Хилари Во
Боевик в сравнении с романом
Реферат
В оригинале статья называется “The mystery versus the novel”, но поскольку в русском языке до настоящего времени нет какого-либо устойчивого именования для произведений, классифицируемых как “mystery”, приходится переводить этот термин словом “боевик”, которое плохо отражает суть дела, но зато и не очерчивает четко пределы той обширной области литературы, границы которой пытается описать автор.
“Большинство читателей сознает, что боевик [mystery] представляет собой нечто иное нежели собственно роман [novel] и отличное от него. …Различие существует, оно реально, но степень различия зависит от того, что мы понимаем под термином “mystery”. Было время, когда “mystery story” означало “детектив”, т.е. повествование, содержание которого почти что исчерпывается загадкой. Однако границы жанра все более и более расширяются, и, где их сейчас проводить, зависит больше от личной точки зрения, чем от какой-то объективной линии разграничения”.
Во пишет, что сегодня в раздел “mystery” зачисляются и “ужастики” [suspens stories], и приключенческие романы, и шпионские истории, и даже истории о призраках. Сюда же относят все произведения, которые каким-то образом связаны с преступлениями, здесь же оказываются и книги, повествующие о победе добра над злом - независимо от того, представлено ли зло графом Дракулой или же гитлеровскими приспешниками.
Автор иронически констатирует, что для серьезной литературы остается совсем немного места, так как создатели боевиков приписывают к своему цеху всю художественную литературу, затрагивающую тему преступления, включая сюда не только таких авторов, как Эдгар По, но и Достоевского (Преступление и наказание
), Шекспира с его трагедиями и Виктора Гюго с его Отверженными
. Те, кто пишет боевики, пытаются таким образом опровергнуть мнение об их продукции как литературе низшего сорта. Во считает, что это бессмысленно: Шекспир пишет о преступлениях, это общеизвестно, но нельзя сводить его с Агатой Кристи в одну категорию литературы.
“Если мы намереваемся разделять боевики и романы, принимая во внимание их сходства и различия, то должны дать более точные определения употребляемым терминам. Необходимо найти такие параметры, которые позволяют отделить одно от другого. Мы должны сконструировать такое дискриминирующее “сито”, которое с гарантией оставляет все подобное Чарли Чан ведет следствие
Эрла Дерра Биггерса в жанре боевика и отсеивает Американскую трагедию
Драйзера”.
Многие бросающиеся в глаза признаки для этого не годятся. Речь идет не о границе между хорошо написанными и плохо написанными книгами, или между развлекательными и скучными, или короткими и длинными, и не том, есть ли в книге описания преступлений и преступников. Субжанр боевиков отделяется от прочей художественной литературы на основании иных критериев.
Чтобы выяснить сущность различий, автор предлагает вернуться в ту эпоху, когда эти различия были выражены гораздо более резко, но с тех пор боевик значительно изменился, оставив за собой свою прежнюю, ясно очерченную идентичность.
Чтобы обнажить костяк боевика как такового, мы должны вернуться назад к точке наибольшего обособления, в период, когда различие между боевиком и “серьезным” романом было несомненным. Мы должны вернуться в эру историй-головоломок, в идеальный детективный мир [fantasyland of mystery] – в эпоху, когда Хэммет и Чандлер еще не переместили убийство из чопорной опрятности гостиной в кровь и кишки трущобного переулка, которые более верно отражают обстановку, где действительно происходят убийства, и то, как они выглядят. …Нам следует вернуться к искусственному миру Эркюля Пуаро и Фило Вэнса, Чарли Чана и Эллери Квина, к расцвету интеллектуального детектива, когда каждое убийство было сложносочиненным [compound-complex], а логическое рассуждение [ratiocination] было всем.
Во обосновывает такой подход тем, что форма классического детектива представляет собой жесткую основу, ядро конструкции всякого боевика, так как детектив - “дистиллированная” литература, не содержащая ничего лишнего кроме самой “эссенции” жанра. И хотя за прошедшие годы боевик оброс мясом, приобрел кровь, мышцы, нервную систему и оделся в разнообразные одежды, его скелет лучше всего изучать на старом детективе.
И здесь Во делает неожиданное заявление, что боевик [mystery story] занимает в литературе такое же место, как сонет в поэзии.
Конструкция детектива определяется, согласно Во, несколькими жесткими правилами. Правила эти таковы:
Первым и наиболее очевидным правилом честной игры было требование того, чтобы каждая улика, обнаруженная детективом, должна быть известна читателю
. Автор может пытаться уменьшить значение улики, неверно оценивая ее значение, или скрыть ее среди не относящегося к делу мусора – но он должен показать ее. …
Правило второе. Раннее появление убийцы
.
Очевидно, что со стороны автора будет нечестно, если он введет в повествование на 214 странице новый персонаж, а на 215 странице разоблачит его как убийцу. Все подозреваемые должны быть известны – хотя бы известны, если и не показаны.
Правило третье. Преступление должно быть значительным
.
Проблема должна быть достаточно серьезной, чтобы вызвать у читателя желание разрешить ее – и разрешить самостоятельно. Так как из всех преступлений наиболее серьезным является убийство, большинство детективов - это детективы с убийством. Выбирая в качестве преступления убийство, писатель автоматически выполняет это условие.
Правило четвертое. Должно быть расследование
.
Разгадка преступления в детективе не может прийти естественным путем, и не может прийти со стороны. Для решения должны прилагаться усилия. Фактически, основной смысл ранних детективов состоял
в разгадке преступления.
Правило пятое. Круг подозреваемых должно быть известен и убийца должен быть среди них
.
Это еще один элемент честной игры, и общепринятым методом соблюдения данного предписания было конструирование замкнутого мира, населенного исключительно жертвами, подозреваемыми, убийцей и детективом. Одним из наиболее частых вариантов такой вселенной был загородный дом, заполненный гостями и отрезанный от остального мира непогодой или другими обстоятельствами, вследствие этого, когда совершалось убийство, можно было быть уверенным, что убийца находится среди присутствующих.
Так как детектив рассматривается как игра между автором и читателем, требование играть честно ведет к тому, что в повествовании исключаются все чуждые элементы, не имеющие непосредственного отношения к рассказываемой загадочной истории.
Все сцены, все события, все эффекты (включая красную селедку) должны иметь отношение к загадке – создание и решение которой и есть сама история.
Автору не позволено распространяться об искусстве Ренессанса или о поэзии Китса - даже если он увлечен ими.
…Это жестокий удар. Автор высокодисциплинированной детективной истории тесно связан и должен считаться с суровыми ограничениями.
В этом одно из отличий боевиков от “серьезных” романа, авторы которых могут позволить себе куда большие вольности. Правда, сознается Во, сегодняшний боевик уже не требует таких жестких рамок, которые были характерны для детектива с загадкой - нынешний читатель скорее жаждет быть развлеченным, чем озадаченным - но основа требований все же не меняется. Автор боевика не может длительно отвлекаться на не относящиеся к делу описания и рассуждения, оставив действие неразвивающимся.
И потому, считает Во, умение писать боевики является хорошей школой для романиста. Точно так же, как поэт, освоивший строгую форму сонета, имеет преимущество, которое может использовать в работе над любыми стихами.
Далее автор довольно пространно объясняет, что действующие в детективе правила могут - при их несколько расширенном толковании - считаться пригодными и для “серьезной” литературы. Так первое правило - каждая улика, обнаруженная детективом, должна быть известна читателю -
он истолковывает, как требование внутренней связности и логичности повествования, его внутренней самообусловленности:
“Ключи [clues - ключ, улика] к будущему произрастают из настоящего. …Все сюрпризы должны корениться внутри романного мира; они не могут быть привнесены извне”.
Аналогичным образом он толкует и другие детективные правила, выводя их на уровень общелитературных.
Затем следует такой вывод:
“…я думаю, близко к истине утверждение, что хороший писатель боевиков может написать (серьезный) роман лучше, чем хороший романист может написать боевик. Именно потому, что автор боевиков осваивает требования романной формы в большей степени, чем это требуется истинному романисту”.
Покончив с этим, Во задается вопросом: “Почему же все-таки литературные шедевры обнаруживаются не среди боевиков, а в серьезных романах?” В чем отличие боевика, мешающее ему достигнуть тех же литературных высот?
“Одно отличие просто и ясно. Боевик не содержит инструментария [equipment], обеспечивающего передачу посланий [messages]. Это слишком непрочная коробочка, чтобы удержать человеческий дух. Боевик позволяет автору говорить, но не дает возможности разъяснять и наставлять [instruct]. Символ веры может быть выражен следующим образом: “Если вы хотите писать, но вам нечего сказать, пишите боевик”. Если у вас другие амбиции, формы боевика лучше избегать”.
Кроме того отличие боевика от романа автор видит в отношении к рассказываемой истории.
“В боевике в центре всего находится история, это начало всего и конец всего, в ней вся суть. В ней его слава, и с ней связаны его обязательства. Именно поэтому боевик стоит особняком от остальных романов. Именно поэтому он не удовлетворяет целям серьезного романиста”.
Романист не пытается озадачить читателя или рассказать ему историю. Он не стремится даже развлечь читателя. Он пишет по другим причинам, большей частью не осознаваемым. История сама по себе не является его целью. Он выражает себя через персонажей, их взаимодействие и развитие (в боевике персонажи никогда не развиваются, даже если автор вынужден как-то изменять их с течением времени), а история в романе - лишь средство, с помощью которого проявляется развитие героев романа. Несмотря на то, что рамки сегодняшнего боевика беспередельно расширились и для него уже не существует “запретных территорий”, ранее относимых к исключительной компетенции серьезного романа, все же боевик, по мнению Во, по-прежнему сконцентрирован на рассказывании историй [storytelling], и это влияет на его форму.
“Коротко говоря, обязательное различие между боевиком и романом, такое, которое, как мне кажется, всегда должно создавать различие – это вопрос о - соответствующем - мотиве
. Если мотив “мистериозен” [the motive is “mystery”], то история (саспенс, конечно) становится в центр повествования, и налицо боевик. Если же мотив иной, то история (и неважно, насколько она кровава) не занимает центрального места, она всего лишь средство, и это не боевик”.
Цитаты даны в переводе А.А.Брусова
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Hillary Waugh
The mystery versus the novel
Hillary Waugh writes because, in his own words, he cannot not write. Though he aspired to make a career of art (cartooning) and music (popular songs), M r. Waugh first tried his hand at mystery writing while flying in World War II as a Navy pilot. His first effort sold, and Mr. Waugh was hooked on writing. Since then, he has published some thirty-four novels in the United States and abroad, most of them in the crime and mystery fields. One of his novels, LAST SEEN WEARING . . . , was chosen by the London times as one of the one-hundred best mysteries ever written.
Mr. Waugh writes under his own name and two pseudonyms: Hairy Walker and H. Baldwin Taylor. He is a pioneer in the field of police procedurals, and a past president of the Mystery Writers of America.
There is an awareness on the part of most readers that the mystery per se is something separate and distinct from the novel itself. This fact of fiction is acknowledged both by the devotees of the mystery form and by its detractors; the term “mystery” is applied to a specific type of novel to set it apart from the so-called “straight” or “serious” novel.
There is a difference, that is true, but the degree of difference depends upon how we define the term “mystery”. Time was when “mystery story” meant “detective
story”; then the tale was a puzzle and little else. More and more, however, the parameters of the genre have broadened and where they now lie is more a matter of personal viewpoint than of any objective line of demarcation. Nowadays suspense stories have come under the umbrella of mystery fiction so that Harper & Row even labels each book in its mystery line as “A Harper Novel of Suspense.” Spy stories are called mysteries; chase and adventure yarns come under the heading. Gothics, those tales of romance and suspense, are a part of the field, and even some ghost stories can be included. Anything that involves crime or the threat of crime is eligible. So is anything that pits the forces of good against evil — and evil can mean anything from Count Dracula to Hitler’s minions.
This covers, we might note, a rather broad area. In fact, not much is left over for the field of straight fiction. Mystery writers induct into the fraternity not only the likes of Edgar Allan Рое, but also Dostoevski (Crime and Punishment),
Shakespeare (any tragedy with the possible exception of Lear), Victor Hugo (Les Miserables),
and anyone else who has produced a work of fiction involving criminous activity.
Quite obviously, if we are going to use this broad type of criterion, then we will have to say that the only difference between mystery fiction and straight fiction is that the former involves criminal wrongdoing and the latter doesn’t — a distinction too meaningless to acknowledge.
Yet there is a difference, and everyone knows it. Shakespeare wrote about crime, but he was not a mystery writer in the sense that Agatha Christie was a mystery writer. Inasmuch as the mystery novel, especially in America, has traditionally been regarded as second-class fiction and its top practitioners as less worthy of note than the most hapless of straight novelists, the insistence of mystery writers in embracing the literary giants of history as kissing kin may well be nothing more than an attempt to overcome an ill-begotten inferiority complex.
If we are to separate the mystery from the novel and recognize the similarities and the differences, we must more adequately define our terms. We must find the areas of distinction that identify one and not the other. We must construct a discriminatory sieve that will firmly hold the likes of Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan Carries On
in the mystery genre and turn loose such as Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.
Is it a matter of length? Mysteries, in all their recognized forms, are pretty standard in this regard. Generally speaking, the range is from 185-225 pages, or 60,000 to 70,000 words. Gothics are longer and a reader expects closer to 300 pages or 110,000 words in that form. The moment a book gets into the 350-pages-and-up range, even if it deals with crime, it will be accepted by editors and public alike as “more than a mystery”.
Length, though indicative, is not a valid measure; quite obviously length does not determine greatness and we must, not pretend that extra pages are a hallmark of distinction. There are too many gems of classic fiction — The Red Badge of Courage
for one — that deliver their message in beautiful brevity.
Another totem that is supposed to identify the mystery is that it is read for “entertainment”. The mystery is supposed to be light reading, something that doesn’t require serious involvement; a piece to be ingested for relaxation, for fun, for pleasure.
But what does this tell us? Are we to conclude that books of merit are literary spinach: (“You won’t like it, but it’s good for you”)? That argument won’t wash. Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hardy — the list is long — were, and are, enormously popular. Dull novels are bad novels and will not sell, but dull mysteries won’t sell either. So it is not a matter of bad writing versus good writing, or fun reading versus dull reading, short books versus long books, or crime stories versus non-crime stories. The subgenre of the mystery is isolated from the rest of fiction by other criteria.
To make the distinction, we need to dig deeper and realize that the mystery has been, growing and expanding, maturing, and almost leaving its old self behind. In fact, the more the mystery probes into character and issues and the makeup of the human animal — and it is doing this — the more it is departing from its original format and outgrowing its original aims. If the spy is no longer fighting the forces of evil to rescue the kidnapped scientist, but is, instead, coping with the cynicism of his trade and his own expandability, or learning to live with the realization that his life is a cipher, then we are leaving what used to be the mystery form and entering into the field of the straight novel. Even if the spy is rescuing the scientist while he’s having his self-doubts, we are dealing with a different kind of book. The original essence of the mystery is becoming hidden beneath additional layers of what would be called “serious” writing. (How serious the writing actually is, of course, depends upon the talent and insight of the author.)
To lay bare the bones of the mystery itself, we should turn back in time to the point of greatest separation, to the period when the distinction between a mystery story and a novel was the most unmistakable. We must return to the era of the puzzle story, to the fantasyland of mystery — before Hammett and Chandler moved murder out of the prim neatness of the drawing room and into the blood and guts of the back alley, which more closely approximates where actual murders occur and what they are like. We must get away from the subsequent approachment
toward “realism” that led to the private-eye and the gangsters cum
nightclub, which gave way to the later world of the detective squad and the police procedural. We should return to the artificial world of Hercule Poirot and Philo Vance, of Charlie Chan and Ellery Queen, to the heyday of the intellectual detective when every murder was compound-complex and ratiocination was all.
We use for our model those long-ago stories and their never-never world because those tales, for all time, represent the essence of the mvstery. They were tales from which everything else had been distilled. Here lay, for all to view, the artifacts of the pure mystery, the articulated skeleton of the whole art form. Whatever has since happened to the mystery — and much has — is overlay. Flesh, nervous systems, muscles, blood, and clothing of various kinds have been added, but the true mystery today still has the same old skeleton deep down underneath. It’s just a little harder to find and therein lies a tale — but there are several tales to be told about this particular skeleton.
In those bygone days of the classical detective story, when the skeleton first stirred itself in permanent form, the puzzle was the thing. The reader was presented with a crime, a handful of clues, a cast of suspects, and a detective against whom to match wits. The object of the game was to beat the detective to the solution. Quite obviously, under those conditions, the difference between reading a mystery story — “detective” story in that context — and a straight novel was equivalent to the difference between doing a newspaper crossword puzzle and reading the columnists. Yet, despite the obviousness of the difference, there is more kinship here — as we shall shortly discover — than meets the eye. It is this kinship that has enabled the mystery to develop to the point where it successfully challenges straight fiction on the best-seller lists and enjoys an everbroadening base of popularity. Let us examine these bones, then, and determine why this form of literature, the mystery story, is to the novel what the sonnet is to poetry.
Let it be recognized first that the skeleton that structures the classical puzzle story is nothing more or less than a series of ironclad rules. These rules became essential in order to present the puzzle properly and also in the interests of fair play. The book, remember, was a battleground between author and reader — with the reader trying to outguess the detective and beat him to the criminal, and the author trying to waylay, bemuse, and trick the reader so the detective would get there first. Since the author was in control, his efforts to win had to be restricted to make sure that the reader had an equal chance.
The first and most obvious rule of fair play was the requirement that every clue discovered by the detective had to be made available to the reader.
The author could try to discount it as a clue, misconstrue its meaning, or hide it amid a lot of inconsequential garbage — but he had to show it. It had to be there so that at the end of the book, when the detective revealed its true nature, the reader would be able to say, “You beat me that time”, but he could not say, “You left out a piece of the puzzle”.
Rule two was: Early introduction of the murderer.
Obviously it would be unfair for the author to introduce a totally new character on page 214 and name him as the murderer on page 215. All suspects must be prominent throughout — known if not shown.
Rule three: The crime must be significant.
To elicit reader involvement, the problem in question had to be of sufficient seriousness for the reader to want to see it solved — to want to solve it himself. Since murder is the most serious crime of all, most mystery stories are murder my
Rule four: There must be detection.
The crime in a detective story doesn’t solve itself, nor does it go away. An effort must be made to solve the crime. In fact, the raison d’etre
of these early detective stories is
the solving of the crime.
Rule five: The number of suspects must be known and the murderer must be among them.
This is the fair-play element again and the method generally adopted in obeying this injunction was the construction of an enclosed universe inhabited solely by victims, suspects, murderer, and detective. One of the commonest such universes was the mansion full of guests, cut off from the outside world by a storm or other expedient, thus insuring that when the murder occurs, the killer must be among those present.
So far these requirements, while restrictive, do not seem onerous. But lastly there comes the one that does draw the binding tight. Since the story is a puzzle and a contest of wits between author and reader, the reader, as part of the game of fair play, has the right to expect that nothing will be included in the book that does not relate to or in some way bear upon the puzzle.
This is, incontrovertibly, a logical request and one that cannot be denied. It is, however, a crushing liability to the author. It is demanded of him that there be nothing extraneous in his story. All scenes, all events, all effects (and this includes red herrings) are to relate to and bear upon the puzzle — the creation and solution of which is the story.
The author is not allowed to rhapsodize over Renaissance art or the poetry of Keats — if that be his fancy. He is not to go into irrelevant detail on the workings of the Palomar telescope or the Gatun locks. Relevant details, yes, but not irrelevant.
It is a brutal blow. The author of the highly disciplined detective story is tightly fenced, his limitations severe. Admittedly, to the writer who has the wit and the relish, the strictures offer challenge. First, he must learn how to work within these disciplines and, thereafter, when he has mastered that art, how to maximize whatever opportunities he is afforded. Finally, he must learn to make the disciplines work for him.
Nevertheless, the boundaries are narrow. The mystery writer does not have the freedom to digress into his philosophy of life while the action stands still. This does not mean philosophy is not permitted, nor does it mean that Renaissance art or Keats cannot be evaluated, nor that background cannot be given on 200-inch telescopes or canal locks. It only means that he must create plots and story lines of such nature that they will be furthered and developed through such discussion.
It is a harsh stricture. But all of the requirements of the detective story are harsh strictures. Certainly, the writer of a mystery novel is working under a much tighter rein than the straight novelist who can roam pretty much at will — or at least he thinks he can — over the whole landscape of his intellect.
These, then, are the emblems which identify the mystery novel and set it apart from the rest of fiction. Times have changed, of course, and the mystery has changed with them. No longer is it deemed sufficient to present the puzzle in a vacuum. No longer are characters made of cardboard, distinguishable from each other only by name and by sex. No longer do they serve merely as tokens to be moved on the puzzle board. Background can, without betraying the nature of the genre, add spice and purpose to the tale. The stories can come out of their closed universe and take place in the real world. Schools of the mystery can develop: the hard-boiled school, the private-eye school, the cute young couple, the blood and sex, and the police procedural. These things can happen. All kinds of flesh can be laid upon the bones.
Many variations of the theme can also be played: Whodunit? Howdunit? Howcatchem? Stories can be told backwards and sideways. Yet, through it all, the same distinguishing bones lie underneath, only slightly modified over the years — and then only in response to the changing view of the readership. If the disciplines are not as rigidly restrictive as they used to be, it’s because the reader is no longer being approached as nothing more than a puzzle-solver. Today’s aficionado is more interested in being entertained than puzzled — perhaps he always was — and a little relaxation of the codes is permitted to serve the aim of entertainment. But the codes are all still in force and a mystery novelist who sits down to plot a book today automatically obeys the rules.
One might now ask, since it is time to direct our attention to the straight novel, is there any advantage to the above? Let the mystery writer learn his craft; let him become facile in plot manipulation, clue planting, and the rest. Does this serve him any useful purpose above and beyond his own specific subgenre in the field of fiction? If one aims to write novels, is the mystery in any way a training ground?
An obvious advantage in writing mysteries lies in the disciplining of a talent. The greatest genius in any field, from athlete to concert pianist, will, to the degree that he develops and trains his talent, be greater than before. The demands that are made upon a mystery writer, if he is to flex his muscles within that framework, will hone his talent.
A counterreply can also arise. If the field of the mystery is so firmly structured, does one need talent to become competent? Is there not a difference between craftsmanship and talent? And would not craftsmanship be a sufficient commodity with which to work successfully in this medium? On the other hand, does not talent rise above rules? Would not a great talent be thwarted and stifled trying to cope with such narrow limits?
Let us return to and amplify the earlier statement that the mystery is to the novel what the sonnet is to poetry. The sonnet is a stylized form of poem which makes rigid meter, length, and rhyme scheme demands upon its practitioners. In like manner, the mystery is a stylized form of fiction which makes rigid storytelling demands upon its
practitioners. To this extent they share the same bed. Does the relationship go further?
The sonnet is a discipline. Those who would meet its demands must shape, manipulate, and refine their message so that it fits into fourteen iambic pentameter lines totaling exactly 140 syllables, no more, no less. That is no mean task. Add to these limitations the further requirements of rhyme scheme, and the sonnet becomes a honing strop of awesome proportions. Any poet who masters the sonnet form takes with him into the broader field of poetry sharp skills indeed.
What of the mystery story? Does it, in like manner, refine an author’s skills for other forms of fiction?
It does, indeed! For, it turns out, the disciplines that govern the mystery are actually the rules — masquerading incognito — which structure the whole art of fiction! Truly revealed, they form the complete training ground in the art of communication through storytelling. Let us view them with their masks off:
Rule one: All clues discovered by the detective must be made available to the reader.
In its broader sense, this rule is saying that all stories should be tied together, and the tying requires that coming events cast their shadows before. The clues to the future are planted in the present. The reader is not to be cheated, surprised; or upset by the story’s taking a sudden, irrelevant course. In no way can Hamlet and Ophelia walk off, hand in hand, into the sunset. Nor may Petruchio not tame Katharina. The omens promise a different future.
The course of clue-planting is broader and deeper than just mood. The lottery ticket must be bought before the prize can be won, the ice must be known to be thin before the child falls through. The way must be paved. The reader may be caught unawares — and indeed, it is a part of storytelling to catch the reader unawares — but he should never be caught in ignorance.
All surprises must stem from within the universe of the story; they may not be introduced from outside. There should be that totality in a tale which pulls it together as a whole so that the reader is always comfortable. His credulity is never strained because whatever happens can be related to what has gone before. The clues haw been fairly planted.
Rule two: Early introduction of the murderer.
This is only another way of saying that the sooner the cast is assembled, the better. It is not required, of course, that all hands be on deck at the launching, but it is required that the way is paved for the arrival of those who aren’t. This again relates to the enclosed universe of the story and proper concern that the reader is not unfairly and uncomfortably surprised.
Rule three: Tlie crime mast be significant.
This is the warning any novelist must heed — that the events and concerns of his tale must be sufficient to grasp the interest of the reader. For all that an author should write to please himself, it must never be forgotten that he is writing to be read. If, in arrogance, a writer takes a “public be damned” attitude, and writes for himself alone, he reveals himself as failing to understand nature of his craft. Writing is communication. The purpose of words and of language is to transmit as accurately as possible what is in the mind of one person into the mind of another. An author must always write with his reader as well as himself in mind. The more successfully he involves his reader, the more successfully he is communicating. He must create interest in his purposes. Therefore his purposes, like the mystery writer’s crime, must be significant.
Rule four: There must be detection.
In its broader application, this rule means that something must happen. An author, whatever kind of story he may seek to tell, whatever message he may want to deliver, or whatever emotion he may want to share, should couch it in a developing tale. There should be form to the novel, there should be shape and direction. Characters should act and react. They must not drift at the mercy of the fates.
Rule five: The number of suspects must be known and the murderer must be among them.
This is the matter of the enclosed universe which we have mentioned before. Every story must operate in such a system. It is necessary, for purposes of orientation, to help the reader feel comfortable and aware of his parameters. To put it another way: Only the characters in a story can have impact upon other characters in the same story. Consequently they’ve all got to be there.
Rule six: Nothing extraneous may be introduced.
This is the final fence that pens the mystery writer so tightly. This is the discipline that makes the highest demand upon such a writer in terms of skill, economy, and artistry.
What it is saying with regard to fiction as a whole is that an author should not wander or meander. He should have purpose and he should stick to his purpose; everything he puts into his stories should relate to that purpose. Quite obviously, the purposes in a straight novel can be quite different from those of the mystery and they will generally embrace far vaster areas. The lesson, however, is the same. Do not be sloppy, do not be verbose, do not be irrelevant. Writing is communication, and it’s not enough merely to use the right words to transmit the message; one should also take pains to see that the form of the message is not garbled.
What we have been talking about until now has been, actually, the areas of similarity between the mystery and the novel, and what we have been saying, in effect, is that the mystery makes a good training ground for the novel. The claim has been made, and I would give it much truth, that a good mystery writer can write a better novel than a good novelist can write a mystery, This is because the mystery writer has had to develop the disciplines of the novel form to a far higher degree than is required of the straight novelist. The mystery is a craft within a craft and all that pertains to the art of the mystery pertains to the art of the novel.
There is, however, a whole universe beyond the tightly fenced realm of the mystery, a universe wherein only the straight novelist roams. In this vast otherworld lie challenges not available to the mystery author, and demands of craft that are not imposed upon him. Herein resides the fact that the great names in literature belong to the novel, not to the mystery!
But why? What is this forbidden land wherein the mystery writer may not tread? What is it that makes these straight-fiction books, even if they deal with crime and punishment, more than mysteries? What can a novelist do that a mystery writer cannot? What is the difference
between the mystery and the novel?
One distinction is pure and simple. The mystery novel does not contain the equipment to carry messages. It is too frail a box to hold the human spirit. It allows an author to speak, but not to explore and instruct. The credo can be expressed as follows: “If you want to write and have nothing to say, write a mystery.” If you have other ambitions, the mystery form had best be eschewed.
Why do we say this? Why is the mystery form inadequate?
The first and most obvious reason is that the mystery is, in actuality, a morality play. Though evil threatens, justice emerges triumphant. Goodness is honored, sin is vanquished. Portia wins and Shylock loses. (But, mark you, The Merchant of Venice
is a vehicle that would burst into a thousand fragments if it tried to encompass a Lady Macbeth!)
The real world does not behave as tidily as the make-believe world of mystery. Justice, all too often, suffers defeat. Right does not always make might, and one who would deal with the ills of the world and the lessons to be learned therefrom, cannot use the mystery as a soapbox.
There is a deeper reason too. Its inadequacy is not merely because it holds up a slanted mirror to nature — for sometimes nature does conform to the image. The roots of the problem arc more sinuous and penetrating than that, for the inability of the mystery to deal with matters of serious concern lies in the nature of the animal itself.
In the mystery novel, the story is the core, the be-all, the end-all, the Heart of the Matter. This is its glory, and its liability. This is what sets it apart from the straight novel. This is why it doesn’t serve the purposes of the straight novelist.
The author of a straight novel has other fish to fry. His aim is not to puzzle the reader or tell him stories. His basic aim isn’t even to entertain. He writes for all the other reasons: to save himself, to objectify his life, to express his preoccupations and concerns with the human condition. He writes, more often than not, because he has
to write, to get the monkey off his back. Sometimes he is consciously trying to send messages, to argue a cause, put forth a concept, or present a viewpoint, but for the most part his statements are not consciously expressed. The insights he puts forth, for however much or little they are worth, lie hidden in the depths of his prose. They are sought for and argued over by critics, if the ore that is found is deemed worth the mining.
Story is not this author’s goal. It serves instead as the vehicle through which he expresses himself. If he is wise, disciplined, and makes his talent work for him, he will pay attention to his story and obey the injunctions we have been talking about. If not, he will suffer a corresponding loss of effectiveness. In either case, however, story is a sideline; expressing whatever it is inside of him that must come out is the guiding fire of his book.
How does he present his case, then, if not by story? He does it through character. It is people working upon people that is the heart of his novel. Characters, or a character, form the core of the work and everything else is structured around them. The story is created to show off the characters rather than, as in the mystery, the characters being created to show off the story.
But, one may ask, does this claim lie above challenge? Is it indeed true that, in the mystery novel, the story is the heart and core? Are not the adventures of Sherlock Holmes mere vehicles devised for the purpose of putting Holmes on stage? Isn’t Holmes, really, the center, the core, the raison d'etre?
Don’t we read Maigret for the sake of Maigret and never mind what he’s up to in this particular case? How can it be said that “the play’s the thing”?
It is true that people, generally, write and read about series detectives for the sake of the detective. I he point is, however, that the detective is not touched by the series. If Philip Marlowe mellows, it is only because Raymond Chandler mellows, not because Marlowe has been tempered by experience. Perry Mason and Delia Street bore the same relationship to each other in 1963 that they did in 1933. They were no more affected by the times and tides of thirty years than Little Orphan Annie.
Admittedly, the Ellery Queen of Double Double
is a different person from the Ellery Queen of The Chinese Orange Mystery,
but this is not due to growth of character, it is due to tailoring and updating him to suit to times.
The mystery writer is a storyteller. He may use the same character over and over, but it doesn’t change the fact that all he is doing is telling stories.
To an author who tries his hand in both fields, that needed shift of cores from story to character hits with the unexpected impact of an express locomotive. It is not a decision the author makes, it is a realization that is thrust upon him.
To the reader, the essence of the difference is still vivid. The characters in a novel are affected.
They think, they feel, they are touched. The working of people upon people produces alteration and what happens to these people — not to their bodies, but to their psyches — is where the author lives. In the novel is people grow, people shrivel, people change. Jeane Valjean is not Raffles.
Can not one, at this point, broach a second challenge? It has been acknowledged that flesh, muscle, blood, and clothing have been added to the bones оf the mystery over the years. Valjean is, admittedly, not Raffles, but do not the characters created by today’s mystery authors more closely approximate Hugo’s creation than Hornung’s? Is not Raffles irrelevant by modern standards?
It is true that the mystery more and more approaches this aspect of the straight novel. It was, in fact, for just this reason that it was deemed necessary to look to the classical age of the mystery form, when it was more appropriately called the detective story, in order to make clear the difference. Over the years the fuzzing of the line of demarcation has increased. More and more, mystery writers are either growing out of that form — like Graham Greene — or being recognized as having overflowed the field even when they were writing within it — like Hammett, Chandler, and James M.Cain.
In fact, there are top practitioners in the field today who will argue that there is no “forbidden land” for the mystery novelist. They claim there is nothing straight fiction can do that the mystery novel cannot also do.
What this is saying, and what it means if it is true, is that there is no longer any difference between the straight novel and the mystery. This is, in effect, suggesting that “Mystery Story” is nothing but a label put on or not put on a book by the publisher according to the public relations department’s assessment of its sales value.
The mystery has grown a lot. It has come a long hay, but in my own opinion it has not — and never can — come quite that far. Let us harken back to the core business again. If it is an author’s aim to write a mystery novel, it must be conceded that his purpose is to confound, puzzle, scare, bewilder, or horrify the reader and, generally speaking, to keep him in a constant state of suspense. This, by definition, has to be what he is up to, otherwise he is not writing a mystery.
If this be his purpose, then, it is up to him to invent a story that will elicit these results. To present this story effectively, he must create characters who will make it happen. Now it is true that he can show these
characters in as much depth as he is capable — which is what most modern mystery writers give attention to and the ancients did not — and he can make them work upon each other, penetrating as many of their seven veils as he can manage. To this extent, the mystery writer can match the straight fiction writer and, if the mystery writer has greater insight, can exceed his counterpart. But the fact remains that his characters were created for the purpose of telling a story. The story is central and upon anyone who would fly from it, it weighs like a lump of lead.
If, on the other hand, an author chooses to write a novel for the purpose of studying the impact of avarice, or jealousy, or love upon the human condition, he does not start with a story. He starts instead with a character, a symbol, a means of conveyance through which his message on these subjects will be made manifest. He will then construct a story created for the purpose of delivering this message.
In short, the one ultimate distinction between the mystery and the novel, and the one which, it seems to me, must always mark the difference, is the question of — appropriately — motive.
If the motive is “mystery”, then the story (suspense, of course) is the core, and a mystery it is. If the motive is otherwise, then story (no matter how gory) is not the core, it is the means, and a mystery it is not.
[1976]
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Текст дается по изданию:
The Mystery Story. Ed. J.Ball. San Diego, California University of California. Publisher’s Inc. 1976