Fri 25 Jul 2014
TWENTY DETECTIVE NOVELS BY LITERARY AUTHORS — A LIST by Josef Hoffmann.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists[6] Comments
by Josef Hoffmann
Of course Hammett, Chandler, Simenon and other crime writers are authors with a literary quality, but they are classified as mystery writers whose work is typical of the genre. The literary authors I refer to have written detective novels as an exception to their work which is considered as literature. Some of these detective novels are rather unusual and not typical of the genre, some are rather conventional.
The following list is not complete.
Auster, Paul: City of Glass, Sun & Moon 1985 (in The New York Trilogy)
– : Ghosts, Sun & Moon 1986 (in The New York Trilogy)
– (as Paul Benjamin): Squeeze Play, Alpha-Omega 1982
Butor, Michel: Passing Time, Calder 1960, Simon 1960 (Translation of L’Emploi du Temps, 1956)
Chekhov, Anton: The Shooting Party, Paul 1926 (Translation of Drama na ochote, 1884)
Doderer, Heimito von: Every Man a Murderer, Knopf 1964 (Translation of Ein Mord, den jeder begeht, 1938)
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich: The Judge and His Hangman, Jenkins 1954 (Translation of Der Richter und sein Henker, 1952)
– : The Pledge, Cape 1959 (Translation of Das Versprechen, 1958)
– : The Quarry, Cape 1962 (Translation of Der Verdacht, 1959)
Fonseca, Rubem: Bufo & Spallanzini, Dutton 1990 (Translation of Bufo & Spallanzini, 1985)
– : Vast Emotions and Imperfect Thoughts, Ecco Press 1998 (Translation of Vastas emocoes e pensamentos imperfeitos, 1988)
Gadda, Carlo Emilio: That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, Braziller 1965 (Translation of Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, 1957)
Handke, Peter: Der Hausierer, Suhrkamp 1967 (as far as I know, not translated)
Hjortsberg, William: Falling Angel, Harcourt 1978
Kertész, Imre: Detective Story, Knopf 2008 (Translation of Detektivtörténet, 2001)
Pynchon, Thomas: Inherent Vice, Penguin Press 2009
Robbe-Grillet, Alain: The Erasers, Calder 1963 (Translation of Les Gommes, 1962)
Tabucchi, Antonio: The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro, New Directions 1999 (Translation of La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro, 1997)
Vargas Llosa, Mario: Who Killed Palomino Molero?, Farrar 1987 (Translation of Quien mato a Palomino Molero?, 1986)
– : Death in the Andes, Farrar 1996 (Translation of Lituma en los Andes, 1993)
Further Reading:
Detecting Texts. The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism, edited by Patricia Merivale, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, PENN 1999
July 25th, 2014 at 10:43 pm
I confess that I’ve read but one of these, but that in the original German, which mighty count for something. Two or three have been on a Must Read list of mine at one time or another. The rest are new to me.
July 26th, 2014 at 1:04 am
Good list. You might add Fonseca’s High Art, Perutz Master of the day of Judgment, John Fuller’s Flight to Nowhere, there is one by Malcolm Muggeridge, and two by C.P. Snow. Several by Robbe-Grillett, Name of the Rose and The Prague Cemetery by Eco, and quite a few spy novels from Rebecca West to Carlos Fuentes. Michael Chabon has written at least one mystery and Don deLillio a thriller, The Names. I suppose Graham Greene is six of one and a half dozen of the other unless you share the Nobel Prize commissions opinion of him. To Have and to Have Not was written as Hemingway’s answer to Hammett (who never said toughness would save anyone). Jorge Semprun, Jean Giono, and Orhan Pamuk have all written in the genre — Giono’s Un Roi Sans Divetissement a noirish detective story right out of Woolrich. Hugh Walpole wrote several crime novels and thrillers including The Man With the Red Hair, The Killer and the Slain, and Above the Dark Circus. Several of Barry Unsworth, Ian McEwen, and Brian Moore’s novels fall in the genre though they are primarily literary writers. John Mair was a literary figure as were T.H. White and James Hilton who both wrote mystery novels though Hilton perhaps more a popular writer. Several of Manuel Puig’s novels have to be considered crime novels.
July 26th, 2014 at 12:05 pm
I have a quibble with classifying a few of these books as detective novels. I dislike Auster’s New York Trilogy and think the books more parody than homage. Dürrenmatt is one of the finest of literary writers who also understands the formal structure of a detective novel. Arguably one of the most famous literary detective novels Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is conspicuously absent from this list. Jorge Luis Borges also contributed to the genre with his Don Isidro Parodi detective stories written under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq.
July 26th, 2014 at 12:24 pm
David,
thank you for the supplementary information. Of course I know some of these novels. But you also mention some books I have never heard of.
John,
I admit, I did not enjoy reading THE NAME OF THE ROSE. But I should have put it on the list.
The stories of Borges and Casares with Don Isidro Parodi as detective are not novels, but tales.
July 28th, 2014 at 6:24 pm
And I left out two important ones, Boris Vian’s I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, a Serie Noir original written under a pseudonym and convincing many it was actually American in origin — and Marc Behm’s EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, a stunner.While Borges stories are tales, his writing partner on the Padroni stories, Adolpho Buoys Cesar wrote at least one thriller, THE PHOTOGRAPHER OF LA PLAYA.
January 5th, 2015 at 6:20 am
You might also include Penelope Fitzgerald’s “The Golden Child.”