Tuesday, January 8: High-Heeled Gumshoe
I HATE ENDINGS/ I LOVE ENDINGS
by Melodie Johnson Howe
The dénouement or the denouncement. In whatever language you say it, the summing up in the mystery novel has always bothered me. I think it’s the weakest part of the genre. Even my favorite writers (do I dare say the name Rex Stout?) leave me feeling unmoved when they start in for the wrap up. I think it’s because Nero Wolfe takes over and Archie fades a little. I felt this way about mysteries before I began to write them. This is odd because the point is to find out who the murderer is. Why did he do it? And how? But as a reader I was far more interested in the perilous journey and the characters, than the cleverness of the clues, and the process of detection.
Of course I wanted to know who did it. But I was rarely surprised by the outcome. (Yes, there are exceptions) What I enjoyed was the unfolding of the story. In fact if things got tied up too neatly I became bored.
So why don’t I read “straight” fiction instead of mysteries? Because mysteries tell a better story laced with a sense of danger. Because the characters actually have life at stake. Because the really good mysteries create an atmosphere and capture a sense of place that much of straight fiction doesn’t. Because straight fiction could never give me: Marlowe, Goodwin, Spade, Rebus, Holmes, Lord Wimsey, Harriet Vane, Lew Archer, Mrs. Pollifax, Rumpole, McNally, Bosh, and on and on.
But when it’s time for the denouement most mysteries become the same to me. The author’s writing seems to change, a flatness takes over. Ngaio Marsh, a writer who is not talked about anymore, was great at characterization and a natural story teller. If you like mysteries set with a theatre background you should read her. Many of her books open up, not with her Detective, but with her characters entangling themselves into what will eventually cause someone’s death. Then enters Detective Roderick Alleyn and the novel moves into a kind of elegant police procedural and eventually the denouement. But the parts of her books I like the most are those wonderful early chapters where the characters are on their own, before they are suspects and all must be explained. This does not mean her novels don’t work. They do. What this really means is that I have a conflict with this aspect of the genre. Is there a therapist in the house?
I think the denouement works best when it sustains not just the explanation of clues, but characterization and emotional tension. Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye is a perfect example. As is Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook.
Short stories are a great form for crime fiction. Due to the length the author must be clever enough to weave the end into the beginning because there is no time for that long denouement.
Chandler said, “A good mystery would be read even if the reader knew it had no ending.” I think this is true. I also think this would drive me nuts. Forget the therapist. Is there a psychoanalyst in the house?
Analyst, yes.
And psychos, a plenty.
If memorys erves (I don’t have time to dig through the books this morning) Robert Benchley wrote a piece about enjoying a mystery until he gets to the last chapter and, as the detective explains the complicated solution, he (Benchley) realizes he hasn’t been keeping track of who any of those people were. RB says that the last chapter reads like this to him: “So I knew that Jones couldn’t have told Wilson because Brown was in the greenhouse with Perkins. And Shaw was left-handed! So the gardener was only pretending to like snails…”
etc.
But we read ’em anyway, don’t we?
Wonderful contribution, Melodie, as always. I was particularly happy to see praise for Ngaio Marsh, my favorite author, who seems to be overshadowed by Agatha Christie, but actually wrote a lot better.
Rob,
Love the Benchley piece.
Kai,
You’re right. Marsh was a much better writer than Christie.
More proof I’m a dinosaur, but to me IN THE RIGHT HANDS (e.g., EQ or Christie or John Dickson Carr), the final summing up can be the most enjoyable part of the book. Benchley did have a point, though, about the lesser practitioners of the Golden Age.
I think the denouement works best when it sustains not just the explanation of clues, but characterization and emotional tension. Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye is a perfect example. As is Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook.
Or Margaret Millar at her best.
The solution was always my favorite part of a good mystery. John Dickson Carr used to write his solutions first, so everything would be fresh and sparkle. Hake Talbot’s “The Rim of the Pit” is another mystery with a great solution.
I agree- the best part of most Ngaio Marsh novels is the opening section.
Loved the column! As for endings, may I respectfully submit the last four words of Chapter 27 of Sue Grafton’s “A is for Alibi”, the line before Kinsey’s final report (“The Santa Teresa Police conducted a brief investigation”). Some endings are good, some not so. I’m working on a mystery novel, I’ll pay attention to the ending. (And Fantasy Master Peter Beagle generally writes novels where the “end of the story” occurs before the last chapters, leaving his characters to grapple with what has changed in their lives[see “A Fine and Private Place” by Beagle.])
Thanks!
Jon,
Dinosaur? Never! Hey, I love S. S. Van Dine.
Do you or anybody know the name of a John Dickson Carr novel that had an automaton in it? It was one of my favorites. See? It’s love/hate with me.
Xavier,
Millar is a great example and one of my favorite writers.
I’m going to dissent, here. I think Ngaio Marsh was terrific. She was absolutely capable of making you smell the roar of the greasepaint. I respect Rory and I’m madly in love with Troy.
But Marsh was not a better writer than Agatha Christie, not by any measure I can think of — style, description, characterization, plot, pacing, dialogue, or anything else.
Very few writers are. Among British female detective writers that were her contemporaries, the only two I would consider superior “writers” to Christie, in the sense of craftsmanship with words, are Sayers and Tey.
Well, well, no accounting for taste, is there? I’ll concede that Christie was a far better plotter than Marsh, but the language? characterization? style?
I’ll go out on a limb here and confess that I don’t see Sayers on a par with either Christie or Marsh (or Georgette Heyer, for that matter). I can understand your appreciation of Tey in terms of “craftsmanship with words,” but her plots I’ve always found rather boring.
Just my two cents.