The Press Saturday, May 4, 1929. The Art of the Detective Story.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19610, 4 May 1929, Page 14

The Press Saturday, May 4, 1929. The Art of the Detective Story.

There are things which may be well, even brilliantly done, things which demand close study, trained intelligence and delicate skill, yet, after all, do not seem to be worth doing. To some people no doubt all literary work, especially critical work, seems to be of this kind; to others the playing of bridge, golf ami chess seems to fall into this category; while to some the pursuit of scientific, philosophical or mathematical truth appears to be a mere waste of time and mental labour. To most of the enlightened members of any British community all these would seem to be equally in the wrong, yet there are certain literary tasks which the majority of such members would probably agree to condemn for their futility, such as the average doctorate theses in literary subjects in certain modern universities, which are too often devoted to the appreciation or the analysis of writers of no significance whatever, since there are not enough important subjects to go round. An example of this kind of thing is a recent essay, by Miss Dorothy L. Sayers, forming the Introduction to Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror. Skilful and brilliant as this piece of work undoubtedly is, it cannot but compel the reader to ask himself, "Was it worth " it?" For though this type of story is extremely popular, and though Philip Guedalla has said that "the detective " story is the normal recreation of "noble minds," it is only too obvious that the average specimen can only be called a work of art by unduly stretching the definition of "art," and that most stories of this type are mere "pot-boilers" —to use a very convenient if undignified term —and that very few writers of genius have ever condescended to touch it. The writer of this clever study begins with Edgar Allan Poe, whose well-known five tales "laid down the general principles of " the detective story for ever." She deals fully and faithfully with the evolution of the plot; the intellectual and sensational lines of development; the history of the form in English and American "literature," where the works of Mrs Henry Wood, Sheridan Le Fanu, Wilkie Collins, Conan Doyle, Mrs L. T. Meade, E. C. Bentley, G. K. Chesterton are passed in review; the artistic status; the love-interest; future developments, and fashions and formula*. All this is most efficiently done, with insight, sympathy and humour, and the approved lines of the most serious form of literary criticism are followed. The author very justly observes that in this as in every other form of fiction, each day the public taste demands a greater subtlety of theme and treatment, and closes with a reflection Avhich seems to suggest that the -writer herself is surprised to find that she has taken her subject so seriously. "What a piece of work is " man that he should en joy this kind "of thing!" It is the thrill, not the story, that she has in mind. The reasons for the comparatively low status of this form of literary art are not far to seek. It wants true artistic complexity; it is too exclusively concerned with the questions: "Who "did it?" and "How was it done!" — one or both; it does not exhibit character or local colour or atmosphere or humour as a vital part of the structure. These things are indeed attempted by most of its exponents, but they are only too obviously dragged in. The reader is absorbed by a mechanical problem, and is invited to join the author in a game wherein the latter holds all the trumps, or uses loaded dice. The evolution of the form as at present developed proceeds on purely mechanical lines, so that it depends for success upon ingenuity alone, either in the solution of the "problem" or in the methods of the criminal. Hence we find on the one hand a display of subtlety on the part of the author who wishes to keep the reader in the dark as long as possible, and a variety of well-worn devices are employed for the purpose; and on the other hand a very voluminous list of fanciful and generally unconvincing methods by which murder may be committed without detection: stabbing with chemical icicles which melt away and leave no trace; poisoned mattresses or spectacles; refeased snakes, and so forth. The desired thrill is discharged by, means of the strong, primitive passion, fear. The phenomenal success of the Sherlock Holmes series is not at all due to the character, which is quite mechanically conceived, but to the cleverness of the methods employed in the detection of crime. The concentration of the reader's attention upon the one narrowly defined problem and the thrill generated by the pursuit give him exactly what he wants, that is, he is taken "out of himself." Here the jaded mind finds relaxation, and the idle one the wherewithal to fill the empty hours, so that, as we are all either too busy or too much at leisure, everybody is satisfied. As to the future, unless and until some genius takes it in hand and breaks away from the conventions which now rigidify and mechanise the form, it would seem to be doomed to remain a mere anodyne, and a steady source «f income to a number of clever practitioners.