Two-Thirds of a Ghost
Page 23
Evans cites another draw of the mystery novel as a method of escape, a means to “disconnect from our daily lives” (492), which seems redundant. Of course, similar reasoning can be made for reading fiction in any era, but the events that governed readers’ lives between 1918 and 1945 required temporary escape from reality as a defence against the pressures of a particularly trying time. The mystery novel offered this escape with stories that also fulfilled the need for order and justice. This necessarily incorporates another of Evans’ points, that readers seek a success story. That “detectives are almost always successful” (492) isn’t the only trait of the mystery that fulfills this need; it is also that the reader can share in this success. A fairly clued “puzzle” mystery offers the reader a role in the successful reinstatement of order, and brings with it a small degree of agency as well, even if it has no real-world application. To prevent complete submergence in the inescapable problems of the era, readers sought escape in the pages of books.
The murder mystery didn’t rise to meet the need for escapist literature, but it did, perhaps, enjoy its greatest popularity when the need for escapism was greatest. Despite the threats of the Cold War, the Western world enjoyed prosperity and stability from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1960s. This era also saw the beginning of the decline in popularity of the mystery novel from its Golden Age heights. Still, as we approach a century since its peak, the mystery novel remains relevant as we face many of the same issues that past generations endured. Human nature hasn’t changed in the past century; today’s readers still want the form of escape the mystery novel provides. A novel that offers a temporary escape to a place of familiar belonging, justice, and order is worth as much now as it was in the 1930s.
The Hardboiled Detective Novel
In terms of appeal, the hardboiled style of detective fiction does overlap in certain ways, as with the desire to engage with a successful heroes, but contrasts in other ways. Although many hardboiled novels match their mystery counterparts with cleverness of plot, their cerebral element is overshadowed by the darker tone and atmosphere of the story. One draw enjoyed by the hardboiled school, but not by mystery novels, is as a means to sublimate aggression (492). Taken from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, this point suggests that the reader’s aggressive drives can be redirected from a socially inappropriate object toward a surrogate. That is, the drives are satisfied by the action depicted in the novel. Violent and hostile characters act as proxies, relieving the reader of the need to act on aggressive tendencies in reality. The idea of aggression-by-proxy complements another of Evans’ points, the temporary disconnection from reality and identification with the fictional persona.
A major aspect of escapism finds the reader in the role of the detective; he or she experiences live as the perceived ideal through the fictional character (492). As with the mystery novel, escapism into the hardboiled narrative fulfils conceptual needs, like justice and order, but also the physical element that is one key of the genre. Although justice and order are important aspects, the hardboiled world lacks the strong social structure found in the mystery novel. Order is restored when the detective completes his quest, but the world remains a dark environment in which the hero is an outsider.
The hardboiled detective is an outcast, and, as John Paterson writes, “he stands for the alienated of our time, his is the virtual declaration that the ends of the individual and the ends of society are no longer one” (qtd. in Evans, 498). The hardboiled world is a society in only a superficial sense. Where most place their own welfare first, society becomes a mere collection of individuals in pure competition with one another. The hero is as dark as his environment and uses the same violent and coercive methods employed by his adversaries. He is not necessarily good, but he does possess a strict sense of morality that others in his world lack. This makes him a pariah who appeals to readers who see darkness in their own world. Episodic justice can be achieved, but the world remains brutish.
The hardboiled novel is akin to the tragedy, as the hero lacks the power to change his world. Conversely, the mystery is akin to the comedy; upon solving the case, the sleuth restores his world to its previous ordered state. Of course, a given novel won’t necessarily fit neatly into one category or the other, but that’s just evidence of the evolution of the literature of detection. It is literature that offers almost anyone a fictional world in which to take little holiday from the ordinary.