When evaluating mystery writers, I like to see a few different things. I don't like their work to seem too similar. Ellis Peters, when you read all the Brother Cadfael mysteries in the course of a month or two, leans too heavily on certain tropes and phrases. It's been a couple years since I read them, so if you put me to the test and demanded that I produce my bona fides I could not do it now. But I recall that was certainly my impression and it grew stronger the further in series I went.
At least one character, the detective for preference, ought to be likeable. It doesn't have to be the detective; we can read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and like Watson, but it's better if it's the detective. I don't like anti-heroes and I don't like having everyone be too flawed. Nihilist fiction don't cut no ice with me. I read one John Grisham novel once. I think it was The Firm. It was stupid. I shouldn't have finished it. I couldn't sympathise with anyone in it. Okay, well, I felt bad for the protagonist's wife, but I wouldn't say it met the threshold for liking a character.
The main character should be on the side of law and justice. Donald Westlake's stories about Parker suffer from failing to follow this rule. The first book avoided this a bit because he'd been double-crossed and it was about him getting revenge and, in a sense, merely reclaiming what was (sorta) rightfully his. This ties in closely with the idea of a sympathetic character.
It helps if the characters are also amusing at times. A lot of modern fiction that I've glanced at is relentlessly serious in tone so far as I could tell. Rex Stout puts elements of humour into his stories that can make me laugh out loud. Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter enjoys life and has fun and it comes through and makes her stories pleasant to read.
If the author can't play fair and give all the same clues to the reader as well as the detective, then something is lost from the story. The reader ought to have an opportunity to determine the proper solution. The most exemplary stories in this regard are those of Donald Sobol about his pre-teen detective Encyclopedia Brown. Everything in those stories is laid bare and the facts are there for the reader to use in precisely the same way as the detective. True, these stories are lacking in other areas, but in this one area they reign alone.
A detective story is elevated if the writing is good. It becomes literature when the writing is excellent. Rex Stout was endorsed by PG Wodehouse who noted that, when re-reading one of his books and knowing how it would end, one was still engaged and compelled to keep turning pages. As Wodehouse said, "Now that's writing." Raymond Chandler (who went to the same school in England as Wodehouse!) also knew his way around the English language. His books are not only mysteries, they are works of art with language. His sentences are beautiful and evocative. Here, sample the opening paragraph of The Big Sleep.
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.Though Chandler may not have had very sound theory about writing mystery stories, he nonetheless was quite capable of putting stunning words down on paper. He didn't write very many and trailed off a bit at the end as his drinking started to get the better of him, but when he was on, he was on.
Finally, I'll say that I like authors who write stories that engage one's emotions. Christie writes an entertaining novel, but I don't find my emotions moving with the story. I have an academic interest in what happens, by and large, but I rarely find myself touched. Dashiell Hammett, however, can craft a story that, for whatever reason makes one really care about the outcome.
Okay, that's enough for now. I'll post this, consider my top five authors or so and post those next. Probably.
That's why I like Christie adaptations into films--the actors know quite well that the characters themselves aren't given much of a go, but it is up to the actors and not the writer any more, to make the story believable--or at least accessible. Some of the later Miss Marples even give montages and speeches to help the author out. I know that doesn't bode well for the story or the writer, but it is an interesting feature of the storytelling.
ReplyDeleteEllis Peters is perfectly trope-d and patterned, but I like the moral points she makes in each one--it seems less to be about the petty drama of people and more to do about morality--which makes sense since her protagonist is a monk. It has been a while since I read those tho. "You did the work that fell to you, and did it well. God disposes all. From the highest to the lowest extreme of a man's scope, wherever justice and retribution can reach him, so can grace." Or perhaps I am more of a sucker for the historical bits. I am partial to medieval Wales.
Good post. People have been telling me I ought to read Chandler for years.