The Detective Story And Literature

[poliphilo]

The detective story exists in a parallel universe- one in which unlikely people commit unlikely crimes for unlikely reasons. It's fantasy, but tightly constricted fantasy. In the interests of playing fair with the reader everything has to proceed according to the rules of a Newtonian universe- no monkeying around with space-time,  no science fiction, nothing supernatural.

In other words the detective story tells lies about human nature but is not allowed to lie freely or fantastically. It's neither realism nor magic realism but something in between. 

The writer of detective fiction willingly dons a straitjacket.

It's no wonder, then,  that there are so few good detective stories that are also great literature.

Bleak House is a detective story but it's not a good detective story. The problem is too elementary.

The Sherlock Holmes stories are great literature by accident. Doyle thought he was writing cheap magazine stories and stumbled into a whole new world. He is a great original. He created the genre and more or less exhausted it. Most later detectives and their sidekicks are shadows of Holmes and Watson.

G.K. Chesterton pushed the detective story as far in the direction of fantasy as it will go. A handful of the Father Brown stories are brilliant fables, brilliantly written. Most of them are just too wild

A number of the writers of the Golden Age attempted to write detective stories that were also serious literature.  Margery Allingham, anyone? 

The more literary Dorothy L. Sayers attempted to be, the more unreadable she became.

Agatha Christie is the best. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is perfect of its kind. It's like the Rubick cube- wonderfully simple, wonderfully cunning. There's no way you could improve on it. A masterpiece, but not a literary masterpiece.  

Ruth Rendell sensibly divides herself in two. Rendell for detection, Vine for literature.

I can think of only one great novel that's also a great detective story. The Name of the Rose. Not even its creator has been able to duplicate its success.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I love mystery fiction--and good fiction--but I was unable to read "The Name of the Rose". Too ponderous.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I´m not a huge fan of detective stories but The Name of the Rose? That´s in a league of its own. ¡Magnífico!

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Name of the Rose is my favourite book ever! Just so much in there, the plot, the characters, the hisroty, the descriptive detail. A masterpiece. One of the few books that transcends the straitjacket of the detective story. I'm not sure I can think of any others but will try!

Oh - An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, maybe. Highly, highly recommended.

[sovay]

The more literary Dorothy L. Sayers attempted to be, the more unreadable she became.

I love the last quartet with Harriet Vane, but I have noticed that I read them more for character than for mystery.

[oakmouse]

I wonder if the requirements of the detective story are incompatible with the characteristics of great literature. It's an interesting puzzle.

Considering your comments about Dorothy Sayers, I realized that I don't read her books as detective stories. Generally speaking, I don't like detective stories; they bore me. The ones I do like appeal to me as a way of spending time with interesting people. Sayers provides that in spades for me, especially in "Gaudy Night".

As far as Peter Wimsey goes, I like the way he turns from a fellow who complains how trying it is "always to look as though one's name was Algy" into a complex and rather interesting man as she develops him. I can quite see that he might be intolerable to a British reader, but as an American I don't have the baggage of centuries of aristocracy putting a thumb onto the scales of my reaction. I would rather expire outright than have any sort of romance with him (Harriet can have him in that regard; I'm not one of those who reads the books to have a vicarious thrill over him) but I do like watching the way he works.

And of course for me Sayers has another charm: her works are period pieces, vivid snapshots of a time now gone. I like that.


As to Name of the Rose, well, horses for courses; I found it boring, transparent, and irritating.

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, have you ever read Edmund Wilson's article "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd"? Despite the title, it's a bit similar to your train of thought.