Shit-stirring provocation (was Women Crime Writers)

[Monte Davis]

I've just finished bingeing all nine episodes of the BBC Sherlock (second
time through) in preparation for tonight's retro episode... which had me
reflecting on the pleasures of "aha, now I see how it all fits together,"
the central reward of detective/mystery fiction since Poe and Conan Doyle
invented the genre.

Much of Wilson's objection -- especially to Agatha Christie -- centers on
the revelation-as-lecture: Holmes slowly retraces his lightning deductions
for stolid Watson's benefit. Poirot gathers all the parties in the drawing
room to offer multiple readings of events so far, pirouetting around each
suspect, culminating with the least likely: 'it was timid benign Cousin
Osbert all along!"

Wilson deprecates that pleasure as a minor if not childish gratification --
a rhetorical stance parallel to that of Wood's structures on Pynchon I
cited recently. We're supposed to absorb our soul-nourishing understanding
slowly, gradually, via small revelations and low-key epiphanies. not in a
junk-foody burst that rearranges everything at once. And that understanding
should be primarily understanding of character -- psychological
verisimilitude, relationships, human nature,
family-friendship-romance-marriage -- rather than on the cheap, brightly
colored Lego of whodunnit plot.

AFAIC, storytelling preceded, and underlies, and has its values and virtues
quite independent of, all the magnificent things done with long prose
fiction since the 17th century, with Austenite-Flaubertian realism since
the 19th. As it happens, I *like* spinach,, and eat it often. But I still
say to hell with it when served a la Wilson or Wood or Forster, in an
implicitly or explicitly prescriptive scheme for The Only Proper Aim of
Fiction.



On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 8:37 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Kafka, "A book should crack the frozen ice within us". (or it isn't
> worth reading, goes the unsaid).
>
> Edmund Wilson wrote "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" [famous
> Christie mystery; look it up if spoilers do not bother you.) In Which
> he argued that no mystery could come close
> to being Literature because, in having to resolve the mystery, the
> murder, no work could
> REALLY build to resonant themes, could not overarch and subsume the
> greatest themes for a powerful work of art.
> (just think of GR, for one example of an overarching (ouch, pun not
> intended but...) theme of a book full of deep themes which builds to
> that ending which contains the beginning and so much more).
>
> Other Side: Crime, murder, is such an overarching (sorry. I like the
> word. Stop reading if you don't) theme and natural metaphor of the
> 20th and 21st Centuries that the best 'mysteries', crime novels can
> embody themes naturally that lift them about your average 'literary'
> novel if done right, the best, etc.
>
> Even though I am reading Hammet's Red Harvest today because I haven't
> and because of one Plister's long-ago urging, I have sided with Wilson
> most of my life (even when I read some crime writers steadily.)
>
> But Wilson was wrong on Kafka--"second-rate, wouldn't last". [paraphrase]
>
> And yes, of course, we can relax with a mystery even if we believe
> Wilson, but that is not why I do (nor hope you who engage argue.) I
> feel like I'm slumming; refurbishing my lucky privilege.
>
> Take it on.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
> wrote:
> > Wow - thanks Ish - I’ve read both books - "Gone Girl" and "Girl on the
> Train" (and Woman in White for that matter).  I can’t really say which I
> enjoyed more -  "Gone Girl" is more twisty and surprising while "Girl on
> the Train” is more literary (I suppose - more interesting structure and
> character development,  great atmosphere,  what the reviewer said.)
> >
> > I’ve read other crime fiction focusing on women’s domestic scenes and
> issues -   "Elizabeth is Missing” by Emma Healey  was pretty good this past
> year (dementia)  as well as "Big, Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty from last
> year.  There are others - “Trespass” by Rose Tremain might fit this
> category.  The crimes are a bit different, the motives are different - I
> enjoy the well written ones,  not those written for the sensational impact.
> >
> > The author is totally right about the True Crime genre (real life)
> influencing the fiction (just to add to that thread).
> >
> > Bek
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Dec 30, 2015, at 4:53 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/29/crime-fiction-gone-girl-on-the-train-2015
> >>
> >> On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 5:57 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1099-_women-crime-writers_-dolores-hitchens-resurgence-continues-with-four-new-e-books
> >>
> >>
> https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1097-loas-_women-crime-writers_-goes-to-the-movies-with-week-long-new-york-city-series
> >>
> >> http://blog.loa.org/2015/08/sarah-weinman-women-crime-writers.html
> >>
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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