"The Mysterious Romance of Murder." Subtitled by the Boston
review as "The enduring highbrow fascination with detective
stories." Written by David Lehman.
He starts off with "Every so often somebody reprises Edmund
Wilson's famous put-down of detective novels, "Who Cares Who
Killed Roger Ackroyd?" Wilson regarded the genre as
terminally subliterary, either an addiction or a harmless
vice on a par with crossword puzzles. But the truth is that
for every Edmund Wilson who resists the genre there are
dozens of intellectuals who have embraced it wholeheartedly.
The enduring highbrow appeal of the detective novel--and its
close cousin, the spy thriller--is one of the literary
marvels of the century. How to account for the genre's
popularity? And what does it tell us about ourselves?"
Check it out at http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR25.1/lehman.html
My favorite line:
"Noir is what you get if you take Chandler's "Great Wrong
Place" and substitute a more fallible detective for
Marlowe."
Best wishes
Frederick Zackel
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