychology are important after all.