Talking About Detective Fiction

The other customer reviews of " Talking about Detective Fiction" reveal the attraction of this

book. Here is an author talking about a subject she understands with complete authority.

But it is not presented as an academic essay or thesis but rather as a sharing of her thoughts and

enthusiasm by someone who loves reading and writing detective stories. Her range covers

from Wilkie Collins and Chesterton to the current creators of Rebus or Kurt Wallander.

I particularly like the pages of the later chapters where she analyses the balance between the plot

( the essential ' What happens next ?' ), the characters with their intellectual and social

backgrounds and the 'point of view' - the relation of the narrator to the story.

I was fascinated to find her admission that however well she thought she knew the characters that

she had created ' they reveal themselves more clearly during the writing and I never get exactly the

novel that I planned '. As a reader, I have discovered that this autonomy of the characters reacting

independently within the author's framework is one of the joys of the best stories and can be recognised

in a Shakespeare play or a Jane Austen novels. For confirmation of this insight I award her the fifth star.

Brisk discussion of the genre (1/2 people found this helpful)

She knows her subject, unlike some academic commentators who don't appear to have read the books. This sentence is worth the price of admission alone: The Hound of Wimbledon Common would hardly provide such a frisson of terror.

A writer speaks (0/1 people found this helpful)

Well, I must thank whoever it was at the Bodleian Library who asked P D James to write a book about British detective fiction in aid of the library. She accepted and she has given that venerable institution a tiny gem. A series of eight beautifully-written and well-reasoned linked essays.

Of course eight essays could never encompass the whole history of the genre, but Baroness James writes in the main about what she knows, and she does it with great authority and, equally importantly, with love.

First she considers where it all began, tracing a path including Jane Austen's Emma, The Moonstone, Caleb Williams, Sergeant Cuff and the real-life Mr Whicher to the detective stories of the twentieth century. And what makes a detective story? How many possibilities are there? More than I realised, and I am looking back at favourite books now with fresh eyes.

And so to specifics. Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. Conan-Doyle is given great credit for his creation, but the author is quite prepared to point out a few weaknesses, and I have to say I agree with her. She points to "The Speckled Band" as a story that was terrifying "but "frankly incredible." Yes! I remember, years ago, my class's English teacher giving us half the story and then having us write the solution. Mine was so much better than Conan-Doyle's! The contrast with Father Brown shows best detectives off to their best advantage. I have never read Father Brown, but clearly I must.

Then it was on to the Golden Age, and a wonderful appreciation of the age and the style, taking in all of the obvious big names and a few less obvious ones. Why have I never read "Trent's Last Case" by E C Bentley? It's definitely time to check the library catalogue! There's a nod the hard-boiled American contemporaries of Inspector Appleby, Professor Fen, Francis Pettigrew, et al. And a fair hearing for American criticisms of the British style.

Next comes what is maybe the strongest part of the book. An appreciation of the four grande dames: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. P D James clearly knows the work of all four well, and she highlights the strengths of each, as well as gently pointing out a few weak points. She clearly has a soft spot for both Harriet Vane and Lady Amanda Fitton. Of course, these must have been the authors, the stories, the characters she read when they were brand new and she was a young woman.

And then its on with a look at how the detective novel has evolved since the Golden Age and the detective novel today. The author has much to say about the form, and I was fascinated by her thoughts and the insight they showed, but she is a little less willing to give opinions of her contemporaries and the generations that followed. Though Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin and Sarah Paretsky all receive kind words. Her heart clearly lies with the Golden Age, but she is generally positive about the state of the detective novel and possibilities for the future.

If you want a comprehensive guide to detective fiction you will need to look elsewhere. But if you want an appreciation of the form written with intelligence and insight this book will do very nicely. Because it has clearly been written by a somebody who loves reading, writing and writing about detective fiction

Detective Fiction - an Insider's View (0/0 people found this helpful)

P D James in this little roam around the genre pays proper tribute to the work of others, notably Julian Symons; it is to those authors we should look for a more exhaustive survey. Ms James, in her somewhat arbitrary choice of subjects, makes valid points about the essentials of detective fiction. If one cavils here and there, it is not to deny the pleasure this volume has given but rather to provide further food for thought.

For example, her enthusiasm for Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes is easy to share; but Holmes' frequent dependence on esoteric knowledge (sometimes retrieved from one of his cuttings books) hardly accords with Ms James' assertion that "... the reader shpuld be able to arrive at [a solution] by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel ..." By the same token I seem to recall that when I read Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors (admittedly many years ago), I felt slightly cheated because my knowledge of campanology left me floundering.

Again, the brief diversion into the American school of hard-boiled private eyes uncontroversially cites Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, but it is sad to find no acknowledgment for Robert B Parker's Spenser, an authentic heir to Chandler's legacy.

There is much eulogising of the Golden Age - roughly the period between the wars - but it is only at the very end of the book that there is a nod towards the master of the locked room mystry, John Dickson Carr, who had much to do with my early addicition. Among modern writers Ms James finds room for C J Ransom and Matthew Shardlake (hear hear), and for Alexander McCall Smith's charming Mma Precious Ramotswe; but sadly there is not even a mention of Donna Leon whose intimate portrayal of Venice where Commissario Guido Brunetti operates as a most human policeman places her in the forefront of today's practitioners.

However, the very fact that one has been provoked into trading thoughts with Ms James merely emphasises what a success her slim book is. Do read it - and cavil if you will.

P.D.James on detective fiction (3/3 people found this helpful)

This is not a book on the general history of detective fiction, but a concise narrative of P.D. James on detective fiction in the English language, written on request of the Bodleian Library. It tells you much of P.D. James and her appreciation of this genre, her favourite period being named "the Golden Age" of the English Detective novel featuring the "Four Formidable Women". This preference is no surprise, as her latest novel "The Private Patient" is written in the same fashion. If you like the novels of P.D. James, this book gives you in the same eloquent style valuable background information and a better understanding of her work. If you do not, you will most probably not agree with her judgement and point of view. Therefore a must for P.D. James fans only.

Talking About Detective Fiction

P.D. James

Reader Reviews:

Plot and Character (0/0 people found this helpful)

Brisk discussion of the genre (1/2 people found this helpful)

A writer speaks (0/1 people found this helpful)

Detective Fiction - an Insider's View (0/0 people found this helpful)

P.D.James on detective fiction (3/3 people found this helpful)

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