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Authors: Pierre Bayard
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strictly equivalent to each other; it is possible to classify them
according to their credibility, both on an individual and a collective level. To start with the individual, it is obvious
that the operation of completing a literary text will be carried out differently according to the sensibility of each reader,
and, in the field of the detective novel, according to the reader’s conception of criminals and crime.
But the possible worlds vary also in accordance with the times, their conception of criticism, and the evolution of scientific
research. As the years go by, our reading of a given work changes; today, we have grown sensitive to certain details of the
text that strike our modernity and can lead us, according to the type of completion we bring to bear, to renewed access to
the text.
Thus we could say that the question of the guilt of Oedipus, Sheppard, and Claudius is not intrinsic, but is posed anew for
each reader, in the framework of what I have called in my book on Hamlet an inner paradigm —that is, the unique way in which each of us portrays the world and confronts reality, based on the questions posed by our
own time.
Within these personal paradigms, one’s rigorous investigations may unfold with some chance of success. And through them, a
fragile form of truth, profoundly anchored in one of those intermediate worlds that extend and complete the text, can hope
to come to light for a while.
* See Shoshana Felman, “De Sophocle à Japrisot (via Freud), ou pourquoi le policier?” [From Sophocles to Japrisot (via Freud),
or Why the Mystery Story?], Littérature , Larousse, 1983,No. 49.
* See Pierre Bayard, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? , translated by Carol Cosman, New York: The New Press, 2000.
* To limit myself to just one more example, Sheppard is supposed to have killed Ackroyd because the latter was preparing to
reveal that Sheppard had been for years blackmailing Ackroyd’s companion, who had gotten rid of her husband so that she could
live with Ackroyd. This blackmail is revealed in a letter received by Ackroyd on the morning of his death, a letter that the
police do not find in the room where the corpse is found; the murderer, presumably, has made off with it. But it’s Sheppard
himself, when all the proofs have disappeared, who tells the police about the existence of this blackmail! Strange compulsion,
really, on the part of a murderer, who seems at times to be doing all he can to help the police and get himself arrested.
* See Pierre Bayard, Enquête sur Hamlet: Le Dialogue de sourds , Paris: Editions de Minuit, 2002.
* An assertion that should be tempered, taking into account variations and rough drafts. On this separation between material
closure and subjective closure, see also Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?, op. cit., pp. 103–110.
II
The Plural Story
DETECTIVE CRITICISM is suspicious by nature. While other readers, whose critical sense is less developed, quickly accept what
is told them without asking questions, the practitioner of detective criticism pays close attention to the way the facts are presented, accepting no testimony without reservation and systematically calling into question everything that
is reported to him.
Attentive to the fact that he is always reading someone’s narration, and doubting in principle everything he is told, the
detective critic sifts each bit of testimony, questioning the author, the circumstances in which he formulated the story,
and the motives that led him to express himself. To put it another way: detective criticism draws the fullest consequences
from the fact that many elements presented to us in a text as established truths are actually, when looked at carefully, only
eyewitness accounts.
The Sherlock Holmes adventures, particularly The Hound of the Baskervilles , offer one surprising characteristic reinforcing this point: the facts are communicated to us not by the author himself or
by an
according to their credibility, both on an individual and a collective level. To start with the individual, it is obvious
that the operation of completing a literary text will be carried out differently according to the sensibility of each reader,
and, in the field of the detective novel, according to the reader’s conception of criminals and crime.
But the possible worlds vary also in accordance with the times, their conception of criticism, and the evolution of scientific
research. As the years go by, our reading of a given work changes; today, we have grown sensitive to certain details of the
text that strike our modernity and can lead us, according to the type of completion we bring to bear, to renewed access to
the text.
Thus we could say that the question of the guilt of Oedipus, Sheppard, and Claudius is not intrinsic, but is posed anew for
each reader, in the framework of what I have called in my book on Hamlet an inner paradigm —that is, the unique way in which each of us portrays the world and confronts reality, based on the questions posed by our
own time.
Within these personal paradigms, one’s rigorous investigations may unfold with some chance of success. And through them, a
fragile form of truth, profoundly anchored in one of those intermediate worlds that extend and complete the text, can hope
to come to light for a while.
* See Shoshana Felman, “De Sophocle à Japrisot (via Freud), ou pourquoi le policier?” [From Sophocles to Japrisot (via Freud),
or Why the Mystery Story?], Littérature , Larousse, 1983,No. 49.
* See Pierre Bayard, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? , translated by Carol Cosman, New York: The New Press, 2000.
* To limit myself to just one more example, Sheppard is supposed to have killed Ackroyd because the latter was preparing to
reveal that Sheppard had been for years blackmailing Ackroyd’s companion, who had gotten rid of her husband so that she could
live with Ackroyd. This blackmail is revealed in a letter received by Ackroyd on the morning of his death, a letter that the
police do not find in the room where the corpse is found; the murderer, presumably, has made off with it. But it’s Sheppard
himself, when all the proofs have disappeared, who tells the police about the existence of this blackmail! Strange compulsion,
really, on the part of a murderer, who seems at times to be doing all he can to help the police and get himself arrested.
* See Pierre Bayard, Enquête sur Hamlet: Le Dialogue de sourds , Paris: Editions de Minuit, 2002.
* An assertion that should be tempered, taking into account variations and rough drafts. On this separation between material
closure and subjective closure, see also Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?, op. cit., pp. 103–110.
II
The Plural Story
DETECTIVE CRITICISM is suspicious by nature. While other readers, whose critical sense is less developed, quickly accept what
is told them without asking questions, the practitioner of detective criticism pays close attention to the way the facts are presented, accepting no testimony without reservation and systematically calling into question everything that
is reported to him.
Attentive to the fact that he is always reading someone’s narration, and doubting in principle everything he is told, the
detective critic sifts each bit of testimony, questioning the author, the circumstances in which he formulated the story,
and the motives that led him to express himself. To put it another way: detective criticism draws the fullest consequences
from the fact that many elements presented to us in a text as established truths are actually, when looked at carefully, only
eyewitness accounts.
The Sherlock Holmes adventures, particularly The Hound of the Baskervilles , offer one surprising characteristic reinforcing this point: the facts are communicated to us not by the author himself or
by an
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