Wed 6 Feb 2013
TWELVE IMPORTANT ACADEMIC ESSAYS ON CRIME FICTION, by Josef Hoffmann.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists[12] Comments
by Josef Hoffmann
When I drew up my rcent list of the “Twelve Best Essays on Crime Fiction,” I restricted it to literary essays. This is clear from the fact that almost all the essayists on that list have also written crime stories. I am now complementing that with a list of essays by academics.
What characterises an academic essay? The knowledge presented, the content of the message, is more important than the formal beauty of the writing. It is not so much a matter of the essay providing reading pleasure, as of it stating the truth by putting forward a differentiated and critical analysis of crime fiction texts.
The theses have to be defended by means of stringent arguments and text references. The sources of the knowledge should be referred to, preferably in the form of precise data in footnotes. The author of the essay must be familiar with scholarly methods. As a rule, he or she will already have recognised status in the academic field, for example, as a university professor. An important academic essay will be cited and discussed in academic writings and act as a stimulus for other essays on the topic, etc.
In the following list I have only essays that appeared in print. For this reason an essay like “The Amateur Detective Just Won’t Do: Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction†published by Curtis Evans in his blog, The Passing Tramp, cannot be included. Online essays would require a list of their own.
Now to the announced list, presented alphabetically by author:
Alewyn, Richard: “The Origin of the Detective Novel†in The Poetics of Murder, ed. by Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
Alewyn puts forward the provocative thesis that the detective story had its roots not in the rationalist 19th century but in Romanticism and Gothic novels that revere the mystical and irrational.
Barzun, Jacques / Taylor, Wendell Hertig: Introductory in A Catalogue of Crime, Harper & Row, revised and enlarge edition 1989.
In their introductory essay the authors make a knowledgeable and trenchant case for the refined literary art of detection in the tradition of the classical whodunit.
Deleuze, Gilles: “The Philosophy of Crime Novels†in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agent Series 2004.
In this essay the famous French philosopher deals mainly with the difference between the traditional detective story and the crime novels of the legendary série noire, and at the same time makes interesting reading recommendations, such as James Gunn’s Deadlier Than the Male.
Eco, Umberto: “Narrative Structures in Fleming†in The Poetics of Murder, ed. by Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
Eco came from scholarship to novel writing, including The Name of the Rose. Many of his essays are widely read and very well known, like this one about the James Bond stories.
Jameson, Fredric: “On Raymond Chandler†in The Poetics of Murder, ed. by Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
Jameson, a literary expert above all on postmodern cultural phenomena, is also a considerable Chandler connoisseur. A more recent essay on Chandler is contained in the essay collection Shades of Noir, ed. by Joan Copjec, Verso 1993: “The Synoptic Chandler.”
Knight, Stephen: “The Golden Age†in The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, ed. by Martin Priestman, Cambridge University Press 2003.
Knight, who is renowned for his history of Crime Fiction, 1800-2000: Detection, Death, Diversity (2003), provides a balanced and in part critical survey of the golden age of whodunit fiction.
Lacan, Jacques: Seminar on “The Purloined Letter†in The Poetics of Murder, ed. by Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
The typical detective-story reader will probably be disappointed by the essay or even hate it, as he or she may get the impression that Lacan projects his concept of psychoanalysis on Poe’s story, thus monopolising it for his own purposes. Nevertheless, Lacan’s essay is one of the most frequently cited and discussed essays on Poe’s detective story; a separate volume is devoted to it: The Purloined Poe, ed. by John P. Muller and William J. Richardson, Johns Hopkins University Press 1988.
Marcus, Steven: Introduction, in Dashiell Hammett: The Continental Op, Picador 1984.
This essay is surely the most influential ever written on Hammett. The Columbia University professor shows that academic scholarship and literary form can go hand in hand.
Reddy, Mauren T.: “Women detectives†in The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, ed. by Martin Priestman, Cambridge University Press 2003.
The essay offers a critical survey of the most important women detective writers, from Ann Radcliffe’s precursor figure Emily, to Kathy Reichs’ Dr. Tempe Brennan.
Sebeok, Thomas A. / Seboek-Umiker, Jean: “You Know My Method: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes†in The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce, ed. by Umberto Eco / Thomas A. Sebeok, Indiana University Press 1983.
The surprising result of this comparison between the investigative methods of Peirce and Holmes is their great similarity.
Shklovsky, Viktor: “Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery Story†in Theory of Prose, Dalkey Archive Press 1991.
Shklovsky is an outstanding representative of the Russian formalist school, which had a considerable influence on modern literary studies. His collection of essays dated 1925 contains the above-mentioned essay on Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Homes stories, which can only described as “ground-breaking.â€.
Sturak, Thomas: “Horace McCoy’s Objective Lyricism†in Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties, ed. by David Madden, Southern Illinois University Press, 3rd printing 1977.
A meticulous analysis, based on Sturak’s dissertation, of the specific literary achievement of an underestimated author.
Some readers may find this list is missing academics who have rendered great service to the study of crime literature, like Francis M. Nevins, Lee Horsley, Robert Polito, Sally R. Munt, Dennis Porter, Kathleen Gregory Klein, Martin Priestman, Jochen Vogt and many more.
For anyone looking to access the wide-ranging field of the academic essay on crime literature, I would suggest the highly representative essay collection The Poetics of Murder, which is also recommended by the British Queen of Crime, P.D. James in her book on crime fiction.
— Translated by Pauline Cumbers.
February 6th, 2013 at 11:20 am
Interesting list, Josef.
It proves, once again, that the crime novel is as much liable to be a work of quality literature, as any other genre .
And also, that what is actually READ by a large number of people, has, as such, weight .
The Doc
February 6th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
I comment on one aspect of Steven Marcus and Dashiell Hammett here:
http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2012/02/detections-and-tribulations-short.html
By the way, this is more self-advertising but if we’re looking at broader essays my Masters of the Humdrum Mystery Chapter One, “The Masters,” discusses the English mystery genre in general and how it changed over a forty year period. It’s a substantive piece of work, I think, of 21,000 words. You can get that and the whole book for $18 on Kindle (I hesitate to even mention that the paperback is $50). It’s also available now in 74 libraries.
Thanks for the mention of the my Chandler essay, I wish that were “in print,” though it remains one of the most-viewed pieces on my blog.
February 6th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
There’s also an effort in my brand-new Clues and Corpses: The Detective Fiction and Mystery Criticism of Todd Downing to use the nearly 300 reviews included therein to make broader points about what crime writing in the 1930s was like. Like Masters this one is available on Amazon, in paperback for $21.95 (and also hardcover for 29.95, but let’s not get carried away).
http://www.amazon.com/Clues-Corpses-Detective-Fiction-Criticism/dp/1616461454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360178443&sr=8-1&keywords=clues+and+corpses
February 6th, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Both books are well worth the money, Curt, for anyone interested in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, You can plug them here anytime!
February 6th, 2013 at 6:30 pm
Yup, plug them. Where else can you read the authors themselves about their books,and see their frequent entries in the blog ?
To write something good and sell it is honourable .
The Doc
February 6th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
Some questions:
Are all of these writers career “academics”: that is, professors at universities?
I don’t know much about the life of Viktor Shklovsky. He’s a famous writer – but was he a professor somewhere? In 1925, wasn’t he far from university life, at least?
And is Curtis Evans a professor?
Surely “academic” (writings by professors) is a much smaller boundary than “scholarly” (essays based rigorously on evidence).
February 7th, 2013 at 3:18 am
Of course somebody can write an excellent academic essay without being a professor. It is only typical of many scholars that they work at an academic institution.
February 7th, 2013 at 5:41 am
I wasn’t trying to put anybody down.
The history of mystery fiction is full of distinguished critics and historians who aren’t professors. Important writers like Howard Haycraft, Ellery Queen, Anthony Boucher, Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini produced works that are well researched and logically argued. Their works are certainly “scholarly”.
But they are not usually considered “academic”, because they were not primarily career professors at a university. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t make their writing better or worse than that of career academics.
The term “independent scholar” has been used in recent years, to cover such non-professor authors of scholarly books.
February 7th, 2013 at 8:43 am
Hi Mike,
Well, I’m academically trained, with a Ph.D. in history and I did teach history at one time. My revised dissertation was published by LSU Press in 2001 and won the Bennett H. Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association. My second book, Masters, was published by McFarland and it is written according to principles of academic rigor (though, yes, on the back it does say Curtis Evans is an independent scholar).
I certainly appreciate the work of Howard Haycraft, for example, but it doesn’t address academic concerns as Masters does (at the time it was written, of course it wouldn’t have). I would put my work closer to the academic category, certainly, than something like Murder for Pleasure. Especially Masters. It would be interesting, I’m sure, to get your opinion if you read it someday.
By the way, Bill Pronzini wrote the preface for my Todd Downing book and you don’t have to tell me about his the breadth of his knowledge! I dedicated Masters to Doug Greene, Jacques Barzun and Bill Pronzini, scholars all.
February 7th, 2013 at 9:13 am
Just to add a bit more:
A book playing on the academic field, so to speak, will engage academics and their arguments. There will also be footnotes/endnotes. Julian Symons’ Bloody Murder is a fine work (despite my vocal disagreements with it!), but I’ve always been disappointed that he eschewed footnoting it, even when he’s directly quoting something.
By the way, very often lay scholars write better than academics!
February 7th, 2013 at 10:39 pm
H. L. Mencken was not an academic, not even a college graduate. Then he wrote THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, a work of genuine scholarship that stands the test of time.
Academics and scholars may look as identical as raceshorses, but too often academics move sluggishly and only in fear of that whip overhead, publish or perish, their teeth bared to savage their competition–whereas the independent scholar is a free-running horse.
February 8th, 2013 at 4:22 am
Richard,
It’s always a challenge, trying to balance engaging in the academic debate with appealing writing. Heavy academic argument tends to undermine graceful literary style.
Even most academic publishers prefe endnotes to footnotes nowadays, which bothers the heck out of me. The publisher of Masters converted my footnotes to endnotes in rather small print, which discourages people from looking at them (out of sight, out of mind!); but there is important dialogue with academics back there. But even academic publishers now tend to see footnotes as something that drives away readers.
Stephen Knight’s survey on crime fiction addresses modern academic concerns, but it is much less enjoyable to read than Julian Symon’s. In fact, I don’t really believe one can “enjoy” reading a book like Knight’s (in the sense of deriving aesthetic pleasure from the writing), though this isn’t to say that the book shouldn’t be read, it should. But it’s going to be academics who are more interested in it.
A lot of academics clearly don’t even try to write enjoyable prose, because their books simply aren’t aimed at all at non-academic readers. They sell almost exclusively to university libraries (that’s why they are priced so high), to be read, if read, by teachers and graduate students.
My publisher priced masters at $50 in an oversized paperback edition and $18 for the Kindle. Both prices are about twice what I would have liked to charge. I wrote the book in an effort to please both academics and non-academics (the actual fans!), but my book too has sold more copies to libraries than to individuals.
That’s a big disappointment to me, because I would like to reach people, the real fans, with my books. But I know far more people read my blog posts. I put a lot of effort into the blog posts, but inevitably blog posts aren’t going to have the coherent and sustained intellectual argument of a book.
I like to think books still matter. But unless you write about Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler, say, or you have a “big” name, I find that one’s books tend not actually to get read that much.