Talking About Detective Fiction (one more time)

I promise this is my last post on P.D. James's Talking About Detective Fiction.  I've milked this book for posts, haven't I (here and here)?  But there is so much of interest that she shares I can't seem to help myself.  This is always how it is with nonfiction--so much to remember and how do I distill all that information down to one small blog post?  I think rather than try and give you a broad overview of what she writes about, I'll pick out a few authors she has made me want to read more of or in some cases simply try as they are new to me.  (And sorry if this is heavy on quotes--I promise there is still plenty to discover yet if you plan on picking this book up to read).

After talking generally about the history of detective fiction from its beginnings with authors like Charles Dickens (murder in Bleak House) and Anthony Trollope (did Lady Eustace steal the family diamonds) to Wilkie Collins (who's the mysterious woman in A Woman in White) and even Charlotte Bronte (the madwoman in the attic?) she gets down to specifics.  I think I'm going to jump over Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, often considered the first detective novel (though some might give that honor to Edgar Allen Poe's C. Auguste Dupin's stories), and go straight to the famous Sherlock Holmes.  I love mysteries and detective fiction, but I was a little surprised at how patchy my reading of the genre really is (in terms of classics).  I've only read The Hound of the Baskervilles (and yes, he is quite the deductive reasoner, Sherlock Holmes), but I didn't realize Arthur Conan Doyle only wrote four full length novels.  He wrote numerous short stories which were published in five collections.

"Holmes's lasting attraction also derives from the setting and atmosphere of the stories.  We enter into that Victorian world of fog and gaslight, the jingle of horses' reins, the grind of wheels on cobblestones and the shadow of a veiled woman climbing stairs to that claustrophobic sanctum at 221B Baker Street."

And you shouldn't miss those atmospheric moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles!  At this time society was becoming ever more literate and an upper middle class was emerging with more time for leisure so the Holmes stories appealed to Victorian sensibilities.  I know there are a lot of fans out there of G.K. Chesterton's novels featuring Father Brown, but for some reason they have never appealed to me.  His output was "prodigious" but P.D. James notes that all the stories are not equally successful.

"...but the quality of writing never disappoints.  Chesterton never wrote an inelegant or clumsy sentence.  The Father Brown stories are written in a style richly complex, imaginative, vigorous, poetic and spiced with paradoxes.  He had been trained as an artist and he saw life with an artist's eye.  He wanted his readers to share that poetic vision, to see the romance and numinousness in commonplace things."

So maybe it's the idea of a priest (or vicar?) that makes me think 'ho hum' when it comes to detective stories, but I am going to give Father Brown a try after all.

I'd never heard of E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case, which was published in 1913.  It was highly regarded by his contemporaries.  Dorothy Sayers wrote that it "holds a very special place in the history of detective fiction, a tale of unusual brilliance and charm, startlingly original".  Apparently Bentley was not a fan of Sherlock Holmes and his work was meant to satirize not celebrate the genre.  Not all critics agreed with the positive assessments the novel received, but it is seen as an innovation and the immediate precursor to the Golden Age novels.  I may have to give it a try and see where it fits into the puzzle.

Before getting to the four "Queens of Crime", James does give a nod in the direction of the hard-boiled school of American detective fiction.  She calls Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler the two best innovators.

"The differences between the hard-boiled school and such Golden Age writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Michael Innes, are so profound that it seems stretching a definition to describe both groups under the same category.  If the British detective story is concerned with bringing order out of disorder, a genre of reconciliation and social healing, restoring the mythical village of Mayhem Parva to prelapsarian tranquillity, in the United States Hammett and Chandler were depicting and exploring the great social upheavals of the 1920s--lawlessness, prohibition, corruption, the power and violence of notorious gangsters who were close to becoming folk heroes, the cycle of boom and depression--and creating detectives who were inured to this world and could confront it on their own terms."

Hammett had a rough upbringing and supported his family by writing short stories for the pulp magazines.  Interestingly (but maybe not at all surprising) his editors wanted "violent action, vividly portrayed characters and a prose style ruthlessly pruned of all essentials." That just has 'pulp' written all over it, don't you think.  Chandler on the other hand was born in the United States but educated in England.  He had a successful business career before he started writing.  I've yet to read Chandler (on my list of course), but I have tried Hammett and like his pared down style.  Another author, this time contemporary, I hadn't any particular interest in picking up is Sara Paretsky.  James calls her the "most remarkable of the moderns."  I hadn't even really considered her in that tradition, which again shows you how little I really know. 

"When she created her private eye, V.I. Warshawski, it was in the conscious emulation of the myth of the solitary private eye and his lone campaign against the corruption of the powerful, but her Polish-American heroine has a humility, a humanity and a need for human relationships which the male hard-boilers lack."

Guess whose books I've already placed an order for?

So, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.  I've read all four, but I've read very little by each writer.  Some authors' work is just so ubiquitous it seems to be part of the literary consciousness of whole swathes of readers.  I may not have read much by Agatha Christie, but I can tell you a little about M. Poirot and Miss Jane Marple nonetheless.  Maybe because of all those television and film adaptations?  James calls Agatha Christie's style:

"neither original nor elegant but workmanlike.  It does what is required of it.  She employs no great psychological subtlety in her characterisation; her villains and suspects are drawn in broad and clear outlines and, perhaps because of this, they have a universality which readers worldwide can instantly recognise and feel at home with."

What James admires most is that Agatha Christie knew her limitations and worked within them and did so with great success.  She wasn't an innovator but again and again she pulled off her stories, or puzzles if you like and her endings were always a surprise.  She was a consistently good author and perhaps most telling is her books are still in print today.

Dorothy L. Sayers was the most versatile of the four woman and was not only a novelist but a playwright, poet, amateur theologian and a translator of Dante's works.  Of course her sleuth is very famous, Lord Peter Wimsey, a lover and collector of old books and somewhat of an eccentric.  I think by the time Sayers had finished writing her Wimsey novels she had tired of him.  And she might be one of the few, and perhaps only author to finish writing mysteries early on and concentrate on other types of writing.

"To her admirers she is the writer who did more than any other to make the detective story intellectually respectable, and to change it from an ingenious but sub-literary puzzle into a specialised branch of fiction with serious claims to be judged as a novel.  To her detractors she was snobbish, intellectually arrogant, pretentious and occasionally dull."

She is well known for offing her victims in some of the most unusual and perhaps even bizarre forms of murder. I have to like her for this quote, however, as I am all for living vicariously through more exciting lives than my own, even if they are fictional:

"Lord Peter's large income (the source of which, by the way, I have never investigated) was a different matter.  I deliberately gave him that.  After all, it cost me nothing, and at that time I was particularly hard up and it gave me pleasure to spend his fortune for him.  When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room, I took a luxury flat for him in Piccadilly.  When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered an Aubusson carpet.  When I had no money to pay my bus fare, I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull I let him drive it."

Margery Allingham had a very prolific career spanning nearly forty years. I've read a couple of Allingham's novels and have always wanted to go back to the beginning to start properly to see how she developed as a writer.  Her sleuth, Albert Campion, is another gentleman, and while some of her characters fall into that category of eccentrics they never become caricatures according to James.

"The novels became increasingly sophisticated, concentrating more on character and milieu than on mystery, and in 1961 she wrote that the crime novel could be 'a kind of reflection on society's conscience'.  This was to become increasingly true of detective fiction generally, but Allingham herself reflected rather than criticised the age in which she her stories are set.  She had considerable descriptive gifts, especially for places: the seedier square of north-west London, decaying post-war streets, the salt marshes of the Essex coast." 

Ngaio Marsh was from New Zealand and borrowed on her career in the theater for some of her books, which have theatrical settings.  Although Marsh's work is said to be a little too self conscious when it comes to the whodunnit aspect of the story, she excelled in description and quality of writing.

"She is less concerned with the psychology of her characters than is Margery Allingham, and the lengthy interrogations by her urbane detective, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, have their longueurs but both women are novelists, not merely fabricators of ingenious puzzles,  Both sought, not always successfully, to reconcile the conventions of the classical detective story with the novel of social realism.  But because Ngaio Marsh experienced Britain as a long-staying visitor who saw what she thought of as a second homeland through somewhat naive and uncritical eyes, she gives a less accurate, more idealised, nostalgic and regrettably sometimes snobbish picture of England than do her crime-writing contemporaries."

All right, just one more.  Not too long ago I was introduced to P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh and have been very curious about him, as she never seems especially forthcoming about his personal life.  James herself is more inspired by place rather than method of murder or a character.  She didn't want to begin with an eccentric character who would be troublesome down the line.

"So I decided to begin with a less egregiously bizarre character and ruthlessly kill off wife and newborn son in order to avoid involving myself in his emotional life, which I felt would be difficult successfully to incorporate into the structure of the classical detective story.  I gave him the qualities I personally admire in either sex--intelligence, courage but not foolhardiness, sensitivity but not sentimentality, and reticence.  I felt this would provide me with a credible professional policeman capable of development should this first novel be the first of a series."

How's that?  I find that very interesting.  So maybe I will never find out the details of his personal life as I make my way through the series.  That's okay really, but I couldn't help but wonder since she leaves only small clues about him. 

I've barely touched the tip of the iceberg, but as this post is getting a little too unwieldy (and I feel as though I've told you very little), I will stop here.  James never tries to play the critic, though she does try and present a balanced picture of those writers from the Golden Age she chooses to write about.  She's obviously fond of her topic and knowledgeable as well, so this has been a pleasure to read.  It's put me in good stead as I begin reading Mignon Eberhart's The Mystery of Hunting's End for The Classics Circuit.  I'm already seeing themes emerge and a style similar to her British counterparts (Eberhart was called the American Agatha Christie).  Talking About Detective Fiction has been a thoroughly enjoyable read and a good reminder of why I love cozy mysteries (particularly from this era) so much.  And now I have a whole list of new authors to 'investigate'.      

Comments

[Teresa]

You really do make this book sound fascinating. I was considering reading it as a warm-up for the Classics Circuit, but I'm not sure I'll have time. Plus, I'm afraid of what it would do to my TBR list!

[Danielle]

Teresa--It is a quick read when you do decide to pick it up, but I suspect you might indeed be tempted by new authors or a desire to reread the famous cozy mystery authors like Agatha Christie. The timing was nice as it coincided with my reading for the Classics Circuit!

[Ellen]

I just want you to know that I found all your posts about this book extremely interesting. (So no milking as far as I am concerned.) 'Trent's Last Case' is available for free on the Gutenberg website, I'm definitely putting it on my TBR pile.

[Liz F]

I can't believe that you haven't read Sara Paretsky, Danielle!
I read her years ago and thought that she, and her lead character VI Warshawski were brilliant. She is a thoughtful writer who seems to have more of a social conscience than a lot and when I saw her on TV over here when she was promoting the most recent book, I was pleased to find that I liked her very much as well.
She has recently written another VI book after a bit of a gap so I am in the process of re-reading the series from the beginning - working on the principle that if I read one a month, I should be up to date by the time the new one comes out in paperback! That's the theory anyway! Hope you enjoy her.

[Stefanie]

I admire the way you have managed to milk this book so well and each time make me more interested in it :) Now if I only had the time to read it.

[Sakura]

As a mystery lover, your posts about this book has been making me itch to get it. I've read lots of Christie, Marsh, Sayers and Allingham, but there's still so many more books out there. Makes me happy.

[Rosalind]

This is such a great post. I was a massive Agatha Christie fan when I was quite young (it's easy to see why she might appeal to 13 or 14 year olds) and then progressed on to Ngaio Marsh, but I hadn't read any detective fiction for years - until Stieg Larsson. Now I think I might have a taste for it again and this post has been hugely informative. Thanks!

[Catherine]

I cannot wait to get a hold of this book! I love reading about the Golden Age writers of mysteries...I really can't get enough of them ever. thanks for your terrific posts on this! I'm also looking forward to discovering some new mystery writers as well.

[Buried In Print]

Terrific post! Her Time to be in Earnest had the same effect on me, even though, in comparison, it had relatively little on this subject (it fit into a couple of chapters IIRC). On the subject of bookish books by writers who are also fond of mysteries, I really enjoyed Maureen Corrigan's Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading; she has some to say about detective fiction too, if my poor reader's memory serves.

[iliana]

Very interesting observation on the Paretsky books! It took me a while to try and remember if I'd read any! I have, but just the first one in the series. I do have a second book on the shelves so I should give that a try and see what I think. Have fun checking out your new discoveries Danielle!

[Danielle]

Ellen--I'm glad you enjoyed them and I highly recommend the book if you liked the quotes. I should have thought about looking at Project Gutenberg--they have all sorts of little treasures--I may have to start reading it online.
Liz--I do have some serious holes in my mystery reading! I think I have always felt the Sarah Paretsky novels would seem too familiar and am always looking for the exotic--as weird as that sounds. In any case I am rectifying it now. I should join you in your (re)reading of her novels--at least with the first, which I now have on hand. I find very often that I will love an author that I had previously dismissed and I bet that will be the case here, too.
Stefanie--It's a quick read, if that helps (which I suspect it won't, because I still haven't figured out a way to grow time). Maybe save it for summer?
Sakura--I've only read a few by Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham and only one by Marsh and Sayers, but it was enough to make me want to read more of their work. I loved reading about this period--it made a lot of sense and put things into some perspective. I may have to look for a more in depth study of the mystery genre now. And I, too, am happy that there are so many more authors to explore.
Rosalind--Am very glad you enjoyed the post. I somehow missed Agatha Christie when I was young but I am sure I would have loved her--so I will read her now as well as the others in her group. I've yet to read Stieg Larsson, which I expect is not at all cozy, but still an excellent read (from what I hear).
Catherine--If you enjoy reading books from this period I think you will like the book. James is such a good writer anyway, I loved getting her insight since she is so familiar with how mystery writers work. I hope you enjoy it when you get to it.
Buried in Print--I really need to give her autobiography a try--I suspect I would enjoy that as well as I like her style. I liked hearing about her own writing process and how she created Dalgliesh. And I have Maureen Corrigan's book--a friend (and also a reader) gave it to me one Christmas. Another book I really need to read--books by or about book lovers are always good.
Iliana--I think I never really realized what the Paretsky novels were about, but now they are appealing to me! My mystery pile is literally teetering at the moment.

[Eva]

I read this last week and LOVED it. I was so sad when I had to return it to the library. :( And like you, my TBR list is now sooo much longer,lol.

[Danielle]

Eva--Wasn't this a great book? I think I will have to buy at copy at some point as it's all so interesting. And I also added a few authors and titles to my list as well!