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The Mystery of the Yellow Room

Page history last edited by Jon 12 years, 1 month ago

Leroux, Gaston - The Mystery of the Yellow Room

 

Reread this a week or so ago. I have no idea why it is ranked so highly as a detective story (by Carr and the like). Even the 'impossible crime' solutions are ludicrous. One problem, however, might be that the English translation of my book (the Dover edition of the version that was published in England a year after the original French edition) is VERY poor, with lots of errors that don't even make any sense, such as saying Murderers when there was no murder, confusing right with left, telling us the name of somebody as something new when we have already known it for 20 pages, etc. Worse are the contradictions and improbabilities - the ultimate villain had an iron-clad alibi (he was in London at the time), so how could that have been faked? How come footprints are found on hallway rugs in the house even when no mud was tracked in and whoever laid them did not have cleats on his shoes? How can you take seriously Roulettabile's superimposing a piece of paper over a footprint in the mud and cutting out an outline of it with scissors, then identifying another footprint as being by the same person by superimposing his cutout? The melodramatic plot itself is both improbable and doesn't really apply to any of the characters who did what they supposedly did. The butler did it (not in this case) because he was secretly in love with Mlle. and therefore had to kill her! Leroux was a very sloppy writer. This book is absolutely absurd.

 

Wyatt James


This [book] has been reviled, in my opinion, for 3 main reasons: 1- It repeats the solution of “The Big Bow Mystery”; 2- Its sensationalism, and 3- Its abuse of coincidences.

 

But a book highly praised by Agatha Christie (or at least, Hercule Poirot!) and John Dickson Carr must have some outstanding merit, and TMOTYR certainly has them. It is well clued, and surprising and pioneering for its time. And remember, Christie and Carr are 2 of the big 3 high priests of the fairplay detective story (with Ellery Queen), so they certainly rate this type of criteria highly!

 

I am planning to re-read this one soon. I waited far too long to read it originally because of the criticisms mentioned above, yet must confess to be delighted when reading it, even if I knew the who, the how, and the sequel beforehand!

 

The second Leroux book The Perfume of the Lady in Black is one I have never seen in English, and is one I have always been interested in reading. Of course, it is criticized for the same reasons as TMOTYR with theadditional objection that it is almost a repeat of it! I hope someone will one day, not too distant, an enlightened publisher will publish these 2 books in one volume. I already suggested this to Leonaur some time ago.

 

Enrique F. Bird Picó 

 

See also: http://classicmystery.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/the-mystery-of-the-yellow-room-by-gaston-leroux/

 

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