Commenter Maxine on Jenny’s blog writes:
I find that the endings are the worst things about crime fiction. Harlan Coben for example writes great posers, but then the end…..hmmm. Sophie Hannah seems to be doing something similar (just read her most recent, A Room Swept White). . . .
One quite frustrating thing about reviewing crime fiction is that one cannot criticise these silly endings as you would then give away the whole point.
This all sounds reasonable, but . . . why is it that revealing the ending of a crime novel would “give away the whole point” more than revealing the end of a non-crime novel?
Is there something inherent in crime that makes it more suspenseful than other endeavors, or just some sort of literary convention? I don’t see it. There can be just as much suspense in a story of love, or illness, or animals, or war, or all sorts of other human endeavors, no? So maybe it’s just a tradition, that crime stories are expected to be wrapped around a “whodunit?” or “how will he get caught?” structure, whereas other sorts of stories are expected to work off of a known outcome.
I have this image in my mind of the central thread of a crime story tied down at one end (usually, although not necessarily, the chronological beginning), and the central thread of a traditional non-crime story being tied down at two ends, so you know where it will start and where it will end.
I was thinking about this general topic the other day while reading snippets of a sci-fi novel that I’ve been carrying around in my jacket pocket. The novel is from 1950–reprinted in the 70s, I think, but still old enough that it’s satisfyingly short and easy to carry. It’s fun to see all the conventions being followed, one of which is that it will have a happy ending, in the sense that the hero will be alive and victorious at the story’s end. Well, maybe not–I still have another 10 or so pages to go, will need to wait for a few more long lines at the market–but I’m pretty sure it’ll go that way. This novel is like a string tied at both ends. It has points of suspense–as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I don’t know how it’s gonna get to where it’s going–but the basic structure is clear.
One other thing–reading these oldstyle books often diminishes my appreciation of newer works in the same genre. The original can be so much fresher.
Sometimes I read fiction books out of order. I'll jump around somewhat randomly and read what my eye falls on, check off in pen the paragraphs and pages I've read so I know not to reread them, and this introduces a lot more mystery into any novel. "Okay, there's some guy talking with some woman about something bad that happened in the parking lot. Who is this guy, who is this woman, and what happened in the parking lot?" As you jump around more in the book, you find out the answer to your questions. You also arguably get a more representative picture of the whole book earlier on. I suspect some authors put the good stuff up front to lure you in and get you committed. But if you jump around, you get around their trick.
The detective story (particularly the traditional puzzle mystery) is a bit of a special case since the reader is trying to solve a problem along with the protagonist, but in general revealing the ending or any major plot points does a disservice to any story.
Plotting has recently been relegated to second class status — fine for entertainment but not something a serious writer to worry about– by everyone but writers themselves. If you find an author widely admired by his or her peers such as Wodehouse, you will generally find a master of plotting.
"Is there something inherent in crime that makes it more suspenseful than other endeavors, or just some sort of literary convention? I don't see it. There can be just as much suspense in a story of love, or illness, or animals, or war, or all sorts of other human endeavors, no?"
For example, look at 1984. In terms of its basic structure it's a thriller, skillfully executed for maximum suspense. Orwell admired Wodehouse in part because they were both master storytellers.
It's a question of genre conventions. Mystery stories – not exactly the same as "crime stories", I know, but there's some overlap – are conventionally puzzle stories, where at least in principle, the reader might figure out whodunit before the Big Reveal. If this is what you enjoy about reading these books, obviously finding out the results of the Big Reveal rather spoils the book for you. By constrast, most Golden Age science fiction was really about the technology; you knew the hero would Save The World and Get The Girl going in, but you didn't know about the clever way he'd use the launch catapult to hold a planet hostage (say). For that matter, since the appeal is not just the ideas but making the ideas feel real and concrete, being told about them doesn't "give away" the essence of the book the way it might for a whodunit.
Mike:
Interesting thought, especially given that I write my own books to be read from beginning to end, but I'm pretty sure that most readers do what you suggest and jump around, reading different parts at different times to answer whatever questions they happen to have.
Mark, Anne:
I agree. What I found interesting was that Maxine discussed the point in terms of "crime fiction" generally, not using terms such as "detective stories" or "mysteries." I was trying to get at the question of how much of this is coming from suspense, how much from the puzzle, and how much from the subject matter.
Did Maxine use "crime fiction" because that's the term she uses to identify the genre?
Thank you for writing about my comment at Jenny's blog! As a long-time reader and reviewer of crime fiction, I can assure you that I would be shot if I revealed the "whodunnit" or "flaw in the denouement" in a review. These revelations have the technical name of "spoilers" and there are whole discussion groups dedicated to damning the practice of revealing them.
I agree that "giving away the plot" in a review of a novel by someone like Anita Brookner is not as egregious as giving away who was responsible for the murders, and why, in a crime novel. But I submit that the job of a reviewer is to provide a brief context of the book, and to convey in the review whether or not it is worth reading (in the reviewer's opinion) – hence the reader of the review can make that decision, if she/he has come to know that reviewer's judgement, possibly.
Personally, the crime fiction I like the best is the character-driven atmospheric work of many of the non-English language speaking authors, eg many Scandinavian or Italian authors. I can very highly recommend an Australian author, Peter Temple, who writes superbly about character, atmosphere and place – and although there is a plot, it is almost secondary to all of that.
But for me, someone with a tough "day job" and getting on a bit, I want to read a book in the evening that keeps me awake, and to do that I have to read this crime fiction type of plot/puzzle driven account, these days. I sometimes think that those literary critics and others who look down on people like me who read this stuff, themselves cannot have "day jobs" like mine, which wear out your brain, so that by the end of the day you need some relaxation (which for my part I get by reading rather than watching TV or going out).
The worst thing about mysteries is that they tend to only include parts that absolutely matter for the plot, which is unrealistic. No detective, no police investigation goes down only the right avenues. No person only meets the 1 person out of a million who just happens to relate to the weird factual circumstance described in the plot. Most writers try to get around this problem by adding character quirks. The best writers create real characters and a more realistic view of how investigation goes up wrong alleys.
I think you cannot have read very many of these books, Jonathan. Yes there are bad examples of the genre, as there are bad books in any genre, but there are plenty that are not like that. For example: Henning Mankell, Johan Theorin, Karin Fossum, Asa Larsson, etc.