/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22770780]

is there anything of merit to the detective novel genre or is it all just pulp?

[Anonymous No.22770813]

There's value to certain writers like Hammett, Chandler, and Cain, but it was just a sea of easy entertainment for the most part.

[Anonymous No.22771013]

>>22770813
fpbp. Nothing wrong with easy entertainment in and of itself but you're not gonna find much of anything deeper in the genre outside of those few, generally speaking.

[Anonymous No.22771034]

>>22771013
Actually, I might lump Faulkner's early stuff like Sanctuary in there too, but he seemed to think there was no value to it. Maybe Cornell Woolrich if I'm being charitable. His work is worth the time just for the style alone. He probably has some of the darkest stuff of all of them and is my favorite even if he is a lesser writer.

[Anonymous No.22771587]

>>22770780
You mean as a whole or just noir/hardboiled? Conan Doyle, Christie and Poe all wrote detective fiction and are regarded (generally) on high esteem altough they are more or less straight murder mystery, not so much "pulp" as Chandler or Hammett.

[Anonymous No.22772894]

Not sure why you think pulp cant have merit.

[Anonymous No.22773014]

>>22770780
Ross Macdonald is phenomenal. His books are entertaining, but there's definitely more to them than just that. A lot of psychological depth and social commentary that isn't too heavy handed or pozzed. Especially from pic related on. Some of his short stories are really good too.

Other great ones are James Crumley, Robert Edmond Alter, and Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze.

[Anonymous No.22773019]

>>22773014
Sorry, that last one isn't a detective story, but it is noir, so maybe you'd be interested in it.

[Anonymous No.22773096]

>>22770780
"I never knew her in life."

I just finished reading The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. I struggled in the middle because it seemed to meander with things that had nothing to do with the Black Dahlia herself, but it all builds to a devastating climax that ties EVERYTHING together. It's brilliant and would richly reward a reread. Definitely one to seek out. I own the Everyman's Library edition of the LA Quartet so I'm going to read the other three as well.

>TL;DR: Read James Ellroy

[Anonymous No.22773105]

>>22773014
Black Wings was gonna be a movie, but it was in pre-pro hell for a while.

[Anonymous No.22773124]

I'd post a link to a curated archive of the entire genre but I can't find it right now. It's great because it can be familiar garbage whodunits or something done with mastery the the whole way through. It's inexhaustible as a genre and yields great results from time to time. I'm half shitfaced and can't remember anything that makes it good but I've seldom regretted reading a good mystery novel, detective fiction is a higher order of that and has more shitters but higher quality overall.

[Anonymous No.22773128]

>>22773096
>James Ellroy
that old demon dog is unfathomably based

[Anonymous No.22773130]

>>22773124
I like the genre best when the story is used as window dressing to discuss complex ideas about life and existence. The Borges story where the men are all find murdered along a line (Pythagorean?) and the detective realizes he is standing at the scene of the next murder is probably my favorite of the genre.

[Anonymous No.22773149]

>>22773130
You would really like the web 1.0 site I'm thinking of, I'm going to do some black magic and see if I can dig it up.

[Anonymous No.22774097]

The best works of the genre demonstrate the ways that plot can in fact be a skillful and innovative part of a writer's toolkit. I think Christie's most famous books are all worth reading, she did an incredible job of pushing the limits of means, motive, and opportunity. Japan has also turned out a decent number of really creative novels. Decagon House Murders, Tokyo Zodiac Murders, and The Perfect Insider stand out to me. I think Decagon might even be taught in school there, if I understand it right, for creating a plot structure that can literally only work in a text based medium

[Anonymous No.22774099]

Rex Stout will probably raise your iq score

[Anonymous No.22774129]

>>22770780
I present to you the first detective/ unsolved murder mystery. It’s from the Arabian Nights.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Apples

It’s like nights 30 or 40 something in the Malcolm Lyons translation.

[Anonymous No.22774132]

>>22770780
The main difference between Ja'far and later fictional detectives, such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, is that Ja'far has no actual desire to solve the case. The whodunit mystery is not solved via detective work; rather via the murderer himself confessing his crime.[6] This in turn leads to another assignment in which Ja'far has to find the culprit who instigated the murder within three days or else be executed. He fails again, but owing to chance, he discovers a key item. In the end, he manages to solve the case through reasoning in order to prevent his own execution.[7]

According to Marzolph, the tale is present in "the oldest surviving manuscript" of the Arabian Nights compilation, and is considered to be part of "the core corpus" of the book.[8]

[Anonymous No.22774133]

>>22771587
Doyle and Poe wrote absolutely ass mysteries, though. They deserve credit for founding the genre, but you have to be reading them for the style

[Anonymous No.22775520]

I am exploring the genre,leaning more towards noir.They are sometimes sociologically,psychologically insightful , socially or morally instructional and as an engineering tool to learn about how plot, intrigue and suspense work quite useful for writers.
Patricia Highsmith wrote about the nuts and bolts of suspense writing as well for those interested.
Some authors I have added to my to be read pile.
Cornell Woolrich - Rear Window
I have other novellas as well.
It inspired Hitchcock's movie.
I married a dead man
Jean Patrick Manchette- Fatale; Nada
He is a frog writer for a change of pace.
Oakley Hall - So many doors
He is probably more known for his western novel Warlock
They shoot horses, don't they - Horace McCoy
Vera Caspary- Laura
I liked the 1944 movie with the lovely Gene Tierney
Chester Himes
A black author, he wrote stuff situated in Harlem.
Hubert Selby Jr - Last Exit to Brooklyn A modern classic I had heard about.
Daniel Woodrell - Winters Bone
A contemporary one.
The movie had excellent world and building, exploration of a social mileau.Excited for this one.
Charles Willeford Pick Up; Cock Fighter
Dorothy B Hughes - In a Lonely Place
Stella Dallas - Olive Higgins Prouty
It was part of a Femme Fatale series

[Anonymous No.22775538]

>>22773096
This year, I've read Black Dahlia, LA Confidential, American Tabloid and Cold Six Thousand. I hadn't read him before. I love him now

[Anonymous No.22775652]

>>22774133
They created the tropes we now associate with the genre but neither “founded” it. See above. The three apples story is from 800 - 1000 AD.

[Anonymous No.22776168]

>>22775520
>Hubert Selby Jr - Last Exit to Brooklyn A modern classic I had heard about.
The only thing I remember about that book is the part where the tranny sucks the dude off and can taste shit on his dick from the other tranny he fucked in the ass earlier.

[Anonymous No.22776174]

>>22774133
True

[Anonymous No.22776648]

>>22775652
There's a direct line of influence from Poe to Doyle to the rest of the genre as we know it. People have been telling stories about solving crimes for as long as there have been crimes, but as a known category of literature, I don't think the existence of older stories which might retroactively be included diminishes their status as founders

[Anonymous No.22776700]

>>22774099
The Nero Wolfe books are really comfy. They're like a really nice cross between the European sleuth stories and the American hardboiled PI
stories.