Currently reading The Golden Age of Murder: The mystery of the writers who invented the modern detective story on Shedunnit‘s recommendation. This is a book I want to turn over in my mind a lot, so I’m making notes and setting aside time to reflect on it as I go. It’s evident that this story connects to so many other interests of mine, including writers I never associated with detective fiction.
8 names/topics from the index that pique my interest:
- W. H. Auden — What does he have to do with detective fiction? Was he a fan? I haven’t read much poetry of my own volition, and maybe once I read how he factors into this web of associations I will read some of his work. I know that he wrote a poem in memory of Freud, who is mentioned more than once in the beginning of the book, so maybe one connection lies there; Freud’s work is described as influential to those who wanted to “explore human relationships and the complications of psychology.”
- Communism & Marxism — Edwards says in the introduction that the Detection Club members spanned the whole political spectrum. Were left-leaning writers more prominent, I wonder? Fascism is also listed in the index, but these and the Labour Party have more mentions. It would be interesting to learn about political dialogue between Club members and how writers’ politics influenced their work.
- General Strike — As an ignorant person and an American, if I ever knew anything about the British General Strike of 1926, it had totally escaped me. Edwards mentions in the introduction that Britain was swept by a “play fever” after WWI which offered “escape from the horrors of wartime — as well as the bleak realities of peace.” Bleak realities on the economic front included national debt, cost of living increases, unemployment, and what I did not realize was the first and only general strike in the UK.
- P. D. James — I’m reading Death in Holy Orders alongside this and see that she is one of the most frequently mentioned contemporary authors in the book. (She also contributed a blurb.) I haven’t quite warmed to any contemporary crime writers and this is my second attempt to get into James. I felt lukewarm about Cover Her Face.
- John Maynard Keynes — Keynes is somewhat familiar to me from my badly-executed sociology degree (and my informal excursions into the studies of housing and welfare), but I don’t have a firm theory on how Keynesian economics fits in here. I wonder if Edwards will delve into how 20th century detective fiction reflected attitudes towards government spending as a means to address economic strife.
- Walter Benjamin — I have the vaguest impression of Walter Benjamin’s work left over from undergrad. Wikipedia reminds me that Benjamin was part of the Frankfurt School of social theory and critical philosophy. The only “notable theorist” from this school whom I’m familiar with is Erich Fromm (note to self to write about him eventually). Important concepts I can see as being related to detective fiction: psychoanalysis, the culture industry, and antipositivism, “theoretical stance that proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology.” Also makes sense that the School tried to synthesize the works of Freud and Marx, among others, and apply 19th century thinkers’ ideas to 20th century social problems.
- Rose Macaulay — I have only read The World My Wilderness, which is set in the ruins of London; she also wrote The Pleasure of Ruins.
- P. G. Wodehouse — Did he write any detective fiction? Also makes me wonder who the funniest Golden Age authors were. Margery Allingham has made me laugh, but none others come to mind as being very funny.
6 quotes from the first 50 pages:
- “My respect for the earliest members of the Detection Club did not diminish as I spotted flaws in their detectives’ reasoning, or chanced upon curious and sometimes embarrassing incidents in their own lives. On the contrary, I came to respect their prowess in skating over thin ice, in fiction and in everyday life. They were writing during a dangerous period in our history, years when recovery from the shocking experience of one war became overshadowed by dread of another. […] [Detection Club members] had much more to say about the world in which they lived than either they acknowledged or critics have appreciated.”
- “The very idea that detective fiction between the wars represented a Golden Age seems like the misty-eyed nostalgia of an aged romantic hankering after a past that never existed.”
- “The received wisdom is that Golden Age fiction set out to reassure readers by showering order restored to society, and plenty of orthodox novels did just that. But many of the finest bucked the trend, and ended on a note of uncertainty or paradox.”
- “Detective novelists, like their characters, often make suspect witnesses and unreliable narrators.”
- On Wimsey (whom I’ve not always liked; haven’t always gotten the joke): “[Sayers’] intentions were satiric rather than snobbish. A detective who was not a professional police officer, she reasoned, needed to be rich and to have plenty of leisure time to devote to solving mysteries. She conceived Wimsey as a caricature of the gifted amateur sleuth, and found it amusing to soak herself in the lifestyle of someone for whom money was no object.” So Allingham’s Campion was a satire of a satire? I erred towards interpreting Wimsey as snobbish in Gaudy Night but enjoyed the undercover persona of Death Bredon in Murder Must Advertise. Maybe the setting and scenario were better fit to showcase his frivolity, for me.
- “One line explains a great deal about the way [Sayers] led the rest of her life: ‘I am so terrified of emotion, now.’ That terror of emotion never left her.”
4 Club Members I want to read:
(subject to change–haven’t read much in depth of any author’s work yet)
- Gladys Mitchell — Based on the Shedunnit episode.
- Anthony Berkeley — Have tried and failed to get into him before, but want to try again.
- Clemence Dane — I’ve read Regiment of Women. Didn’t know she wrote detective fiction.
- G. K. Chesterton — Seems clear that I’d be remiss in never reading him. He was the Club’s first president.
Side note: I’m struggling with WordPress! I need to figure out how to insert an image without instantly freezing my browser. Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting answers to the questions I’ve posed here and enriching my understanding of this genre.
uillend 