Modern Literature Commons^™

Pierre Bayard's Wormholes, Warren Motte

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The recent work of Pierre Bayard is trenchant, original, and deeply engaging. From Qui a tué Roger Ackroyd? (1998) Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? (2001) onward, Bayard's books have piqued the interest of readers well beyond the limited circle of those who habitually consume French criticism and literary theory, and have served thus to expand the horizon of possibility of critical writing in significant ways. Bayard writes in a conditional, hypothetical mode, rather than a declarative one, keenly aware of how very mobile literary objects are. Bayard is not afraid to take risks, and he searches for new forms through ...