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My first encounter
with mystery fiction came late in life. Like about a couple of months
ago. A friend of mine recommended Paul
Auster on the basis that I liked some author whom he presumed to be
similar. He could not have been more wrong, in my estimation, and in fact,
once beginning The New York Trilogy, I wondered what he was thinking
at all. Was this person really my friend? I had to have a fifth of gin
to fall asleep after a mere 50 pages.
Of course, I picked up Paul
Auster not knowing he was a mystery author, because his books are
kept among the finer literature portion of the bookstore. (And so, Fictionarium:
Were I looking for a good mystery, I never would have found Auster in
the mystery section of the bookstore; but neither would I have picked
him up in literature without recommendation. Just because I freaked out
when I read him, well, don't let that scare you.)
The mystery itself follows this
path: Something weird happens, its origins unknown, and then someone figures
out what the hell happened. This could be a murder. It could be a disappearance
of a highly coveted thing. It could be the appearance of a lovely delicious
cake on your desk. One way or another, we need to know what happened: Just
where did this cake come from? The protagonist - maybe a detective, maybe
an average guy - is here to help.
Mystery authors throw out
clues subtly, so you can be part of the fun, too. The best ones, I think
though, are the ones who throw out clues that lead you nowhere. Or better
yet, leave barely any clues at all so you can't stop thinking about it.
Hence, my fifth of gin. Paul Auster is a damn good mystery writer. I'm
just a wimp. Mystery's history? Wikipedia
credits ancient Greek and Roman riddles to start. I don't know if I'd
go that far back. We have the 19th detective pieces of Edgar Allan Poe,
but he had his hand in so many literary cookie jars it's hard to know
precisely with what genre we can credit him first. The first true mystery
novel, then, is considered the be The Woman in White, by Wilkie
Collins (1860). The year doesn't surprise me a bit. Though I've expressed
a certain exasperation with the writing of this period, the people living
in it were so outwardly repressed it's no wonder that the overwhelmingly
emotional genres of horror, romance and suspense really began to flourish
then.
Collins went on to write the highly
successful mystery The Moonstone (1868), a book which even I own though
have not read. There are certain things we literary types like to have in
the library, and if you ask us we'll say oh yeah, we've read it, when in truth
it was pride, yes, but also my employee discount at Barnes & Noble that brought
it home with me.
Like its genre neighbors horror,
romance and suspense, the dime novel and pulp mags helped popularize this
genre, perhaps the most fun genre of them all if you can stand to be scared,
which I can't. With this it is most important to note the contribution of
one Edward Stratemeyer, the father of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew
mysteries, as well as the patron saint of ghostwriters everywhere. Even though
those are youth books, not enough can be said for Stratemeyer's devotion to
the form. Whether or not that devotion came from the phenomenal fortune he
made from it or a real love of the story, I don't know; but I mean, whatever
works, man. If it weren't for him, I don't know if that lady who writes the
cat mysteries would have a job.
If you're looking to get started
with a mystery, I might suggest the woman who is still the exemplar of the
form, and that's Agatha Christie. Her literary reputation has suffered for
some reason, but the little bits I've read seem fine to me and I am fussy,
so that's saying a lot. Dashiell Hammett, though a bit pulpy, would also be
a great start, because how could you read The Maltese Falcon without
being happy? Humphrey Bogart. What a great smile.
I would leave Paul
Auster for when you're good and ready, though. Unless you have sedatives
handy. Or a cheap bottle of scotch, whichever works best. -ed. |
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