THE VALUE of academic analysis of any genre lies in its DESCRIPTIVE power, telling us, like an engine repair manual, HOW the thing works—with the limitations of any dissection, that the subject under study will almost certainly not survive being pulled apart. Any attempts to be PROSCRIPTIVE about a genre, trying to tell us WHAT it should be saying, fall well within the area of opinion and should be regarded with caution. You might or might not agree with an academician's opinions, which is everybody's unalienable right to do so, but you're in the wrong lane when the two of you decide WHAT any particular genre should look like. In any event, grab a dictionary (preferably unabridged) and follow today's author as he DESCRIPTIVELY surveys the rather large field of analysis involving the . . .
"Grammar of the Detective Genre."
By Dejan Milutinović, University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbian Department, Niš, Serbia
2020 Review Paper (15 pages).
Online at Academia.edu (HERE).
THE WORLD OF THE ACADEMY does another deep dive into detective fiction, surveying a multitude of theories and theoreticians.
Excerpts follow:
ABSTRACT
The paper describes the grammar of the detective genre. This is done on the
basis of formalist-structuralist poetics, by extracting the actants of detective syntax. It involves: the plot, enigma, secret, solution, crime, and the detective. The plot is determined both on the basis of the main stages of the detective narrative (crime, investigation, explanation) and depending on the reader's reading experience. An enigma is the absence of information about someone/something, but it is also part of the plot - it hides events which led to a specific crime. The secret is connected with the enigma and concerns both the crime and the detective. The solution is considered by many to be the most important feature of the detective genre, which has a distinctly ideological character. A crime is a motive, not a goal - it happens outside the text, and is transmitted through the text. The detective is a distinctive figure of this genre, determined by intellectual and scientific abilities, but also by eccentricity and fragmentation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Analyzing Conan Doyles stories, Shklovsky outlines aspects characteristic of the
genre as a whole. These include expectations, referring to previous work, analysis; client appearance, the business part of the conversation; the introduction of clues, which are material for logical reasoning so that essential facts are not noticed by the reader; a bureaucratic (police) detective giving a false dismissal, and if there is none, the newspapers do so; unexpected untangling; detective data analysis.
2. THE PLOT IN DETECTIVE FICTION
One of more significant studies is by Julian Symons (1975), who identifies eight
constituent elements of the detective genre. The Events (realized through a locked room or missing verbal segment and related to forensic medicine or ballistics), a detective (amateur or professional, the central figure of the story, who notices details which went unnoticed), the method (most often in the form of ingenious or confusing procedures), the clues (the essential elements by means of which the detective and the readers come to a solution), the characters (whereby only the detective's characterization is shown in detail, while other characters are simplified to the level of functionality in the plot and to complete expectation and recognition), a chronotope (mostly related to the time and place of the crime, that is, to the period before the crime) and the riddle (the most valuable segment of the text, because detective creations are remembered by the detective and the puzzle).
3. THE ENIGMA IN DETECTIVE FICTION
Volsky emphasizes that the detective's puzzle is special because it is not just the
absence of information about something/someone – it is also the subtlety, i.e. it hides a series of events which lead to a concrete one – for example if a corpse is found on the street and one does not know who performed the killing and with what motive, it is not enigmatic, but if a corpse was found with a knife in its back in a locked room, then it is. The puzzle should also have a solution because, in the end, the detective has to solve everything. The riddle must be based on thought and logic, i.e. its solution must be present, but in hidden and encrypted form. If there is no solution, there is no puzzle – that is the rule of classic detective fiction.
4. THE SECRET IN DETECTIVE FICTION
Glenn W. Most (1983, 341–365) associates the mystery of the genre not with crime but with the detective. She believes that the real mystery in a mystery novel is not related to the crime committed at the beginning and resolved at the end, but rather that the problem depends on the personality of the detective. Crime is always mysterious, either for its bizarreness or simplicity, and the plot of the novel ranges from a lack of answers to the puzzle, through a series of wrong answers, to the final true answer. The essence of the genre is that this response causes the reader to wonder how he could not have come to the same conclusions. Although murder, the most common crime in the detective genre, is mysterious, the biggest mystery is the detective himself, especially the things he does between two incidents. In any case, he is a marginal figure: his profession is to examine the affairs of others, he is able to move through all walks of life, though in no sense does he feel it like his own; he is mostly single, unmarried or divorced, his parents are never mentioned and he is irreparably childish.
5. THE SOLUTION IN DETECTIVE FICTION
A considerable number of works imply that the solution is the most important for the detective genre and that all other characteristics are built on it. Julian Symons (1975) states that for most critics, the detective genre is singled out as central and the one based on which other crime stories and thrillers make variations. Therefore, they sought to set strict rules about what is and what is not a detective story. In this sense, two characteristics are imposed as necessary. The first is that there is a problem, and the second is that it has to be solved by an amateur or professional detective through the deduction process.
The postmodern antidetective fiction emphasizes the significance and effect of the
detective's hermeneutic act through a provocative lack (or suspension, or parody) of the solution. Postmodern detectives apply hard-boiled epistemological and moral skepticism to the literary medium itself. To show this, Stefania Ciocia uses Bart's picture from “The Literature of Exhaustion”, in which Dariasada realizes that the key to the treasure is the treasure itself. In this sense, the solution in the postmodern detective genre is not achieved by connecting pieces of the puzzle, but through imagination. Calvino calls it a mental model through which events are lived, that is, a mental model through which events are ascribed meaning (Calvino 2001, 141). The act of detection becomes an act of invention, both in the epistemological sense of retrieval as well as in the sense of ex novo: the task of the detective/writer is not to reconstruct the existing order. On the contrary, he has to let reality pass through his own narrative filters which make life understandable and therefore possible to live.
6. THE CRIME IN DETECTIVE FICTION
Interestingly, although the detective genre has something to do with crime, it is never viewed separately, but always in the context of a mystery and/or solution. Also, almost everyone agrees that homicide is primary among other crimes. For example, Lyubov Romanchuk believes that the detective genre depicts the process of exposing a crime. Ernest Bloch (1970, 421–426) singled out the development of the judiciary as essential to the emergence of the detective genre: before the introduction of indications, it was tried “by feel” or by duress. It was only with the inclusion of the judiciary which insisted on proper procedure that the arrest warrant and the court proceedings were created. Therefore, even an account of the detective's work on indications cannot be older than the indicative procedure.
7. THE DETECTIVE IN DETECTIVE FICTION
From the beginning of detective fiction, the detective has been singled out as a
distinctive figure of the genre. As part of his basic background, the first authors-critics (Chesterton, Van Dine, etc.) cited intellectual (and scientific) abilities. Although he did not stand out in anything (Sayers spoke of the tendency of producing detectives striking only in their ordinary ways), Holmes' eccentricity was taken as the dominant characteristic.
8. CONCLUSION
Formalist-structuralist grammars take into account actants, i.e. central elements of the detective genre syntax: the plot, enigma, mystery, solution, crime, detective. These elements are viewed as interdependent – due to the relationships they establish in the text. The role of the reader and the context has only been mentioned and everything stems from and comes down to the detective. Turning to the discourse – contextual and cognitive aspects of the detective genre will bring post-structuralism and post-classical narratology, which will complete the aforementioned research and open the way to new domains: phylogenetic (gender, racial, colonial) and ontogenetic (mental and emotional).
REFERENCES.
Typos: "Hemmett"; "Holms"; "does not excludes".
References:
- "Boileau-Narcejac":
They were responsible for two novels that, when turned into films, made considerable money:
"Boileau-Narcejac is the pen name used by the French crime-writing duo of Pierre Boileau (1906–1989) and Pierre Ayraud, also known as Thomas Narcejac (1908–1998). Their successful collaboration produced 43 novels, 100 short stories and 4 plays. They are credited with having helped to form an authentically French subgenre of crime fiction with the emphasis on local settings and mounting psychological suspense. They are noted for the ingenuity of their plots and the skillful evocation of the mood of disorientation and fear. Their works were adapted into numerous films, most notably, Les Diaboliques (1955), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Vertigo (1958), directed by Alfred Hitchcock." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "Lacanian discourse":
A psychoanalyst's interpretation of speech:
"Four discourses is a concept developed by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He argued that there were four fundamental types of discourse. He defined four discourses, which he called Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst, and suggested that these relate dynamically to one another." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- There seems to be a definite distinction when it comes to sleuths; see "Detective Fiction — Private Detective vs. Private Eye" (HERE).
- We must never forget the guy who kickstarted this whole thing (HERE).
- A nice list of non-fiction books about detecfic is (HERE).
- Sometimes it's necessary to shrink meanings; see what we mean (HERE)—and, my, how times have changed since 1960.
- The classic mystery story flourished in a period known as GAD; see Jon Jermey's essay (HERE).
"The detective story is easier to recognise than describe. . . . Detective stories are not about mysteries; they are about solutions."
- R. Austin Freeman knew whereof he spoke when he commented on detective stories (HERE). Just to prove the point, the first seven Dr. Thorndyke adventures are on exhibit (HERE).
- Raymond Chandler, also being an authentic practitioner of the trade, had his own ideas of what constitutes detective fiction (HERE) and (HERE).
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Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
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