Talking About Detective Fiction
by P.D. James
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Book Summary Information
Author: P.D. JamesEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-12-01
ISBN: 0307592820
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Talking About Detective Fiction
Book Review: Significant clues from a master of the genre
Summary: 5 Stars
My best birthday present this year is this well written little book by a master [mistress?] of detective fiction. James argues that detective fiction is most popular during difficult times -- reason and ingenuity may again prevail.
"Whether we live in a more violent age than did, for example, the Victorians is a question for statisticians and sociologists, but we certainly feel more threatened by crime and disorder than at any other time I remember in my long life. The detective story deals with the most dramatic and tragic manifestations of man's nature and the ultimate disruption of murder, yet the form itself is orderly, controlled, formulaic, providing a secure structure within which the imaginations of writer and reader alike can confront the unthinkable."
It is great fun to read James's views on her predecessors in the detection writing trade; although most of her subjects were British, she admires Edgar Allan Poe for four great contributions to the form: the locked-room, armchair detection, cryptography and the unlikely perp. (For Kindle owners, Classic American Literature: The Works of Poe, Raven Edition, all 5 volumes in a single file, with active table of contents is a marvelous bargain at only $.99.)
James is troubled that Agatha Christie has eclipsed so many of her contemporaries.
"Agatha Christie hasn't in my view had a profound influence on the later development of the detective story.... She wasn't an innovative writer and had no interest in exploring the possibilities of the genre." She goes on: Christie "is a literary conjuror who places her pasteboard characters face downwards and shuffles them with practiced cunning." Nonetheless, James especially likes female detective writers, especially Margery Allingham, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers and Sara Paretsky.
James finds Dr. Watson a much more honorable and realistic figure than Sherlock Holmes; she bangs away at many of the weaknesses of the series with all the fervor of the most committed Baker Street Irregular. (Sherlock Holmes By Gas Lamp: Highlights from the First Four Decades of the Baker Street Journal contains a number of similar analyses. The first Comment contains a detailed discussion of what troubles James.)
James praises The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins because it introduced elements of everyday life into detective stories. She discusses the influence of real crime stories on the genre (including details about the unsolved murder and investigator that inspired Collins), the popularity of books sold in train stations (quoting the "Times" of London "on the assumption that persons of the better class who constitute the larger portion of railway readers lose their accustomed taste the moment they enter the station,") and the importance of magazines.
She particularly praises the the demise of "the omni-talented amateur with apparently nothing to do with his time but solve murders which interest him." She believes this has occurred "partly because his rich and privileged lifestyle became less admirable, and his deferential acceptance by police less credible, in an age when men were expected to work."
James is particularly compelling when she writes about her own work. An interview on CBCNews is a fair example of her style in this book:
"Q: What has it been like to have Adam Dalgliesh in your life for so long?
"A: When I began, I didn't know he'd be a serial character, and of course there's the challenge of having readers suspend their disbelief. He hasn't aged that much over 40 years and each novel is set in the time of its writing. But I did try to create a character that was someone I'd really like. I gave Dalgliesh the qualities I admire in both men and women: he's good-looking, highly intelligent, compassionate but not sentimental, and reserved. It was important too that he was a character who could develop. I never wanted to know him too well. I think Agatha Christie got rather fed up with Hercule Poirot at the end, because she had made him both too old and just too bizarre."
(She might have said the same of Sherlock Holmes; Sir Conan Doyle certainly complained in public about the great detective's amazing popularity and the later stories show some of his dislike for the character.)
James emphasizes the humanity of the characters and the writers she praises. "Before he even planned the Father Brown stories, Chesterton wrote that `the only thrill, even of a common thriller, is concerned somehow with the conscience and the will.' Those words have been part of my credo as a writer. They may not be framed and on my desk but they are never out of my mind."
James enlives the book with delightful cartoons; for example, the caption for a butler bearing a tray, "Your red herring. My Lord."
The jacket oversells the book -- "[James]" examines the genre from top to bottom." The book is too short to do that, of course, but this is a marvelous sampling of many significant writers, characters and developments in my favorite escapist genre.
Robert C. Ross 2009
Summary of Talking About Detective Fiction
In a perfect marriage of author and subject, P. D. James?one of the most widely admired writers of detective fiction at work today?gives us a personal, lively, illuminating exploration of the human appetite for mystery and mayhem, and of those writers who have satisfied it.P. D. James examines the genre from top to bottom, beginning with the mysteries at the hearts of such novels as Charles Dickens?s Bleak House and Wilkie Collins?s The Woman in White, and bringing us into the present with such writers as Colin Dexter and Henning Mankell. Along the way she writes about Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie (?arch-breaker of rules?), Josephine Tey, Dashiell Hammett, and Peter Lovesey, among many others. She traces their lives into and out of their fiction, clarifies their individual styles, and gives us indelible portraits of the characters they?ve created, from Sherlock Holmes to Sara Paretsky?s sexually liberated female investigator, V. I. Warshawski. She compares British and American Golden Age mystery writing. She discusses detective fiction as social history, the stylistic components of the genre, her own process of writing, how critics have reacted over the years, and what she sees as a renewal of detective fiction?and of the detective hero?in recent years.
There is perhaps no one who could write about this enduring genre of storytelling with equal authority and flair: it is essential reading for every lover of detective fiction.
A Q&A with P.D. James
Question: What made you decide to write a book about detective fiction?
P.D. James: I wrote my book, Talking About Detective Fiction, because the Bodleian Library, one of the great libraries of the world, asked me to write about detective fiction in aid of the Library. I said I would do so when I had finished writing The Private Patient. Detective fiction has fascinated me both as a reader and a novelist for over 50 years, and I enjoyed revisiting the books of the Golden Age which have given me such pleasure, and describing how I myself set out on the task of writing a detective story which can be both an exciting mystery and a good novel.
Question: How do you explain our seemingly unending appetite for mysteries? What is it about the mystery that so engages our minds and imagination?
P.D. James: The human race has had an appetite for mysteries from the earliest writings and no doubt tales of mystery and murder were recounted by our remote ancestors round the camp fires by the tribal storyteller. Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can make no reparation, and has always been greeted with a mixture of repugnance, horror, fear, and fascination. We are particularly intrigued by the motives which cause a man or woman to step across the invisible line which separates a murderer from the rest of humanity. Human beings also love a puzzle and a strong story, and mysteries have both.
Question: Do you think there is (or was) a Golden Age of detective fiction?
P.D. James: The years between the two world wars are generally regarded as the Golden Age of detective fiction and certainly, in England in particular, there was a surge of excellent writing. The detective story became immensely popular and a number of very talented writers were engaged in the craft. I feel that there are so many good novelists writing mysteries today that we may well be entering a second Golden Age.
Question: Do you feel that your own Adam Dalgliesh owes anything to any particular literary detectives who came before him?
P.D. James: I don't feel that Adam Dalgliesh owes anything to a particular literary detective as the heroes of the mystery novels which I particularly enjoyed in the Golden Age were usually amateurs, and I was anxious to create a professional detective.
Question: If you were to recommend 3 or 4 books that represent the best of detective fiction in all its forms, which books would they be?
P.D. James: It is difficult to know what books to recommend as personal taste plays such a large part and modern readers may feel out of touch with the Golden Age mysteries which I so much enjoyed. Among them are The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham, Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers, and Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare. It would take a much longer list to represent the mystery in all its forms, and it would certainly include the American hard-boiled school.
(Photo © Ulla Montan)
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