J.A. Cuddon, in his "Dictionary of Literary Terms and
Literary Theory" (great bathroom reading!), makes a good
point about this. Brit & Euro critics are generally more
welcoming of genre fiction than their American counterparts,
but it only goes so far. "In Britain, P.D. James is thought
fit to chair the judges' committee for the Booker Prize, yet
it remains inconceivable that one of her own superb crime
novels could win it." (quoted from memory, so it might not be
100% accurate, but close enough)
Incidentally, I've always thought that Chandler (no offense
to your doctoral thesis--I'm sure it's stellar) was always
kind of a poor example of the potential literariness of the
genre. I used to adore Chandler myself, until I made the
mistake of taking a graduate seminar exclusively about him.
When I really looked at him that closely, I discovered, much
to my teacher's dismay, how much I truly loathed him, how
tedious he now seemed to me (it'd been almost a decade since
I'd read anything of his).
"The Lady in the Lake" is indeed my favorite Chandler,
though. I think that one still holds up quite well. Rotten
movie, though. A nice experiment, but a rotten movie.
David Moran
Marc Seals wrote:
> > Marc, interesting comments on Brit professors
on Chandler.
> > Were they equally inclusive of British crime
writers?
>
> No, they were not.... Hmm. I had not thought of
that. Perhaps they partially
> (or secretly) agreed with playwright and critic W.
H. Auden, a self-admitted
> addict of detective stories, who wrote in his essay
on detective fiction,
> "The Guilty Vicarage," that detective stories "have
nothing to do with works
> of art." Auden excused Chandler from this
condemnation by asserting that
> Chandler does not write detective stories at all,
but rather "serious
> stories of a criminal milieu" that should be read
and judged, not as escape
> literature, but as works of art." It seems a bit too
convenient to reject
> detective literature as art, as Auden does, while at
the same time removing
> the most respected mystery writers from the genre
entirely.
>
> ~Marc
>
> -
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