Talking About Detective Fiction--P. D. James

In several post over the last few days, I've exposed some of what I've considered the weak points of this short and lively survey of part of the world of Detective literature.  Ms. James admittedly confines much of her work to a consideration of the British Detective novel, though truth to tell, this intent does not emerge until late in the book.  So there is no mention of Rex Stout, Ed McBain, or any number of American authors.  All those mentioned tend to be in the mode of the Noir Detective--Raymond Chandler, Ross McDonald, Dashiell Hammett, and so forth.

However, once one realizes and and adjusts to the scope of the work, much of what Miss James has to say about individual works and contributions seems accurate, if laden with a certain amount of chronological bias.  Her comments on the Golden Age female writers and treatements of women,while balanced does betray a preference for the "modern" treatment. However, her comments on Agatha Christie, as I pointed out, are about as far off the mark as it is possible to be.

And there is good cause for this upon reflection.  This is in the genre of what I have come to call "ghetto books" in which one of the purposes of the author is to defend the integrity of the work or field against those who would denigrate it for "not being literature."  Detective fiction is frequently perceived as light entertainment, Ms. James makes out the case that it is and can be much, much more--a genre worthy of attention.  But this is a cry from within the ghetto which will bear no weight for those who have already dismissed the genre as lunchtime reading before returning to the concrete poets or worse.  As a result, much effort is taken to push forward those writers who are perceived as having some sort of validity in the literary world--Dorothy Sayers, Chandler, Hammett, Ngaio Marsh, etc. 

But ghetto books are special pleading.  Those of us who read them, whether lightly or seriously, don't need the justification--we will continue to read them and the scholars inclined to will continue to neglect them--and so much the better for all of us. 

This book of special pleading is a real delight--ghetto book or no.  It is the thoughts of a master (one whose fiction I don't particularly care for) on the field she loves.  The reflections have no intention of completeness or of even distribution, or even of being reasoned arguments so much as observations.  And in those observations there is the occasional touch of poetry:

from Talking About Detective Fiction
P. D. James


East Anglia has a particular attraction for detective novelists; the remoteness of the east coast, the dangerous encroaching North Sea, the bird-loud marshes, the emptiness, the great skies, the magnificent churches and the sens of being in a place alien, mysterious and slightly sinister, where it is possible to stand under friable cliffs eaten away by the tides of centuries and imagine that we hear the bells of ancient churches buried under the sea. 

With that last phrase one is reminded of Debussy's La Cathédrale Engloutie.  Additionally, I am gratified by one of the first uses I've seen in print of the word "friable" outside of a geology text.

But James also attempts some observations on serious questions confronting literature, those who write it, and those who read it:

Source: As above

Does every novelist have a moral responsibility for the possible effect of what he writes, and if so, what is this morality from which his responsibility derives?  Are we not implying that there is an immutable value system, an accepted view of the universe, of our place in it, and a recognised standard of morality to which all right-minded people conform? Even if this were true--and, in our increasingly fragmented society, manifestly it is not--is it the business of the creative artist in any medium to express or promote it? And does it matter? . . . But how far any writer, even of popular fiction, has a duty to do more than the best of which he is capable within the law, is a question which is likely to concern more than detective novelists increasingly in our secular and morally confused age.

The observation itself is a little confused because it seems evident that Ms. James would hold that there is an immutable value system, even if it is not universally accepted and so her contention that "manifestly it is not" true seems a little contradictory.  But the questions are of interest, and as she rightly points out, they are of interest beyond the backwater of the detective story.

Overall, this is a quick read full of interesting insights and opinions. It is fun to decide on which side of the P.D. James divide one falls--pro- or anti-Christie and her continuing influence in the world of the detective novel.  There are a great many other issues that Ms. James brings up that are worthy of the time and effort to think about and decide.

I would caution that this is not necessarily a book for beginners--while there are not many spoilers, there are a few critical ones and some of the issues Ms. James addresses are really for those who are fairly well acquainted with the works that she addresses.  But there is nothing here that anyone with a casual acquaintance with the genre will be surprised by or unfamiliar with. 

Recommended-****