Professor Ostrom Spring 2007
English 342—Genre: Fiction (Detective Fiction)
The Adventure Begins. . . . Welcome to English 342. Here is some basic information:
My Office: Wyatt Hall, 336. Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:00-3:15 p.m., and by appointment. Phone: x3434 (office & voice mail); x3235 (main English office).
Electronic Mail: ostrom@ups.edu Web-page: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/
An electronic copy of the syllabus will be posted on the Web-page.
The University’s Equal Opportunity Statement
The University of Puget Sound does not discriminate in education or employment on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, Vietnam-era veteran status, gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by local, state, or federal laws. This policy complies with the spirit and the letter of applicable federal, state and local laws, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Questions about the policy may be referred to the University's Director of Human Resources and Affirmative Action (253-879-3116) or the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.
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By reading the rest of the syllabus, you will get a clear sense of the course’s objectives, the kind of professor I am, what’s expected of you, and the sort of classroom-atmosphere the course establishes. If, as you read the syllabus, you get the sense that the course or its professor may not be to your liking, drop the course and add another one. I won’t take it personally, and you’ll be happier.
The Game is Afoot: Aims of the Course
English 342 explores not just a genre, fiction, but a sub-genre, detective fiction. This sub-genre may seem at first to be easily defined because it is so familiar even to those who don’t read it. It seems to be focused on stories about serious crimes, such as murder, the victims and perpetrators of these crimes, and the people responsible for discovering who did what to whom and why. However, the sub-genre becomes more mercurial the more it is examined. Among its names, in addition to detective fiction, are crime fiction and mystery fiction; notice how each of these names seems to shift emphasis. Then there are such terms as thriller and spy fiction, which describe close cousins of detective fiction and create an even more complicated picture.
For the moment, we’ll let “detective fiction” stand in for all these other terms. Later we’ll sort out the categories within categories.
Customarily, we peg the origin of detective fiction in the United States to when Edgar Allan Poe published “Murders of the Rue Morgue” (1841). Customarily, we also quibble with such an origin and point, for instance, at narratives from mythological and sacred texts that feature crime, detection, and punishment. Or we might mention in passing that a play like Hamlet is, on its way to becoming a tragedy, an engaging detective story. Fairly soon we will consider Dorothy Sayers’ essay, “Aristotle on Detective Fiction,” which obviously links the subgenre to classical times.
Disagreements about origins pale in comparison to those concerning the essential value of detective fiction and how to interpret such fiction. Many people attach the descriptors “pulp,” “popular,” “category,” and “whodunnit” to the noun “fiction” intending to derogate. They contend that such fiction is “formulaic,” but we might note that much of even the most esteemed literature involves formulae, including the sonnet and Shakespearian comedy. They contend that such fiction is meant to be read only once, and yet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes, for example, are arguably among the most re-read literature on the planet. Other readers praise the remarkable resilience of detective fiction over the last 160 years; they highlight the artfulness and style to be found in works by Conan Doyle, Hammett, Chandler, and others; they suggest that such fiction constitutes an unusual if not unique lens through which to look at contemporary society; and they question the premise that “popular” necessarily means “inferior” or “non-literary.” Indeed, still others regard detective fiction to be as complex as “literary fiction,” and they apply a range of theoretical and critical approaches to it.
In this course, we will join the fray, discussing origins and development, probing boundaries between “popular” and “literary”: Does popular mean unliterary? Does literary mean unpopular? We will read detective novels and short stories as complex, pleasurable narratives that have occupied intriguing niches in different societies for some time now. We will read some secondary material and explore issues of culture, publishing-history, gender, class, technology, psychology, and ethnicity that dovetail with this sub-genre, and we will study the sub-genre to learn more about the overarching genre of “the novel.” We will critically examine a type of writing that clearly appeals to “the connoisseur” and consider the implications of that circumstance. That is to say, we will become textual detectives. We will also become detective novelists, studying the form from the creative writer’s point of view; with another student, each of you will outline your own original work of detective fiction.
As we do the work of textual detection, we’ll ask why this kind of fiction has become so appealing to such a wide variety of readers, young and old, academic and general, across the generations since the mid-1800s. We will also chart its evolution, its variations and permutations. We will begin with Poe’s story from 1841 and conclude with novels published in 2002 and 2004.
In addition to exploring detective fiction in the Anglo-American tradition, we will read a Swedish novel in translation to get a sense of the genre’s international flavor.
So caveat emptor: We will not be reading detective fiction merely “for plot” and “for fun,” even as questions concerning plot and pleasure are richly intriguing in the study of detective fiction.
Briefly, About The Professor
I’ve been a professor at the university since 1983, and I’ve also taught at the University of California, Davis; Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany; and, as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer, at Uppsala University in Sweden. If you want to know more about other courses I teach or what I’ve published in the way of scholarship and creative writing, please visit my Web-page: www.ups.edu/faculty/ostrom/. I’ve published one detective novel: Three To Get Ready (1991). Technically, it belongs to the category, “police procedural,” because its protagonist is a county sheriff.
Under “Links to Useful Resources” on the Web-page appears a link to an interesting site concerning detective fiction:
http://www.mysterylist.com/newindex.htm
The Web-page also includes links to a Sherlock Holmes site; a site about the detective novelist Rex Stout and his protagonists, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin; and a site devoted to the great French detective writer, Georges Simenon, and his protagonist, Jules Maigret. Unfortunately, the course features only one Simenon story and no fiction by Stout; a course of 15 weeks makes for difficult decisions. If you are or aspire to be a connoisseur of detective fiction, however, please do read many novels by Stout and Simenon. Reading about Nero Wolfe and Julies Maigret, you will learn about a wide variety of foods, beverages, orchids, Manhattan sites, and Parisian venues, among other things.
Research-librarian Peggy Burge is also creating a course-resource page (online) for English 342.
Suspects, Usual and Otherwise: The Books for the Course
The required books, which will be supplemented with some photocopied stories, are listed below. “Required” means, of course, that you need to buy them, read them on schedule, and bring them to class on the appropriate days.
Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library. First published 1942. Signet edition, 2000. Although this was published in the middle of Christie’s career, it exhibits the main characteristics of “Golden Age” detective fiction of the 1920s and 1930s; it is a classic in the “village-cozy” tradition; it includes one of the most important amateur sleuths in detective fiction, Miss Marple; and it reflects the importance of class-status in detective fiction.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. First published 1892. Penguin Edition. Conan Doyle officially introduced Holmes in 1887 with a novella, but the Adventures, published in book-form five years later, comprise some of Conan Doyle’s best Holmes tales, and they round out the characters of Holmes and Watson.
Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem. First published 1932. University of Michigan edition. This is thought to be the first detective-novel published by an African American. It is an important literary work from the Harlem Renaissance, and it occupies a place in the tradition of “the private eye.” It may be one of the most under-rated detective novels in American literature.
Sue Grafton. Q Is for Quarry. First published 2002. Grafton is an important, enormously popular figure in contemporary crime fiction and in the creation of the contemporary female detective. This particular novel also includes elements of the “true crime” category most famously represented by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear. First published 1943. Penguin edition. Greene is a major twentieth-century British author. In this book, he improvises upon aspects of the “thriller,” detective fiction, and espionage or “spy” fiction.
Dashiell Hammett. The Maltese Falcon. First published in 1930. It is arguably the most important novel from the “hard-boiled” tradition, but it also heavily influenced the development of cinema when it was adapted to the screen by John Huston. In the history of detective fiction, this novel is arguably as important as A Study in Scarlet, which introduced Sherlock Holmes.
Henning Mankell, Side-Tracked: A Kurt Wallander Mystery. Originally published in Swedish, Stockholm (1995). Translated, Vintage Crime edition. Mankell is an internationally acclaimed contemporary mystery-writer. The book is a fine example of the contemporary police-procedural novel.
Mansfield-Kelley and Marchino, editors, The Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction. Longman, 2004. An anthology of stories, with some critical essays. It includes work from classic (Hammett, Chandler, Sayers, Queen, et al.) and contemporary (Grafton, Haywood, Hillerman, et al.) writers.
Optional Book and Optional Reading-Group
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. First published 1866. A classic of Russian—and of world—literature. You do not have to buy or read this book, but if you decide you want to take part in an optional reading-group affiliated with the class, let me know—perhaps as soon as the first day of class. If you join the group, please use the Vintage Classic edition, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. It is available in the bookstore.
Modus Operandi: Expectations, Etiquette, and Atmosphere
Here are some guidelines to which all of us should adhere. None of them will be surprising to you or difficult for us to follow. Indeed, I hope they’ll seem familiar, even obvious, but sometimes it’s good to reaffirm the familiar and note the obvious. All are aimed at creating a productive, workable environment.
than plot—as noted above. We shall apply the same rigorous reading
(and writing) methods to the fiction in this course as we would to that in
any other 300-level literature course.
Just the Facts: Tasks and Grading
Two essays: approximately 50 per cent, total.
Two tests: approximately 20 per cent, total. To do well on the tests, you will need to take notes on information presented and discussed in class, including names, dates, definitions, etc. You will also need to read the books carefully.
One detailed outline of your own detective novel,
produced and presented collaboratively: approximately 10 per cent
Prompt, productive attendance, participation, and written
response(s) to films: approximately 20 per cent, total.
Means, Motives, and Opportunities: Schedule of Meetings
This schedule is detailed, but it is subject to change. Bring it to class each time so that you may note any changes.
Unit: The Roots and Branches of Detective Fiction—Poe and Conan Doyle in the 19th century; the Refinements of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (between World War I and the Great Depression); the Detective Short-Story as Its Own Form; the ‘Disappearance of God’ and the Presence of Science
Wednesday, January 17. Overview of the course. Some writing. Distribute copies of the chronology. . Discussing your experience with detective fiction. Distribute photocopy of excerpt from A Study in Scarlet.
Friday, January 19. For today, bring the chronology. Origins of detective fiction. In the anthology, read the essay, “Murder at Large,” by John Ball and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” by Poe. In Conan Doyle, read “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Read excerpt (photocopied) from A Study in Scarlet. . Dupin as precursor to Holmes. Holmes: template of “the private investigator” and/or of “the amateur detective”? The various meanings of “private” and “amateur.” Holmes: artist, addict, scientist? Watson as narrative device. Intellect vs. sensation. Stability vs. chaos.
Monday, January 22. For today, in the anthology, please read the essay by Maida and Spornick on pp. 29-38, as well as “Silver Blaze” by Conan Doyle, “The Witness for the Prosecution,” by Agatha Christie,” and “The House in Goblin Wood,” by John Dickson Carr. Some questions for today’s and Wednesday’s reading: Is death required? Should detective fiction be polite? What satisfies and/or disappoints you about these stories? What additional limitations does the short-story form place on detective fiction?
Wednesday, January 24. The professor briefly summarizes W.H. Auden’s and Dorothy Sayers’ ideas about crime fiction. For today, in the anthology, please read “The Haunted Policeman,” by Dorothy Sayers, “Deborah’s Judgement,” by Margaret Maron, “Nine Lives to Live,” by Sharyn McCrumb,” and “Cold Turkey,” by Diane Mott Davidson. Please note: no office-hours today.
Friday, January 26. Getting serious about Holmes. In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, please read “A Case of Identity,” “The Red-Headed League,” and “The Speckled Band.” Consider themes of identity, “otherness,” gender, and anxiety. If we read the character of Holmes figuratively, as a condensation of things going on in society, what conclusions may we draw? Using Holmes’s technique (concentrating on particular, even ordinary details), analyze Holmes. (Start reading Agatha Christie’s novel, please.)
Monday, January 29. Final Holmesian solutions: In the Adventures, please read “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” “The Engineer’s Thumb,” and “The Copper Beeches.” Narrative point of view. City vs. country. Is Holmes a professional or an amateur or . . . .? How do reason and emotion compete in Holmes? Who is more rational, Holmes or Watson? More reasonable? More passionate? Are Holmes and Watson in love? What is your experience of Holmes and Watson?
Wednesday, January 31. DVD: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.
Unit: Additional Focus on Aspects of “Golden Age” Crime Fiction
Friday, February 2. Aspects of “Golden Age” crime fiction: Christie. Please read The Body in the Library, through page 99. What kind of society does Christie concentrate on? How does she deploy the “amateur detective”? What surprises you about the way she structures the narrative? Contrast narrative point of view in Christie with that in the Holmes stories. One-half page response to DVD due.
Monday, February 5. Please read the rest of The Body in the Library. What do you think of this Golden Age “puzzle”? Contrast Miss Marple with Mr. Holmes. Start reading The Conjure-Man Dies.
Unit: Hard-Boiled Fiction, Social Realism, Ethnicity, and (the Absence of) Privilege
Wednesday, February 7. Private, professional investigations and hard-boiledness. The function of “toughness”—literary, personal, and social. In the anthology, please read the essay, “The Simple Art of Murder,” by Raymond Chandler. Also read the stories, “The Gutting of Couffignal,” by Dashiell Hammett, and “Trouble is My Business,” by Raymond Chandler. The professor summarizes George Grella’s analysis of hard-boiled detective-fiction.
Friday, February 9. For today, please read The Conjure Man Dies, through page 140. Contrast Fisher’s Harlem with Conan Doyle’s London & English countryside and with Christie’s world.
Monday, February 12. For today, in the anthology, please read “The Parker Shotgun,” by Sue Grafton, “Skin Deep,” by Sara Paretsky, and “And Pray Nobody Sees You,” by Gar Anthony Haywood. Gender and hard-boiledness. American violence.
Wednesday, February 14. For today, please finish The Conjure Man Dies.
Friday, February 16. Back to the source of hard-boiled detective fiction: Please read and analyze carefully the first two chapters of The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett.
Monday, February 19. Please read through Chapter 10 of The Maltese Falcon. Select several scenes and passages to discuss and explain why you find these particularly interesting. Repeat this process for Wednesday and Friday, please.
Wednesday, February 21. Please read through Chapter 16 of The Maltese Falcon.
Friday, February 23. Please finish reading The Maltese Falcon. Essay assigned, discussed.
Unit: Variations: Police, Spies, and Psychological Crime
Monday, February 26. Bring in your thoughts about “the police.” The rise of the modern “police force.” The professor summarizes D.A. Williams on “the novel and the police.” Have you watched a “police drama” on television with any regularity? If so, summarize its appeal (Law and Order, NYPD Blue, CSI, etc.). In the anthology, please read the essay by LeRoy Lad Panek on pp. 341-357. Also please read “The Hunt Ball,” by Freeman Wills Crofts,” “Inspector Maigret Deduces,” by Georges Simenon, and “Sadie When She Died,” by Ed McBain.
Wednesday, February 28. . For today, please read, in the anthology, the stories by Hillerman, Rankin, Howard, and Robinson, pp. 411-474.
Monday, March 5. Characteristics of the “thriller” and the “spy novel.” States of mind vs. the state. Detection and espionage. Justice and patriotism. Please read The Ministry of Fear, by Graham Greene, through page 50.
Wednesday, March 7. Please read The Ministry of Fear, through page 108. Review for test.
Friday, March 9. Test.
Monday, March 19. Please finish reading The Ministry of Fear.
Wednesday, March 21. Complete rough draft of essay due in class.
Friday, March 23.. DVD: The Maltese Falcon.
Monday, March 26. DVD: The Maltese Falcon. Essay due.
Unit: The Contemporary Female Private Eye; Detective Fiction in the Post-Modern
Age
Wednesday, March 28. Please read the first six chapters of Q Is For Quarry. We begin the novel-outlining project.
Friday, March 30. Please read Q Is For Quarry through Chapter 14. Look ahead to April 6.
Monday, April 2. Please finish reading Q Is For Quarry.
Wednesday, April 4. For today, in the anthology, please read the stories by Jan Burke, Ellery Queen, and S.J. Rozan. Start reading Side-Tracked, please.
Friday, April 6. For today, you and your partner should bring in detailed notes about your novel-outline—the detective, the crime, the setting, the suspects, the implicit and explicit social-issues, the plot. Workshop on the novel-outline.
Monday, April 9. For today, please read Side-Tracked, through page 130. Sign up for presentations of outlines.
Wednesday, April 11. Please read Side-Tracked through page 245.
Friday, April 13. Please finish reading Side-Tracked. Essay assigned and discussed.
Monday, April 16. Review for test. E. One-half page response to The Maltese Falcon DVD due.
Wednesday, April 18. Presentations of outlines.
Friday, April 20. Presentations of outlines.
Monday, April 23. Test.
Wednesday, April 25. Presentations of outlines.
Friday, April 27. Rough draft of essay due.
Monday, April 30. Presentations of outlines.
Wednesday, May 2. Essay due. Presentations of outlines.
The Adventure Concludes.