A couple of days ago I quoted Dorothy Sayers on “the desire of being persuaded that all human experience may be presented in terms of a problem having a predictable, final, complete and sole possible solution.” That desire for simplification, Sayers suggests, accounts for the popularity of detective stories.
This was a fascinating introduction to the class. It makes me wonder if the satisfaction I get as a reader of good detective fiction is simply a yearning for the Final Judgement. I yearn for my life and the lives of those around me to make sense, for motives to be revealed, for cause and effect to be clear, and for justice, albeit justice with abundant mercy. The best detective fiction, in my amateur opinion, brings order to chaos. It hints at the time when the universe will be rightly ordered and all will be revealed.
“A bullet is quite as round as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable MARK of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument.”
This summer was one of a lot of uncertainty, with some big things that were outside of our family’s control. I found that the only books I could really pick up and read were mysteries, and I think it was because of the neatness of the structure, the predictability, and the resolution. My brain could handle that! (Of course, a couple Sayers mysteries were in the mix, and that, in addition to the structure, was for the delight of reading the superb dialogue.)
Oh my! I think you (Sayers) just put your finger on why video games seem so satisfying (addictive?) to my 18yr old. (And some of the potential negative implications.)
This was a fascinating introduction to the class. It makes me wonder if the satisfaction I get as a reader of good detective fiction is simply a yearning for the Final Judgement. I yearn for my life and the lives of those around me to make sense, for motives to be revealed, for cause and effect to be clear, and for justice, albeit justice with abundant mercy. The best detective fiction, in my amateur opinion, brings order to chaos. It hints at the time when the universe will be rightly ordered and all will be revealed.
“A bullet is quite as round as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable MARK of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument.”
~ GK CHESTERTON
This summer was one of a lot of uncertainty, with some big things that were outside of our family’s control. I found that the only books I could really pick up and read were mysteries, and I think it was because of the neatness of the structure, the predictability, and the resolution. My brain could handle that! (Of course, a couple Sayers mysteries were in the mix, and that, in addition to the structure, was for the delight of reading the superb dialogue.)
Oh my! I think you (Sayers) just put your finger on why video games seem so satisfying (addictive?) to my 18yr old. (And some of the potential negative implications.)
What a paradox. The completeness of a detective story highlights the incompleteness of real life.
In dystopian fiction, the brokenness may remind the reader of what still works well in real life.
By contrast, psalms of lament and praise seem to be congruent with real life.
What funny mirrors we make with our paper, quill, and ink.
TAT