{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2491",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2491,
    "subject": "THE GOOD SOLDIER, John Sutherland, and ROGER ACKROYD",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-12-07T11:49:41+00:00",
    "last": "2000-12-07T11:49:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0161@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-12-07T11:49:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) THE GOOD SOLDIER, John Sutherland, and ROGER ACKROYD",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\n\"THE GOOD SOLDIER is, Eugene Goodheart claims, `one of the most puzzling\nworks of modern fiction.' [snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's been a long time since I've read THE GOOD SOLDIER (which mainstream\ncritics seem to regard as the ne plus ultra of unreliable narration),\nand I haven't read any of the criticism referred to in the paragraph\nmantis quoted, but my impression is that determining \"what happened,\" as\nopposed to the motives of the characters or how we should evaluate them,\nis far more straightforward for THE GOOD SOLDIER than for PEACE."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "That's a long quote, but the article gets even better: the title of the\npiece is \"Whose daughter is Nancy?\" and it becomes something rather like\nour Doris enigma.  It is in a neat little paperback book (Dan'l and hello\nthere Henry Kaiser, they have 'em at Half Price Books [which is a used\nbookstore chain based in Texas, Roy]) titled CAN JANE EYRE BE HAPPY? which\nis a sequel to IS HEATHCLIFF A MURDERER? GREAT PUZZLES IN 19TH-CENTURY\nFICTION."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have IS HEATHCLIFF A MURDERER?  I actually did consider bringing it to\nthe lists attention earlier, but never got around to it.  It's of\ninterest to readers of this list, even aside from the specific books he\ndiscusses, because Sutherland is one of the few mainstream critics who\nasks the sorts of questions of his books that we ask of Wolfe.  His\ngeneral modus operandi is to spot a factual puzzle or apparent error or\ninconsistency in a (usually) 19th-century novel, and to explain it\neither by external factors or (as is usual on this list) by a closer\nreading which solves the puzzle.\n\nAnother book which may be of interest to this list, for similar reasons,\nis a recent book by Pierre Bayard entitled WHO KILLED ROGER ACKROYD? THE\nMYSTERY BEHIND THE AGATHA CHRISTIE MYSTERY.  Not only does Bayard give\nthe classic mystery novel THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD a lupine reading,\nby claiming that the true murderer is not the murderer the book\nostensibly identifies (and he advocates giving a similar treatment to\nvarious literary classics); he has an interesting discussion, with\ntypology, of the ways in which authors can conceal the \"truth\" from\ntheir readers.\n\n(Warning: Bayard's book necessarily reveals the (ostensible) murderer in\nChristie's mystery; but so does the book's back cover.  So if you\nhaven't read Christie's book and you don't want the mystery spoiled,\nkeep away.)\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}