Cinematic Resolutions

2021 ◽  
pp. 146-187
Author(s):  
Lee Clark Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Detective Genre ◽  
Literary Techniques

Turning from fiction to film, chapter six investigates how hard-boiled and subsequent literary techniques have been translated into cinematic triumphs. Excellent scholarship exists on Hollywood’s adaptations of detective fiction beginning in the 1940s, a discussion requiring no review here. But new possibilities emerged in the neo-noir movement of the 1970s, with a sophisticated conversion of written strategies into visual framings and sonic tracks. Three sets of directors produced acknowledged masterpieces: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, and the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple. In each, inventive camera movements and non-diegetic compositions intensify strains long present in the detective genre, with a fuller devotion to the distractions of “furniture” and a more pronounced focus on dialogue as snappy performance having replaced character construction, even plot.

scholarly journals Between Reason and Madness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Macedo Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Detective Genre

This paper analyses intertextuality between two novels, Juan José Saer’s La pesquisa and Ricardo Piglia’s Blanco nocturno, in the context of detective fiction, that both writers explore in their narrative. The paper is divided in four parts: “Cruces introductorios” is an introductory form to produce connections between the most important authors of the last quarter of 20th-century Argentine; in “Primeros rastros” communicating vases are set between both poetics in detective genre; in “Subgéneros policiales” some important aspects of La pesquisa and Blanco nocturno are analysed while some differences are identified: the first work belongs to enigma novel and the last work connects with hard boiled; finally, the paper analyses Detective Morvan and Detective Croce aiming at identifying opposite pairs: intelligence and dementia, reason and madness, civilisation and barbarism. Thus, these concepts are establishing new relationships between Saer and Piglia based on their approaches to detective genre and their criticism to capitalist system.

‘I simply write it to order’: L. T. Meade, Sisters of Sherlock, and the Strand Magazine

2019 ◽  
pp. 470-482
Author(s):  
Clare Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Print Culture ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Market Trends ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Detective Genre

Clare Clarke’s essay illuminates the adroit professionalism of the Irish author, journalist, and editor L. T. Meade (1844–1914) in the context of the extensive catalogue of detective fiction she contributed to the Strand Magazine (1891–1950). Meade’s foray into the detective genre followed an enormously successful period of writing novels for girls, as well as a stint at editing the girls’ magazine Atalanta (1887–98). As Clarke demonstrates, this radical departure from her literary focus on girls’ print culture is indicative of Meade’s ‘market acuity, her ability to produce precisely those genres which were in demand by periodical editors–in her own terms, her ability to give a literary editor “what his public want[s]”’ (p. 474). Meade’s talent for tapping into market trends and producing copy that catered to the tastes of readers ultimately secured her position as a regular contributor in the male-dominated Strand Magazine.

FROM PERIPHERY TO CENTRE: EXPLORING GENDERED NARRATIVES IN SELECT FICTIONS OF SUCHITRA BHATTACHARYA

Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Sagarika Rajbanshi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Discursive Power ◽  
Detective Genre ◽  
The Web ◽  
Female Perspective ◽  
Female Experience

The issue of women empowerment breaking the boundaries of patriarchy is the locus of the narrative based on the female experience. The representation of the female perspective in a narrative constructs an alternative discursive narrative, different from that of the male narrative. And once, when the perspective is changed, the whole narrative got changed. Suchitra Bhattacharya's lady detective fiction based on detective Mitin aka Pragyaparamita Mukherjee introduces detective literature from female experience, quite unlike the conventional detective genre, exploring gendered experience in terms of intelligence and its relation with the discourse of power. These fictions encode female experience within the web of the narrative, opening the door of a new prospect towards detective literature. The lady detective literature, as it was developed, was resistance against the male narrative of the detective literature and the subverted female presentation of it. It brings forward the women agency that was previously denied by patriarchy and reconstitutes the ways of interpreting a text incorporating women in the center. The narrative establishes and celebrates the thinking capability of women negated in the male narrative. Henceforth, the argument is how and to what extent the female narrative achieves its hold over discursive power, and succeeds in bringing up a whole new thread by subverting the discursive narrative of the androgenous stratum.

Suki Kim’s The Interpreter

Genre ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Suk Koo Rhee
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Early American ◽  
Female Immigrant ◽  
Pile Up ◽  
Racial Context ◽  
Rugged Individualism ◽  
Masculine Hegemony ◽  
Detective Genre

This article argues that Suki Kim’s The Interpreter (2003) is influenced by and, at the same time, critically revises early American hard-boiled crime fiction, the genre with which it is least likely to be associated. Although dead bodies do not pile up in the novel, the urban world in which Kim’s protagonist operates, attempting to solve the case of her parents’ murder, is as treacherous as the world portrayed in early hard-boiled detective fiction. Kim has inherited from early hard-boiled crime fiction such elements as its rugged individualism, a cynical-but-sentimental worldview, and not least, its social concerns about economic inequality and corruption among the powerful. At the same time, Kim’s novel subtly reconfigures her hard-boiled sleuth as well as adapts the genre to a contemporary racial context. In this revision, both the institutional and personal practices of racism are placed on trial. Female solidarity is also celebrated as a means to counter the violence and corruption of a racialized society. In so doing, Kim’s novel subverts both the sexism and racism of the traditional detective genre. The conclusion of this article is that the novel legitimates a female immigrant and person of color’s right to belong and challenges the white masculine hegemony that the traditional hard-boiled genre maintains.

Asian American Detective Fiction

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin McMillin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Asian Descent ◽  
Asian American Identity ◽  
American Authors ◽  
Detective Genre

Asian American detective fiction is an eclectic body of literature that encompasses works from a variety of 20th- and 21st-century Asian American authors. Prior to the emergence of these writers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, depictions of Asians and Asian Americans in the mystery genre were primarily the domain of white authors like Earl Derr Biggers and John P. Marquand. During the pre-World War II era, “Oriental detectives” like Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto enjoyed varying degrees of popularity in literature and film before gradually fading into obscurity. Meanwhile, the few U.S. writers of Asian descent working in the detective genre often refrained from portraying Asian American characters in their works, focusing instead on stories involving white protagonists. However, a sea change occurred when a wave of Asian American authors arrived on the crime fiction scene: Henry Chang, Leonard Chang, Dale Furutani, Naomi Hirahara, and Ed Lin are representative examples. Differentiating themselves from their Asian American predecessors, these writers focused their mysteries not only on detectives of Asian descent but on the specific ethnic communities in which they were born. Using the detective genre’s focus on “Whodunit” as a literary imperative, these works explore contemporary anxieties about Asian American identity in relation to issues of race, gender, sexuality, and national belonging. As a result, many Asian American writers of detective fiction have chosen to reframe Asian American identity through the use of the detective genre, a vehicle through which the racist stereotypes of the past are addressed, combatted, and symbolically defeated. Whether a genre, subgenre, or school of literature, Asian American detective fiction is a rich and ever-evolving form of literary expression that continues to both expand upon and complicate earlier discourses on race, gender, and sexuality within the realms of U.S. crime fiction and contemporary Asian American literature.

scholarly journals EXPRESSIVENESS OF NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN AGATHA CHRISTIE�S NOVEL �THE PALE HORSE�

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Myroslava I. Venhryniuk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Active Part ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Speech Interaction ◽  
Clear Delineation ◽  
Agatha Christie ◽  
The One ◽  
Detective Genre

This article deals with the expressive potential of negative constructions in the literary text belonging to the detective genre. The material of Agatha Christie�s novel �The Pale Horse� proves that negative constructions are part of a range of powerful means of expression and perform a number of functions. Denial constructions contribute to the deepening of the emotionality and value of the artistic text, promotes its dialogic progression, takes an active part in the expressive labeling of communicative acts, dynamizes the speech interaction of the characters. The article uses the following research methods: descriptive, which revealed the features of the expressive potential of negative constructions in a detective fiction, and methods of contextual and oppositional analysis, which were aimed at role revealing of negative constructions in the formation of value and emotion in the text. It has been found that in a detective fiction, such categories as denial and emotion are closely interconnected. The emotional tension created by means of negation promotes strengthening of text dynamics, expression of plot collisions, activation of reader�s attention. The reader, being immersed in the emotional states of the characters, lives with them their anxiety, worry, fear, pain, frustration, excitement. As a result, the text resonator strains, the communicative distance between the character, the author and the reader decreases, the effect of everyone�s involvement in the disclosure of the crime is created. In particular, in Agatha Christie�s novel �The Pale Horse�, we come across an expression of a rich range of characters� emotions: compassion, irritation, fear, doubt, hatred, despair, and so on. The article notes that the expressive potential of negative constructions is fully revealed when it comes to the evaluative attitude of the character to other characters, events, phenomena and so on. The article emphasizes that the assessment is in constant dynamics, changing, as this is facilitated by the very nature of the detective genre. It is established that negative constructions take an active part in the expressive marking of communicative acts of an artistic text. In a detective fiction, the following are most often expressively marked: suspicion, conjecture, assumption, distrust, reproach, order, assurance, accusation. It is noticeable that the negative constructions, coloring the communicative acts of the characters with expressive shades, can promote, on the one hand, the progression of the dialogues of the literary text, on the other � to signal their collapse. The article pays special attention to such communicative acts as conjectures and assumptions. It has been found that by building a confusing chain of conjectures and assumptions, the author enhances the reader�s curiosity, stimulates detective searches, emphasizes the dynamics of crime detection. It emphasizes that the negative constructions help emphasize a certain feature of the character�s appearance, the specifics of his behavior and character traits. Denial construction is able to express and crystallize the image, give it individuality, brightness and clear delineation. Against the background of the general artistic picture of the work, the negation allows to make the image of the character recognizable and noticeable, emphasizing some unique feature of the character or giving it an image of comic color.

scholarly journals Parodia, intertextualidad y sátira en la narrativa policial de Lorenzo Lunar Cardedo

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
Jesús Gómez-de-Tejada
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Story Line ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Detective Genre ◽  
Popular Speech

Detective fiction as parodic reformulation of genre’s defining patterns has a long history in the Latin American tradition: Borges, Bioy Casares, Soriano, Levrero, Ibargüengoitia, etc. Besides, the evolution of Latin American detective genre has always been characterized by a progressive focalization in the social aspects over the detective story line which has served as a mask to depict in a critical way the flaws of the region’s societies and governments. In nowadays Cuba it could be highlighted the crime narrative of parodic slant by Lorenzo Lunar Cardedo. Among the major features of Lunar Cardedo’s style there are the marginal atmospheres, the stylization of popular speech, the intertextuality, the humor, the parody, and the social criticism. This article focuses on the parodic, intertextual and satiric aspects of his work, particularly discernible in the novel Proyecto en negro (2013), in which the author emphasizes – in opposition to the official discourse – the perpetuation of corrupt, chauvinist, racist, and homophobic behaviors in contemporary Cuba, while relaxing the genre formula limits in order to follow a much more irreverent path within the new Latin American detective fiction.

The Many Pasts of Detective Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Thomas Leitch
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Public History ◽  
Detective Novel ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Detective Story ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Detective Novels ◽  
The Many

Building on Tzvetan Todorov's observation that the detective novel ‘contains not one but two stories: the story of the crime and the story of the investigation’, this essay argues that detective novels display a remarkably wide range of attitudes toward the several pasts they represent: the pasts of the crime, the community, the criminal, the detective, and public history. It traces a series of defining shifts in these attitudes through the evolution of five distinct subgenres of detective fiction: exploits of a Great Detective like Sherlock Holmes, Golden Age whodunits that pose as intellectual puzzles to be solved, hardboiled stories that invoke a distant past that the present both breaks with and echoes, police procedurals that unfold in an indefinitely extended present, and historical mysteries that nostalgically fetishize the past. It concludes with a brief consideration of genre readers’ own ambivalent phenomenological investment in the past, present, and future each detective story projects.

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