GREAT CRITICS HAVE THEIR ALLERGIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 330, 19 October 1945, Page 12

GREAT CRITICS HAVE THEIR ALLERGIES

A Defence of the Detective Story

ROVOKED by John Stuart Miil’s opposition to the secret ballot, John Bright said the worst of great thinkers was that they so often thought wrong. It is a saying to be rémembered for one’s aesthetic and intellectual protection. The Listener published the other day a very lively attack on the vogye of detective stories by Edmund Wilson, an American. Mr, Wilson is a distinguished critic, perhaps a great one. But even the greatest critics have’their weak spots; their allergies, as the doctors now have it. Dr, Johnson was heavy on Lycidas. Matthew Arnold didn’t think much of Tennyson, and considered that Abraham Lincoln lacked distinction. Mr. Wilson is allergic to detective stories. He says he hadn’t read any since Sherlock Holmes, and only did so under pressure. This, I venture to say, was his loss. He missed, for example, Trent’s Last Case, the best detective story since Conan Doyle. In any case it is dangerous to break new literary ground under pressure. We all knéw the grudging mood in which we approach a book that somebody nags us into reading. Besides, to judge fairly the output of to-day, one should, I suggest, have served. an apprenticeship. Not that Mr. Wilson doesn’t make good points. A gifted critic could hardly fail to do this. The detective story addict is an easy mark; a "sitter" indeed. I am one myself, and in my indulgence of one or two every week I can stand aside and watch myself behaving like a blooming fool. I know it is a form of escape like tea and tobacco, but I don’t mean to give up any of these things. The tricks of the trade-the amazing elaboration of murder, the careful throwing of ‘guspicion on innocent people, the imbecility of characters in concealing evidence, the mannerism of detectives, official and amateur-these and other things make many an addict laugh who has a capacity for critical detachment. * * BS OWEVER, we go on reading detective stories-why? Because we like the fun, the excitement, the human interest in them. Is it "escape"? Well, suppose it is, where is the line to be drawn between "escape" and its opposite? -Isn’t a vast amount of literature escapist? Are we to be bound to realism all our days? Mr. Wilson might consider the possibility that one reason for the vast vogue of detective stories is the drab and often disgusting nature of the realistic novel. People prefer clean murders to dirty triangles. To adopt George Moore’s remark, they don’t like watching the process of ploughing the fields of sex and suffering with knitting needles. They prefer a robust and matching tale, and if it turns on @ murder, perhaps so much the better. There are grades of detective stories. and grades of "fans." There is a type of reader corresponding to the drunkard who will drink methylated spirits if he

can’t get anything better, but there is a considerable class of | well-educated men and women who look for exceptional and even rare qualities in their stories. Some readers prefer the pedestrian competence of Freeman Wills Crofts and his Inspector French; others encourage the creation of a highly intellectual set-up like Michael Innes’s. To follow Mr. Innes you have to reach almost: the standard of Oxford Greats. There is plenty of instruction as well as entertainment to be got out of (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) detective stories. Trent’s Last Case is one of my favourite books of the last 40 years. I have read it many times, and can always pick it up with pleasure. I read it not only for its plot, but for its wisdom. Mr. Wilson mentions, with contumely, one of Miss Ngaio Marsh’s stories-not one of the best. If he wants to know something about New Zealand, which perhaps is doubtful, he could do worse than read three others-Vintage Murder (the ‘Main Trunk Country), Colour Scheme (North Auckland), and Died in the Wool (sheep-farming in the higher country of the South Island). The local colour in these books is excellent. I am much less interested in the mystery of Died in the Wool than in the character-drawing and the fine pictures of McKenzie Country landscape. * *- * ; HE comments on Dorothy Sayers’s novel The Nine Tailors are unfortunate. Admirers of Dorothy Sayers would agree, I think, that among her books this is in a class by itself, in that it is a good general novel as well as a sound story of detection. At any rate I know quite a number of people

of this opinion whose taste in books is not to be despised. I re-read The Nine Tailors the other day with much enjoyment, and it wasn’t the crime detection that took me to it so much as its picture of life in the Fen Country. Mr. Wilson apparently sees nothing to admire in this. He says the bell-ringing descriptions could be written from encyclopaedias and treatises, Let him try. I take leave to doubt if any mug-ging-up could produce the atmosphere that Dorothy Sayers conveys. The bells give the chief tone to the whole book. They are the cause of one man’s death, but they contribute to the spiritual life of the whole’ community. My main memories of the story are not of death and detection, but of the vicar and his wife and their little flock, of the great mediaeval building dominating the landscape, of the bells ringing out over the fens, and of that scene at the end where everyone takes refuge in the church from the floods. Yes, a book that enlarges one’s experience and makes one think more kindly of men, * * * OWEVER we must be fair to Mr. Wilson, The article quoted in ‘The Listener is not the only one he has

written on the subject. There appear to have been three. I have seen a second article, an appreciation of Sherlock Holmes. It is a subtle study, which collectors of Holmes literature will be glad to possess. For, strange as it may seem, there is a literature about Holmes. I have two such ‘books, and I -vould like to own Monsignor Ronald Knox’s incomparable study of the Holmes corpus, written in the style of the Higher Criticism. It is a joy.. I mentioned these two books recently to a young woman with an Oxford degree, and her eyes glistened. She borrowed them with delight, and, what was equally important, returned them promptly. All this gives additional point to Chesterton’s statement that Sherlock Holmes is the one character in fiction since Dickens who has become a household word. Millions of people abroad, and no doubt some in England, think of Holmes as a real person, Arrivals in London make for Baker Street to see his famous rooms. There is still no place like Holmes, but lesser habitations have their attractions. Having admitted that he takes pleasure in the highes., Mr. Wilson may ultimately find himself at ease in the lower.

A.

M.