Detective as a genre of mass literature. What is a detective story in literature? Characteristics and features of the detective genre

At all times, humanity has been gripped by the desire to find the truth, or at least enjoy the process of searching for it. Do you think this is a controversial statement? Open any news aggregator and glance at the headlines - every third article will definitely be related to high-profile investigations and information scandals.

Appearance time: 19th century

Place of appearance: USA

Canon: strict but flexible

Spreading: initially only European and American literature, now found almost everywhere

Peculiarities: refers to genre literature

A kind of proof of a person's interest in solving mysteries is the special boom of our time for the hero Conan Doyle: Guy Ritchie's films, the BBC series, and all this, not counting the very recent Mister Holmes, where the role of a desperately aging detective struggling with dementia was brilliantly played by the main movie wizard Ian McKellen).

In literature, this desire to get to the bottom of the truth is embodied in the detective genre, which is truly popular: it is difficult to find other such literary examples when both poles of the genre are commercially successful and certainly popular - both the low-boulevard (Daria Dontsova) and the intellectually refined (for example, the novel by Umberto Eco "Name of the Rose").

The Birth of a Detective

The main feature of a detective story as a genre is the presence of a mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are confusing, mysterious and must be clarified. In the vast majority of works, such an incident becomes a crime.

Of course, crime appears at the same time as the person. Literature, naturally, also does not ignore it: the plot of many myths and legends is built around crimes and punishments for them by the gods. Aeschylus and Sophocles already write about brutal murders and bloody revenge, Dante invents terrible torments for sinners of all kinds in the Divine Comedy,

Swift addresses political atrocities in his satire, and this list can be continued indefinitely. And yet, all these works are not detective stories. Why?

Because the crime is only the beginning of a detective story, and the entire development of the plot is built on the process of investigation, when the reader, together with the main character, can get acquainted with the facts and guesses of the case, build hypotheses and refute them with new evidence. Val McDermid, a Scottish writer and author of detective stories, believes, not without reason, that the emergence of the genre became possible only after the trial began to be based on evidence, and not on a preponderance, for example, of white or black pebbles, which were placed on the scales in favor of innocence or the guilt of the defendant, residents of the polis in Ancient Greece.

Therefore, the conversation about the detective story as a genre begins in the 19th century, when crime itself becomes a social category, when interest in criminal investigation appears. Vivid images of criminals of all stripes appear in literature: from the noble “Robin Hood” Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” by V. Hugo and the ideological murderer Raskolnikov to the charismatic Balzac Vautrin and the downright unpleasant Feigin in “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens.

They appear, however, also not by chance.

Therefore, the conversation about the detective story as a genre begins in the 19th century, when crime itself becomes a social category, when interest in criminal investigation appears.

It is believed that the real-life prototype of Vautrin, Jean Valjean, and several other heroes was the legendary Eugene Francois Vidocq, a French criminal, later the head of the National Security Administration, who soon said goodbye to such a dizzying career (because the police did not forgive him for his criminal past , and criminals - cooperation with the authorities) and became one of the first private detectives, the “father” of criminal investigation.

In 1828, not without the help of a literary black, Vidocq published an autobiographical book, “Notes of Vidocq, Chief of the Paris Secret Police,” which is extremely popular and to which, for example, Eugene Sue turns when writing his “Parisian Secrets,” as well as the already mentioned Balzac and Hugo. It is known for certain that Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of the detective story as a genre, knew about Vidocq himself and his notes.

Edgar Allan Poe at the Origins of the Genre

The founder of the detective story is rightly considered Edgar Allan Poe - a man who in fact stood at the origins of many genres: science fiction, psychological American short stories, and his work as a whole in many ways anticipated such a literary movement as decadence, which was characterized by a special atmosphere of doom, mysticism, irrationality what's happening.

Strictly speaking, Edgar Allan Poe wrote only four stories: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Roget” (1842), “The Gold Bug” (1843) and “The Purloined Letter” (1844), which with some stretch ( which we will return to a little later) can be called detective stories, and it is on them that his fame as the founder of this genre, recognized not only by critics, but also by the writers themselves, rests. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle, not the last person in the detective world, wrote: “Edgar Allan Poe,

who scattered, with his characteristic carelessness of genius, the seeds from which so many modern literary forms have sprouted, was the father of the detective story, and delineated its boundaries with such completeness that I do not see how followers can find the new territory which they would dare to call it their own... Writers are forced to follow a narrow path, constantly discerning traces of Edgar Allan Poe who passed before them...”

Poe himself did not use the word “detective,” which simply did not exist in his time, and called his stories “logical.” In general, one of the first “codes” of the genre appeared only in 1928 and is associated with the name of the English writer Stephen Van Dyne, who, relying on detective stories of past years, deduced twenty characteristic laws according to which the narrative is built.

Dupin's conversation with the sailor. Illustration for the story “Murder in the Rue Morgue” by Byam Shaw (1909)

So, from the point of view of these laws (which make no sense to list here: they are easy to find on the Internet), Poe’s stories, of course, are not canonical. There is no murder in The Purloined Letter or The Gold Bug. All four stories are characterized by long descriptions, which, according to Van Dyne, are contraindicated for a detective story.

English detective

One of the curious features of the detective genre is associated with its national specificity, which is probably due to the fact that one or another nation thinks differently, and it is the thinking process that forms the plot basis of the story.

“Writers are forced to follow a narrow path, constantly discerning the traces of Edgar Allan Poe who passed before them...”

The English detective story has become a kind of classic of the genre, which begins with Wilkie Collins, whose novel The Moonstone (1868) is considered the first detective novel in English.

In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “A Scandal in Bohemia” was published, which will be the first work in the “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” series and will turn the detective (who first appeared in the image of Auguste Dupin by Edgar Poe) into the Great Detective - a man endowed with the sharpest mind and the ability to unravel the most seemingly hopeless cases, always believing in reason and logic and trying to explain the world by finding connections between the most diverse phenomena.

The English detective story is called “analytical” because it is quite hermetic: the action, as a rule, takes place in one or at most several rooms, and, of course, in the head of the one who is looking. In a certain existential sense, this is an optimistic detective: the criminal brings chaos into the world with his actions, and the detective literally corrects the consequences and restores the lost harmony.

The golden age of the detective story in England was the 30s to the 70s. 20th century, when, for example, Agatha Christie came to the fore, creating real symbols of the genre: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie is a master of the “closed-type detective”, in which, according to researcher Dmitry Spiridonov, the role of the detective is transformed: “In a post-war world, devoid of traditional value guidelines, initially inharmonious, the detective turns out to be an eccentric “stranger” (Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple), “ spying on external events.”

With the arrival of Ian Fleming, the father of James Bond, the English detective story turns into a new genre - the spy novel and begins to move closer to the American detective story: solving the mystery becomes less important, the novel rests on the image of a charismatic protagonist, a kind of archetype of masculinity.

American detective

The American detective story begins in full with Dashiell Hammett, whose best novel is considered to be “The Maltese Falcon” (1930), brilliantly filmed in Hollywood (starring Humphrey Bogart) and introducing the public to the type of a completely new detective - Sam Spade, echoes of which are found even in the character the hero of the popular computer game, Max Payne. Perhaps critics of Hammett's work will say the best about him.

Richard Lyman calls him a “knockout detective,” a man so obsessed with his goal that neither a stray bullet, nor a femme fatale, nor the law he actually serves can stop him.

Scottish writer William K. Harvey calls Spade the father of all tough private detectives and a sinisterly dark character. “It is he, according to Scott, who is responsible for the bottle of whiskey in the desk drawer of every private investigator in the United States, without which they will feel unarmed, literally naked,” writes Wikipedia.

Researchers note that in the American “hard-boiled” detective story, the detective is transformed from a thinker and observer into an active actor who not only solves the riddle, but also physically catches the criminal.

French detective

Perhaps the most famous representative of the French detective story is Georges Simenon, who created Commissar Maigret, a wise policeman who cannot be imagined without a pipe in his mouth.

In a certain existential sense, this is an optimistic detective - the criminal brings chaos to the world with his actions, and the detective literally corrects the consequences and restores lost harmony.

For his method of work - and Maigret had to understand the suspect, put himself in his place and understand the motives for the crime committed - and the fact that he often sympathized more with the criminal than with the victim, the policeman earned the nickname “humane commissar”.

Among the creators of the French detective story, it is worth mentioning Sebastien Japrizo, who had a wonderful sense of humor, so his detective stories (especially the early ones, where there is not much psychoanalysis yet) are a wonderful cocktail of mystery, cheerful optimism and irony.

In general, in France, the detective story has become, as it were, a kind of psychological novel genre, because with all the intricacies of the plot, the authors are much more interested in criminals as people, their experiences, the circumstances of their lives that pushed them to murder or robbery, than in directly solving the mystery.

Modern understanding of the detective genre

The Scandinavians have become the kings of the modern detective genre. Dane Peter Høgh and Norwegian Jo Nesbø seem to have combined three of the most famous national detective stories into one, adding knowledge of everyday life and criticism of modernity to this cocktail.

We read “Smilla and Her Sense of Snow” by Høg not only to find out how and why a little boy died, but we are captivated by the presentation and the eternal questions that rise to the surface: the novel is written from the point of view of a Greenlandic woman who knows seventy definitions of snow and is forced to live in a city where her skills and knowledge have nowhere to be useful, where she is a stranger and misunderstood also because she loves snow and cold more than warmth and love.

Nesbø is a little more “detective” - his series of books about the policeman Harry Hole is very popular, and the main character himself is somewhat reminiscent of “cool” American detectives who could solve a riddle and “punch you in the face.” However, his detective story is less and less detective and more and more suspense - a literary roller coaster, where there is room for both mesmerizing horror and relieved laughter.

Among the latest detective stories, it is worth noting the novels of JK Rowling, which were published both under her real name (The Casual Vacancy) and under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith (The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil). Many critics note that Rowling's detective stories are similar to Agatha Christie's detective stories: excellent language, well-developed intrigue, but they seem a little studentish.

The detective genre is being developed quite interestingly by Boris Akunin, whose series about the extraordinary detective Erast Fandorin was a huge success. Fandorin is a Russian intellectual and a Japanese scholar (as, indeed, is his creator), and therefore is equally easy to navigate both Russian realities (he unravels cases related to General Skobelev and the thieves from Khitrovka) and Japanese ones. So, for example, the first volume of the novel “The Diamond Chariot” is set in the Russian-Japanese War, and the experienced Erast Petrovich stands in the way of Japanese agents introduced into Russia, and the second volume takes us to Japan in 1878, where the love story of a young man unfolds. Fandorin and the beautiful Midori.

The interest in solving mysteries, it seems, will never let us go, so the detective story, endlessly modified, becoming either a thriller, or a noir, or an action film, or a historical novel, will still remain itself - a genre that gives hope that an answer can be found to any question, no matter how unpleasant it may be. ■

Ekaterina Orlova

Georginova N. Yu. Detective genre: reasons for popularity / N. Yu. Georginova // Scientific dialogue. - 2013. - No. 5 (17): Philology. - pp. 173-186.

UDC 82-312.4+82-1/-9+821.161.1’06

Detective genre: reasons for popularity

N. Yu. Georginova

An overview of existing opinions regarding the place occupied by the detective story in literature and culture as a whole is offered. Based on an analysis of the points of view of specialists involved in understanding the genre uniqueness of such works, the problem of identifying the reasons for the popularity of detective stories among readers is solved. In addition, it is noted that interest in the study of the detective genre in the scientific community of literary scholars and linguists is not only not weakening, but also increasing.

Key words: detective; genre; popularity.

In the course of the development of literary thought, there is a constant reassessment of values, a change in methods and techniques for organizing works of art. In other words, there is a continuous process of enrichment through constant changes and modifications. Literary genres, being necessary components of literature, are also subject to change and revaluation. A striking example of this is the history of the development of the detective genre. Throughout the history of its formation, the detective genre has raised a lot of questions and debates among literary scholars. In particular, the question of the place occupied by the detective story in literature and culture as a whole remains ambiguous.

In the afterword to the collection “How to Make a Detective,” G. Andzhaparidze concludes that “the detective story occupies its own place in culture and nothing else has any chance of replacing it.”

place" [Andzhaparidze, 1990, p. 280]. In other words, the detective story is full-fledged and full-fledged in the world literary process. Proof of this is this collection, which includes works by such authors as A. Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, D. Hemmet, R. O. Freeman, S. S. Van Dyne, D. Sayers, R. Knox , M. Leblanc, C. Aveline, D. D. Carr, F. Glauser, E. S. Gardner, M. Allen, S. Maugham, R. Stout, E. Quinn, R. Chandler, J. Simenon, Boileau -Narsezhak, A. Christie, H. L. Borges, G. Andjaparidze.

Thus, the English thinker and writer, author of a number of detective stories, Gilbert K. Chesterton, in the essay “In Defense of Detective Literature,” writes: “Not only is the detective novel or story a completely legitimate literary genre, it also has very definite and real advantages as an instrument of the common good" [Chesterton, 1990, p. 16]. Moreover, the author insists that the appearance of the detective story is a natural historical move that meets the social and cultural needs of people: “Sooner or later, rough, popular literature should have appeared, revealing the romantic possibilities of the modern city. And it arose in the form of popular detective stories, as rough and blood-hot as the ballads of Robin Hood" [Chesterton, 1990, p. 18]. Argentine novelist, poet and publicist Jorge Louis Borges also emphasizes the need to distinguish the detective story as a separate genre: “In defense of the detective genre, I would say that it does not need protection: read today with a sense of superiority, it preserves order in an era of disorder. Such fidelity to the model is worthy of praise, and well deserved” [Borges, 1990, p. 271-272].

We also find defensive speech in R. Chandler: “It is hardly necessary to prove that the detective story is an important and viable form of art” [Chandler, 1990, p. 165].

In R. O. Freeman we find: “There is no genre more popular than the detective story... After all, it is quite obvious that a genre that has attracted the attention of people of culture and intellect cannot contain anything inherently bad” [Freeman, 1990, p. 29]. The fact that the detective

tive literature has been repeatedly opposed to genuine literature as “something unworthy,” which is explained by literary scholars by the existence, along with the real geniuses of their genre, of unscrupulous authors. According to R. O. Freeman, “a detective story, capable of fully embodying all the characteristic properties of the genre, while remaining a work of good language, with a skillfully recreated background and interesting characters, corresponding to the strictest literary canons, remains perhaps the most a rare phenomenon in fiction" [Freeman, 1990, p. 29]. We find a similar thought in R. Chanler: “Nevertheless, a detective story - even in its most traditional form is extremely difficult to write... A good detective writer (it’s impossible that we don’t have them) is forced to compete not only with all the unburied dead, but also with legions of their living colleagues" [Chandler, 1990, p. 166]. The author accurately defines the complexity of writing a good detective story: “It seems to me that the main difficulty that arises in front of a traditional, or classical, or detective novel based on logic and analysis is that to achieve even relative perfection it requires qualities that are rarely collectively present in one person. The imperturbable logic-designer usually does not produce lively characters, his dialogues are boring, there is no plot dynamics, and there are absolutely no bright, precisely seen details. A rationalist pedant is as emotional as a drawing board. His scientist detective works in a shiny new laboratory, but it is impossible to remember the faces of his heroes. Well, a person who knows how to write dashing, bright prose will never undertake the hard labor of composing an iron-clad alibi” [Chandler, 1990, p. 167].

According to S. Eisenstein, the detective story has always attracted the reader “because it is the most effective genre of literature. You can't tear yourself away from him. It is constructed using such means and techniques that maximally rivet a person into reading. Detective

The most powerful remedy, the most purified, sharpened structure in a number of other literatures. This is the genre where the average

properties of influence are exposed to the limit" [Eisenstein, 1968, p. 107]. The detective story is distinguished as an independent literary genre based on its unique features. Thus, A. Vulis notes: “Detective is a genre. But this is also a topic. More precisely, a combination of both. The genre itself contains such a clear event program that we know in advance some of the main episodes of a work that has not yet been read” [Vulis, 1978, p. 246].

Thus, the detective story has a special place in literature due to the presence of compositional forms unique to it, the concept of characters, forms of influence, and even due to the presence of its reader. “There is such a type of modern reader - a lover of detective stories. This reader - and he has proliferated all over the world, and he can be counted in the millions - was created by Edgar Allan Poe,” we meet in Jorge Louis Borges [Borges, 1990, p. 264]. Who is the detective addressed to? “Genuine connoisseurs of the genre, who strongly prefer it to all others, who read detective stories meticulously and carefully, are mainly representatives of intellectual circles: theologians, humanities scholars, lawyers, and also, perhaps to a lesser extent, doctors and representatives of the exact sciences,” - Freeman concludes [Freeman, 1990, p. 32].

The interest of scientists - representatives of the scientific community - in reading detective literature is explained by the similarity of methods and techniques used in detective fiction and science. Thus, B. Brecht believes: “The scheme of a good detective novel resembles the method of work of our physicists: first, certain facts are written down, working hypotheses are put forward that could correspond to the facts. The addition of new facts and the rejection of known facts forces us to look for a new working hypothesis. Then the working hypothesis is tested: an experiment. If it is correct, the killer must appear somewhere as a result of the measures taken” [Brecht, 1988, p. 281]. “In general,” notes V.V. Melnik, “the process of creative thinking in science and detective fiction proceeds according to the same scenario even after overcoming cognitive and psychological barriers.”

the ditch ends with the comprehension of a paradoxical truth-discovery" [Melnik, 1992, p. 5]. This “invasion of science into literature” that occurs in a detective story makes it possible for the coexistence of two forms of thinking - artistic and conceptual-logical. The first, as we remember, operates with images, the second with concepts. In addition, the artistic form of the detective story is ideally suited for the active assimilation of scientific knowledge by the reader at the level of his own “discoveries” due to the fact that the detective scheme, as noted by a passionate admirer of the detective genre, S. M. Eisenstein, “reproduces the historical path of human consciousness from the pre-logical, figuratively -sensual thinking to logical and further to their synthesis, dialectical thinking" [Eisenstein, 1980, p. 133]. These views are shared by N. N. Volsky: “I assume that a detective story gives the reader a rare opportunity to use his abilities for dialectical thinking, to put into practice (albeit in artificial conditions of intellectual fun) that part of his spiritual potential, which Hegel calls “speculative reason.” “and which, being inherent in every reasonable person, finds almost no application in our everyday life” [Volsky, 2006, p. 6].

Thus, reading detective literature is correlated with the process of personality formation, progressively moving from the stage of sensory-imaginative thinking to the maturity of consciousness and the synthesis of both in the most perfect examples of the inner life of creative personalities.

N. Ilyina, analyzing the features and reasons for the popularity of the detective genre, comes to the conclusion that the detective story is literature and a game. We are talking about a game that is “useful, develops observation, intelligence, and develops in the participant of the game the ability to think analytically and understand strategy” [Ilyina, 1989, p. 320]. In her opinion, literature in the detective genre is “the ability to build a plot without sacrificing credibility for the sake of the game, clearly defined characters, lively dialogues and, of course, a reflection of life” [Ilyina, 1989, p. 328]

Julian Simons speaks about several other reasons that force the reader to turn to the detective genre. Exploring psychoanalytic connections, the author cites an article by Charles Rycroft in Psychology Quarterly for 1957, which continues the hypothesis of J. Pedersen-Krogg, according to which the peculiarities of perception of a detective are determined by impressions and fears from early childhood. The detective reader, according to Pedersen-Krogg, satisfies childhood curiosity by turning into an “investigator,” and thus “fully compensates for the helplessness, fear and guilt that have existed in the subconscious since childhood” [Simons, 1990, p. 230]. Julian Symons gives another version, proposed by W. H. Auden, which has a religious overtones: “Detectives have a magical property of alleviating our feelings of guilt. We live obeying and, in fact, fully accepting the dictates of the law. We turn to a detective story in which a person whose guilt was considered beyond doubt turns out to be innocent, and the real criminal is one who was completely above suspicion, and we find in it a way to escape from everyday life and return to an imaginary world of sinlessness, where “we can know love.” as love, and not as a punitive law” [Simons, 1990, p. 231-232].

In addition, the author proposes to develop the ideas of Auden and Fuller, “linking the pleasure we get from reading detective stories with the custom adopted among primitive peoples, according to which a tribe achieves purification by transferring its sins and misfortunes to some specific animal or person,” and connects the reasons for the detective’s decline precisely with the “weakening of the sense of sin”: “Where the awareness of one’s sinfulness in the religious sense of the word does not exist, the detective as an exorcist has nothing to do” [Simons, 1990, p. 233].

Interest in reading detective literature is associated with his ability to embody the “path of movement from darkness to light.” This means, first of all, solving a crime, solving a mystery. Edgar Allan Poe believed that the artistic joy and usefulness of the detective story lie precisely in this gradual movement from darkness to light, from

confusion to clarity. S. M. Eisenstein speaks of the situation of “coming into the light of God.” Moreover, a situation is understood as a case through which the attacker managed to escape from an impossible situation. And the detective brings the truth to the light of God, “for every detective boils down to the fact that from the “labyrinth” of misconceptions, false interpretations and dead ends, the true picture of the crime is finally brought “to the light of God” [Eisenstein, 1997, p. 100]. In this case, the detective, according to the author, appeals to the myth of the Minotaur and the primary complexes associated with it.

Thus, the detective story takes its rightful place in literature. “Over the past ten years, significantly more detective novels have appeared in Russia than in the previous period,” notes journalist and literary translator G. A. Tolstyakov. “The change in censorship policy gave literary space and made it possible to expand the range of translated and published authors, perhaps the most widely read genre of popular literature” [Tolstyakov, 2000, p. 73].

Attempts to comprehend the role and significance of the detective genre are inseparable from the search for the reasons for its wide recognition. The undying popularity of this genre is explained by a number of reasons that force the reader to turn to the detective story again and again: the need to compensate for helplessness, to overcome fears, to alleviate feelings of guilt, to experience a feeling of cleansing from one’s sinfulness, in emotions; interest in play and competition, response to challenges to intellectual abilities; the need to read and observe curious characters; the desire to discern romance in everyday city life; the desire to participate in an intellectual game, guessing the event program, applying one’s abilities to dialectical thinking, solving a mystery. As you can see, we are talking about needs of two types: psychological and socio-cultural (Fig. 1). Note that the distinction between types is conditional, since upon closer examination almost all needs are of a psychological nature.

Rice. 1. Readers’ needs as the reasons for the popularity of the detective genre

The popularity of the detective genre - the growing interest on the part of readers, the constant attention to it by literary scholars and practitioners - has led to the appearance of an increasing number of linguistic works devoted to its study. The subject of attention is the cognitive, pragmatic, discursive and other parameters of a detective text [Vatolina, 2011; Dudina, 2008; Kryukova, 2012; Leskov, 2005; Merkulova, 2012; Teplykh, 2007, etc.]. The need for scientific research in this area is dictated by

an anthropocentric paradigm relevant in modern literary criticism and linguistics. The attention of scientists who recognize that it is important to take into account the human factor in language is drawn to the study of the cognitive structures of human consciousness involved in the representation, acquisition and processing of knowledge about the world, contained, in particular, in a literary text. Language is understood as a way of representing human knowledge about the world.

T. G. Vatolina devotes her research to the cognitive analysis of English-language detective works. Projecting the concept of “discourse” onto a detective text, the author proceeds from the interpretation of discourse in the cognitive aspect as a “special mentality” [Stepanov, 1995, p. 38] and in the communicative aspect as “a message - continuously renewed or complete, fragmented or integral, oral or written, sent and received in the process of communication” [Plotnikova, 2011, p. 7]. T. G. Vatolina proves that every detective work is created according to a standard cognitive model, the same for all detectives. The general cognitive model of detective discourse is, at the internal deep level, “a complete integral construct consisting of interconnected fragments.”

Cognitive contours" [Vatolina, 2011, p. 20]. To describe the cognitive model of a detective, the author uses the technique of assigning generalized metanominations to characters, which was developed by Y. Kristeva when conducting a structural analysis of a literary text [Kristeva, 2004]. The deepest contour of the cognitive model of detective discourse is formed, according to the author, by five characters: detective, killer, witness, assistant, victim. Deepening the cognitive model of the detective, the author derives, on the basis of speech-act analysis, a separate human quality of each character, abstracted and elevated to the level of a concept. Thus, the basic concept of speech acts of the Detective is the concept “Truth”, for the Murderer - “Lie”, for the Witness, Helper and Victim - the concept “Misunderstanding”. In addition, using the concept of “conceptual standard of the genre”, introduced

put into scientific use by S. N. Plotnikova and understood as a deep cognitive genre-forming basis, an invariant concept, compliance with which is mandatory for assigning a text to any genre, T. G. Vatolina defines the conceptual system of the detective story: “Murder” - “Investigation” -"Explanation".

I. A. Dudina devotes her research to the study of detective discourse in the light of the cognitive-communicative-pragmatic approach. Using the material of detective works by English and American writers, she identifies the status characteristics of detective discourse among other artistic discourses, derives elements and identifies models on the basis of which the discursive space of a detective text is formed. The author distinguishes between the concepts of “detective text” as “a linguistic formation that has a certain structure and is characterized by coherence and integrity” and “detective discourse” as “the scheme “writer - artistic investigation - reader”

Entertainment”, thereby pointing to the functional, dynamic nature of discourse, where text is an element of communication connecting the author and the reader [Dudina, 2008, p. 10]. The proposed approach to the interpretation of a literary text is based on the thesis that the human mind stores samples, mental models, i.e., specially structured knowledge representation systems that form the basis of our linguistic ability and speech behavior. The author identifies two cognitive models of detective discourse in the form of the structure of an object-referential situation and the structure of a procedural situation. The subject-referential situation in detective discourse is “a clear event program” that the author of a detective text plans according to certain rules of the detective genre. A procedural situation is “a situation in which the author of a detective text influences the reader, resorting to a certain tone, the nature of the narrative, which evokes a corresponding emotional mood in the reader in response” [Dudina, 2008, p. 12].

L. S. Kryukova explores the plot perspective in stories of the detective genre. The plot perspective is understood by the author as “a unit of structural organization of the text of the detective genre in revealing the intrigue embedded by the writer in the code-schematic content of the plot” [Kryukova, 2012, p. 3]. The distinctive features of the plot perspective of the detective genre are revealed, the nature of the refraction of the plot perspective in four types of speech situations (microthematic, thematic, macrothematic and textological) is described.

D. A. Shigonov analyzes the recurrent center as a coding unit of the text using the material of English detective stories. The recurrent center is understood as “a unit of text that represents a repetition of a thought that violates the linear presentation of the content to update what was previously stated,” as a result of which it acts as “a mechanism on the basis of which the connection between distant parts of the text that have a common semantic basis is carried out” [Shigonov, 2005, p. . 5]. Thus, in the text of a detective work, a coding structure, represented by a recurrent center, and a decoding structure are distinguished. The recurrent center contains the mystery of a detective work, explicated through distantly located sections of text that have a common semantic content. Recurrent centers are closely related to the plot perspective: “The plot perspective in the text of a detective work forms the content through an inconsistent connection of unfolding events” and “acts precisely as a way of integrating the work, which is based on distantly located recurrent centers” [Shigonov, 2005, p. eleven].

Please note that all of this is work from recent years. Thus, the detective genre is increasingly becoming the subject of research by literary scholars, linguists, theorists and practitioners of the genre. The continuing scientific interest in the genre features of these texts is largely a consequence of the undiminished popularity of detective stories among the modern readership.

Literature

1. Andzhaparidze G. The cruelty of the canon and eternal novelty / G. Andzhaparidze // How to make a detective story / trans. from English, French, German, Spanish ; comp. A. Stroev; ed. N. Portugimova - Moscow: Raduga, 1990. - P. 279-292.

2. Borges X. L. Detective / L. H. Borges // How to make a detective / trans. from English, French, German, Spanish ; comp. A. Stroev; ed. N. Portugimova - Moscow: Raduga, 1990. - P. 236-272.

3. Brecht B. On literature: collection: translation from German / B. Brecht; comp., trans. and note. E. Katseva; entry Art. E. Knipovich. - 2nd edition, expanded. - Moscow: Fiction, 1988. - 524 p.

4. Vatolina T. G. Cognitive model of detective discourse: based on the material of English-language detective works of the 18-20 centuries. : abstract of the dissertation... candidate of philological sciences / T. G. Vatolina. - Irkutsk, 2011. - 22 p.

5. Volsky N.N. Easy reading: works on the theory and history of the detective genre / N.N. Volsky; Federal Agency for Education, State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education “Novosibirsk State. Pedagogical University. - Novosibirsk: [b. i.], 2006. - 277 p.

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© Georginova N. Yu., 2013

Crime Fiction: Causes of Popularity

The article reviews current opinions on the position held by crime fiction in literature and culture in general. Based on the analysis of viewpoints of the specialists addressing the issues of evaluating such works" genre peculiarities, the author identifies the reasons for the crime fiction popularity with readers. Furthermore, it is noted that the interest in studying the crime fiction genre has been growing lately rather than weakening in the academic society of literary scholars and linguists.

Key words: crime fiction; genre; popularity.

Georginova Natalya Yurievna, teacher of the department of specialized training in foreign languages, Murmansk State Technical University (Murmansk), [email protected].

Georginova, N., lecturer, Department of Specialized Training in Foreign Languages, Murmansk State Technical University (Murmansk), georna@mail. ru.

Introduction. 3

1.1 Detective as a literary genre. 5

1.2 Stylistic devices in the English detective novel. 10

Chapter II 20

1.1 Stylistic analysis of the detective novel “Murder Most Unladylike” by Robin Stevens. 20

Conclusion. 37

Bibliography. 39

Introduction

Today, detective literature is one of the most popular genres of mass literature in the system. This is due to the advertising of detective works in the media and the creation of various films, television series and graphic novels based on them. In addition, the popularity of detective literature lies in the fact that throughout its existence it has absorbed the most painful, acute and hidden problems from the eyes of society. Mysteries, secrets, unusual and mysterious situations attract the reader, promote increased attention, and cause tension. Also, the popularity of detective works is associated with the cathartic function of the detective: with the emotional experience, fear and purification that a detective’s investigation of a mystery brings.

The relevance of this course work is associated with the growing popularity of detective literature in English-speaking countries over the past 10 years. During this period, more than 5,000 detective works were included in the “Best Detective” category.

The subject of the study is the detective novel “Murder Most Unladylike” by Robin Stevens.

Object - stylistic devices used in the detective novel Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens.

The purpose of this course work is to identify and analyze stylistic devices using the example of the detective novel “Murder Most Unladylike” by Robin Stevens.

Coursework objectives:

1. Analyze the source text;

2. Identify stylistic devices;

3. Provide an analysis of the identified stylistic devices.

To solve the problems set in the course work, the following research methods were used:

1. Stylistic analysis of translation;

2. Theoretical analysis of scientific sources on the research problem.

The methodological basis for the research in the course work was the works of V.A. Kukharenko “Workshop on the stylistics of the English language”, Galperina I.R. “Stylistics of the English language”, Arnold I.V. "The Stylistics of Modern English".

The theoretical significance lies in the definition and analysis of the stylistic techniques of detective works using the example of the detective novel “Murder Most Unladylike” by Robin Stevens.

Chapter I

Detective as a literary genre

Detective (English detective, from Latin detego - I reveal) is a literary work or film based on the investigation of a complicated crime, often a murder.

Detective literature is a type of literature that includes works of fiction whose plot is dedicated to solving a mysterious crime, usually using a logical analysis of facts.

Detective (lat. detectio - disclosure) is a work of fiction, the plot of which is based on the conflict between good and evil, realized in solving a crime.

There are a large number of interpretations of the detective story as a genre, but from the dictionary entries the following stable genre indicators of the detective story can be identified: solving a mysterious crime, using logical analysis of facts, the clash between justice and lawlessness, the victory of justice.

The main thing in a detective story is the logical structure leading to the only and correct conclusion. Thanks to this, the reader can feel like a participant in the investigation process.

Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer, poet, literary critic and editor, is considered the founder of detective literature. In his short stories, he created the type of Great Detective, the technique of deductive crime solving, many plot devices, such as false keys, the mystery of a locked room. But the detective story as a popular literary form did not immediately begin to establish itself. Literary scholars believe that the spread of the detective story is associated with acute social problems in society and the weakening of religious principles. The reader began to show particular interest in detective literature in the 1840s, when a large number of regular police forces and various detective offices began to appear, which did not always solve the tasks assigned to them successfully, while in a detective story good always triumphs over evil, justice - iniquity.

An important role in the further development of the detective story as a literary genre was played by the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the popular image of the private detective Sherlock Holmes. Today this image is one of the most popular and recognizable throughout the world. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that a detective story must have two storylines: about the victim and the criminal, and about the criminal and the detective. These storylines may intersect and be intentionally confused by the author, but will certainly lead to a denouement, where the author must provide answers to all questions. Also, A. Conan Doyle believed that a criminal should under no circumstances look like a hero.

The English thinker, writer and journalist Gilbert Keith Chesterton became the first theorist of the detective story as a special genre. In his article “In Defense of Detective Literature,” he emphasized that the detective story is a completely complete literary genre.

After the First World War, detective literature changed markedly. The plot became more complex, unexpected twists of intrigue and a denouement appeared.

There are two plot-based types of detective literature: intellectual, where the main interest is focused on the investigation process itself, and adventure, where the plot is built on the escalation of new dramatic episodes, often new crimes.

The detective is characterized by the following features:

1) High degree of standardization;

2) Entertainment function;

3) Availability of content;

4) Exciting and entertaining.

The universal formula of a detective story as a work of art is based on these characteristics. The formula includes stereotypical images of characters, a general plot scheme, and traditional ways of describing people and objects. All works of mass literature are based on such formulas, since they allow the genre to be realized most fully. In each specific detective work by a specific author, the detective formula acquires its own unique content.

At the heart of any detective work there are three main stages: the mystery, the course of the investigation and the revelation, which corresponds to the plot, climax and denouement. In shifter detectives, this sequence may be disrupted.

A reversal detective is a detective work where the beginning, climax and denouement occur in reverse order.

The goal of any detective work is to solve a riddle, to solve a crime. Solving a crime is a mandatory and unified outcome of any detective story.

According to the Hungarian literary critic Tibor Köszthelyi, there is the following classification of detective stories:

1) Detective mystery and task (works by Arthur Conan Doyle),

2) Historical detective (works of John Dixon Carr),

3) Social Detective (works by Dorothy Lee Sayers),

4) Realistic detective (works by Erle Stanley Gardner),

5) Naturalistic detective story (works by Dashiell Hammett).

Also distinguished are such detective stories as a political detective story, a fantasy detective story, a gothic detective story, a picaresque detective story, and a spy detective story.

In the period from 1918 to 1939, detective literature was enriched with new and colorful images of detectives. Authors of works with such characters include Agatha Christie, Freeman Croftsis, Anthony Quinn, Margery Allingham and others. But whatever the detective story and its author, the main character should always be a person with such common features as: erudition, unsurpassed intelligence, developed intuition, determination, eccentricity, and a unique sense of humor.

The American school of “hard-boiled fiction” dealt a big blow to the image of the amateur detective familiar to readers. The new detectives remained honest, but became cruel and unscrupulous in their means. Most often, the role of a detective was played by an aggressive person who knew how to navigate well in any specific environment and adapt to certain events. The criminal could be anyone, even the protagonist's best friend, as, for example, in Dashiell Hamett's detective novel The Glass Key. The detective becomes pragmatic. To find the truth, it is not analytical abilities that are used, but cunning and resourcefulness. The authors of the “cool school” tried to get away from the old scheme: if the culprit is caught, he is punished. They believed that the main character does not have to be positive, the narrative style should preferably be gloomy, and the outcome should be pessimistic.

But the eccentric detectives did not disappear. In the works of George Chesbrough, the main character is the dwarf Monroe, a colorful character, a professor of criminology, a karateka and a circus performer.

In the second half of the 1900s, a significant innovation in the genre was the emergence of female detectives. They, like men, have a license to investigate and cope no worse with dangerous and complicated cases. Examples of such heroines include Sharon McCone from the detective novels of Marcia Mueller and Kinsey Millhone from the works of Sue Grafton.

The main characters of modern detective stories are different from those of two centuries ago. Today's hero can be a psychic detective, a blind detective, a detective-prince, he can also be a victim at the same time. The search for truth can only be carried out with the help of some kind of personal and moral revolution. Such a hero may not shine with intelligence or strength. This is due to the fact that in detective literature there are no established canons and no literary type of detective as such. For example, Lawrence Sanders and Harry Kemelman went beyond the formal boundaries of the detective story in their work.

Thus, a detective story is a work of fiction based on the unraveling of mysteries and crimes through the logical analysis of facts and the struggle between good and evil, justice and lawlessness.

Detectiveś V(English detective, from Latin detego - I reveal, expose) - a predominantly literary and cinematic genre, the works of which describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the mystery. Typically, such an incident is a crime, and the detective describes its investigation and determination of the perpetrators; in this case, the conflict is built on the clash of justice with lawlessness, ending in the victory of justice.

1 Definition

2 Features of the genre

3 Typical characters

4 Detective story

5 Twenty rules for writing detective stories

6 Ten Commandments of a Detective Novel by Ronald Knox

7 Some types of detectives

7.1 Closed detective

7.2 Psychological detective

7.3 Historical detective

7.4 Ironic detective

7.5 Fantastic detective

7.6 Political detective

7.7 Spy Detective

7.8 Police detective

7.9 "Cool" detective

7.10 Crime detective

8 Detective in the cinema

8.1 Aphorisms about a detective

The main feature of a detective story as a genre is the presence in the work of a certain mysterious incident, the circumstances of which are unknown and must be clarified. The most frequently described incident is a crime, although there are detective stories in which events that are not criminal are investigated (for example, in The Notes of Sherlock Holmes, which certainly belongs to the detective genre, in five stories out of eighteen there are no crimes).

An essential feature of the detective story is that the actual circumstances of the incident are not communicated to the reader, at least in its entirety, until the investigation is completed. Instead, the reader is led by the author through the investigative process, given the opportunity at each stage to construct their own versions and evaluate known facts. If the work initially describes all the details of the incident, or the incident does not contain anything unusual or mysterious, then it should no longer be classified as a pure detective story, but rather among related genres (action film, police novel, etc.).

Features of the genre

An important property of a classic detective story is the completeness of facts. The solution to the mystery cannot be based on information that was not provided to the reader during the description of the investigation. By the time the investigation is completed, the reader should have enough information to use it to find a solution on their own. Only certain minor details may be hidden that do not affect the possibility of revealing the secret. At the end of the investigation, all mysteries must be solved, all questions must be answered.

Several more features of the classic detective story were collectively called by N. N. Volsky as the hyperdeterminism of the detective world (“the detective world is much more orderly than the life around us”):

Ordinary surroundings. The conditions in which the events of the detective story take place are generally common and well known to the reader (in any case, the reader himself believes that he is confident in them). Thanks to this, it is initially obvious to the reader which of what is described is ordinary and which is strange, beyond the scope.

Stereotypical behavior of characters. The characters are largely devoid of originality, their psychology and behavioral patterns are quite transparent, predictable, and if they have any distinctive features, they become known to the reader. The motives for the actions (including the motives for the crime) of the characters are also stereotypical.

The existence of a priori rules for constructing a plot, which do not always correspond to real life. So, for example, in a classic detective story, the narrator and detective, in principle, cannot turn out to be criminals.

This set of features narrows the field of possible logical constructions based on known facts, making it easier for the reader to analyze them. However, not all detective subgenres follow these rules exactly.

Another limitation is noted, which is almost always followed by a classic detective story - the inadmissibility of random errors and undetectable coincidences. For example, in real life, a witness can tell the truth, he can lie, he can be mistaken or misled, but he can also simply make an unmotivated mistake (accidentally mix up dates, amounts, names). In a detective story, the last possibility is excluded - the witness is either accurate, or lying, or his mistake has a logical justification.

Eremey Parnov points out the following features of the classic detective genre:

the reader of the detective story is invited to participate in a kind of game - solving the mystery or the name of the criminal;

“Gothic exoticism” - Starting with the infernal monkey, the founder of both genres (fiction and detective) Edgar Allan Poe, with the blue carbuncle and tropical viper of Conan Doyle, with the Indian moonstone of Wilkie Collins and ending with the secluded castles of Agatha Christie and the corpse in the boat of Charles Snow, Western the detective is incorrigibly exotic. In addition, he is pathologically committed to the Gothic novel (the medieval castle is a favorite stage on which bloody dramas are played out).

sketchiness -

Unlike science fiction, detective fiction is often written just for the sake of the detective story, that is, the detective! In other words, the criminal tailors his bloody activities to a detective story, just as an experienced playwright tailors roles to specific actors.

There is one exception to these rules - the so-called. "The Reversed Detective"

Typical characters

Detective - directly involved in the investigation. A variety of people can act as detectives: law enforcement officers, private detectives, relatives, friends, acquaintances of the victims, and sometimes completely random people. The detective cannot turn out to be a criminal. The figure of the detective is central to the detective story.

A professional detective is a law enforcement officer. He may be a very high-level expert, or he may be an ordinary police officer, of which there are many. In the second case, in difficult situations, he sometimes seeks advice from a consultant (see below).

A private detective - crime investigation is his main job, but he does not serve in the police, although he may be a retired police officer. As a rule, he is extremely highly qualified, active and energetic. Most often, a private detective becomes a central figure, and to emphasize his qualities, professional detectives can be brought into action, who constantly make mistakes, succumb to the provocations of the criminal, get on the wrong trail and suspect the innocent. The contrast “a lonely hero against a bureaucratic organization and its officials” is used, in which the sympathies of the author and the reader are on the side of the hero.

An amateur detective is the same as a private detective, with the only difference being that investigating crimes for him is not a profession, but a hobby that he turns to only from time to time. A separate subspecies of the amateur detective is a random person who has never engaged in such activities, but is forced to conduct an investigation due to urgent necessity, for example, to save an unjustly accused loved one or to divert suspicion from himself (these are the main characters of all Dick Francis's novels). The amateur detective brings the investigation closer to the reader, allowing him to create the impression that “I could figure this out too.” One of the conventions of detective series with amateur detectives (like Miss Marple) is that in real life a person, unless he is professionally involved in crime investigation, is unlikely to encounter such a number of crimes and mysterious incidents.

A criminal commits a crime, covers his tracks, tries to counteract the investigation. In a classic detective story, the figure of the criminal is clearly identified only at the end of the investigation; up to this point, the criminal can be a witness, suspect or victim. Sometimes the actions of the criminal are described during the course of the main action, but in such a way as not to reveal his identity and not to provide the reader with information that could not be obtained during the investigation from other sources.

The victim is the one against whom the crime is directed or the one who suffered as a result of a mysterious incident. One of the standard options for a detective story is that the victim himself turns out to be a criminal.

A witness is a person who has any information about the subject of the investigation. The criminal is often first shown in the description of the investigation as one of the witnesses.

A detective's companion is a person who is constantly in contact with the detective, participating in the investigation, but does not have the abilities and knowledge of the detective. He can provide technical assistance in the investigation, but his main task is to more clearly show the detective’s outstanding abilities against the background of the average level of an ordinary person. In addition, the companion is needed to ask the detective questions and listen to his explanations, giving the reader the opportunity to follow the detective's train of thought and draw attention to certain points that the reader himself might miss. Classic examples of such companions are Dr. Watson from Conan Doyle and Arthur Hastings from Agatha Christie.

A consultant is a person who has strong abilities to conduct an investigation, but is not directly involved in it. In detective stories, where a separate figure of the consultant stands out, she may be the main one (for example, the journalist Ksenofontov in the detective stories of Viktor Pronin), or she may simply turn out to be an occasional adviser (for example, the teacher of the detective to whom he turns for help).

Assistant - does not conduct the investigation himself, but provides the detective and/or consultant with information that he obtains himself. For example, a forensic expert.

Suspect - as the investigation progresses, an assumption arises that it was he who committed the crime. Authors deal with suspects in different ways; one of the frequently practiced principles is “none of those immediately suspected is a real criminal,” that is, everyone who comes under suspicion turns out to be innocent, and the real criminal turns out to be the one who was not suspected of anything. . However, not all authors follow this principle. In Agatha Christie's detective stories, for example, Miss Marple repeatedly says that “in life, it is usually the one who is suspected first that is the criminal.”

DETECTIVE(Latin detectio - disclosure of English detective - detective) - a work of art, the plot of which is based on the conflict between good and evil, realized in solving a crime.

In a detective story there is always a mystery, a riddle. Usually this is a crime, but unlike mysticism, in this genre the mysterious has an objective, “real” character, despite its mystery and inexplicability. The purpose of a detective story is to solve a mystery; the narrative is tied to a logical process through which the investigator, following a chain of facts, arrives at solving the crime, which is the obligatory final outcome of the detective story. The main thing in a detective story is the investigation, so the analysis of the characters’ characters and feelings is not so important for it. Very often, a mystery is solved by inference based on what both the investigator and the reader know. A detective work should not be identified with a thriller, where there is always an element of horror or naked violence, and with a crime novel, revealing the causes and nature of crime, depicting the underworld or the world of police officers.

The first detective stories were created in the 1840s by E. Poe, considered the founder of the detective story, but even before him, many authors used individual detective elements. Among his predecessors, the anarchist philosopher W. Godwin occupies an honorable place, in his novel Caleb Williams(1794) the main characters are an amateur detective driven by curiosity and a ruthless police agent. Perhaps the most significant stimulus for the development of the detective was given Memoirs E. Vidocq. He was a thief, was in prison several times, then became a police agent and rose to the rank of chief of the famous French detective police, the Surete. IN Memoirs he described in great detail his investigative methods and vividly, although with exaggeration, told about the fascinating adventures associated with catching criminals.

E. Poe combined all these influences in his work: in five short stories from his extensive legacy, all the fundamental principles that the authors of detective literature have followed for more than a hundred years have been developed. Poe himself, who highly valued the “analytical powers of our minds,” called these short stories stories of inference. They are still read with great interest today. This Murder in the Rue Morgue, which started the tradition of the “mystery of the locked room” story; golden beetle, the progenitor of hundreds of stories based on deciphering the cryptogram; The Mystery of Marie Roger– experience of purely logical investigation; Stolen letter, which successfully confirms the theory that the only explanation remaining after all others have been rejected must be correct, no matter how improbable it may seem; You are the man who did this, where the killer turns out to be a person above suspicion. Three of these stories feature the gentleman S. Auguste Dupin, the first great detective in fiction - categorical in his judgments, despising the police, more a thinking machine than a living person.

Despite Poe's discoveries, the detective story began to establish itself as a popular literary form only with the rise of regular government-paid police forces and their detective units in the 1840s. The spread of the detective story as the most popular reading is connected, according to literary scholars, with the weakening of the religious principle in society, as well as with acute social problems, which in real life were not always resolved and are resolved successfully, while in the detective story the “law of the genre” is victory good over evil, justice over lawlessness. Charles Dickens, who was keenly interested in the activities of the underworld and detective methods, created in Bleak House(1853) a very convincing image of Inspector Bucket from the detective department. Dickens' long-time friend and sometimes co-author W. Collins brought out in the novel Moon rock(1868) of the detective, Sergeant Cuff, whose prototype was Inspector Whicher, and showed how his hero comes to startling, but logical conclusions from the facts known to him. In any case, in these, as well as in other detective stories, there are obligatory characters - a criminal, a detective, a victim, who, depending on the social and genre orientation of the work, can be various representatives of society.

By the time A. Conan Doyle presented the general public with the image of Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective in world literature, the detective story was already an established genre, to which many authors turned (E. Gaboriau, Collins, F. Hume, etc.). The basis of this genre (as evidenced by Doyle’s work) is the presence of two storylines, which are based, as a rule, on two conflicts: between the victim and the criminal and between the criminal and the detective, lines that can intersect and are deliberately confused by the author, but certainly lead to a denouement that explains everything incomprehensible, mysterious and mysterious. Another “law of the genre,” according to Doyle, is the prohibition on making a criminal look like a hero.

For the first Sherlock Holmes novel, Study in crimson tones(1887), books of stories followed, thanks to which the great detective and his assistant Dr. Watson became known almost throughout the world. The best of these collections are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes(1892) and Notes about Sherlock Holmes(1894). Today, what attracts most about these short stories is the charm of the era recreated in them and the image of Holmes himself. A self-confident, egocentric intellectual who also takes drugs, he not only appears as a surprisingly lively person, but also evokes great sympathy. Conan Doyle developed the type of “great detective” and thereby greatly contributed to the growth of the popularity of the detective story. In England, prominent followers of Conan Doyle included A. Morrison (1863–1945), who invented the investigator Martin Hewitt; Baroness Orcy (1865–1947), who created an unnamed master of logical deduction, whom other characters call simply "The Old Man in the Corner"; R. Austin Freeman, inventor of the "reverse" detective story, in which the reader knows everything about the crime from the very beginning; E. Brahma, the “father” of the first blind detective in literature, etc. In America, the tradition of Conan Doyle was supported by M. Post, the author of the famous stories about Uncle Abner, and A. Reeve (1880–1936) with his detective Craig Kennedy.

The greatest masters of detective fiction of this period were the English writer G. Chesterton (1874–1936) and the American journalist J. Futrell (Futrel) (1875–1912). Chesterton's stories about the Catholic priest as detective, especially in the collections Father Brown's Ignorance(1911) and The Wisdom of Father Brown(1914), are witty examples of the genre. Futrell, author of two books about Professor Augustus S.F.C. Van Dusene, who is called a “thinking machine,” is almost as inventive as Chesterton. In the Holmesian tradition, although with the opposite sign, are the short stories of Conan Doyle's son-in-law E. Hornung about the adventures of the amateur burglar Raffles and the stories of M. Leblanc about Arsene Lupin; both authors ignored Conan Doyle's instruction that a criminal should not be made a hero.

Leavenworth case(1878) by Anna Catherine Green was the first significant American detective novel. Mary Roberts Rinehart gained fame as the creator of the “If only I had known then...” school: in any of her works, a phrase with such a beginning sooner or later sounds from the mouth of the narrator. Among the books of the early 20th century, the novels of the Englishman A. Mason (1865–1948), in which the giant detective from the Sûreté M. Anot operates, are still interesting. The Mystery of the Yellow Room(1909) by G. Leroux (1867–1927) remains one of the most cleverly twisted locked-room crime stories, and Trent's last case(1913) E. Bentley is one of the first detectives, where the detective appears as a living person, and not as a thinking machine.

The First World War significantly changed the nature of detective fiction. The novel has supplanted the short story as a form that allows for the development of a more complex plot with unforeseen twists of intrigue and denouement. In the so-called “golden age of the detective story,” spanning 1918–1939, literature was enriched with many images of new detectives. Agatha Christie in her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles(1920) introduced readers to the mustachioed intellectual Hercule Poirot. Three years later, Lord Peter Wimsey, the hero of Dorothy Sayers, appeared, and three years later, readers were alternately delighted and irritated by S.S. Van Dyne's detective, the extremely erudite rake Philo Vance. The list of authors who created the images of colorful detectives is extensive: F. Crofts (Inspector French), E. Queen (detective Ellery Queen), J. Carr (Dr. Gideon Fell and - in books under the pseudonym Carter Dixon - Sir Henry Merivale), E. Berkeley (Roger Sherigham), F. MacDonald (Anthony Getrin), and in the “second wave” (1930s) - E. Gardner (Perry Mason), Margery Allingham (Albert Campion), Nyo Marsh (Roderick Alleyne), M .Innes (John Appleby), N. Blake (Nigel Strangeways) and R. Stout (Nero Wolfe). All of them are British or American authors.

Master detective of the second half of the century - J. Simenon; his books about the French police inspector Maigret began to appear in the late 1920s. In addition to Simenon, the European detective story is represented by the works of J. Le Carré, S. Japrisot and others, which differ from the American detective story by a certain nostalgic sadness and a virtual absence of irony.

In the 1920s, one of the first works of the detective genre in Russia was Engineer Garin's hyperbole A.N. Tolstoy and Mess-Mend M.Shaginyan, as well as anonymous pseudo-translation Nat Pinkerton.During the years of Soviet power, the detective conflict between good and evil was considered in line with class contradictions, which led to a more “purer” form of the genre - the spy novel (brothers Weiner, A.G. Adamov, Yu. Semenov).

Detective prose richly presents a variety of plot devices and techniques. Some authors showed how cast-iron alibis are refuted; others specialized in locked-room murders; still others sought to deceive the reader in every possible way. A cunning deceptive trick was invented in The murder of Roger Ackroyd(1926) Agatha Christie, which caused outrage among her colleagues: her murderer turned out to be the narrator, who performs the function of Dr. Watson in the novel. Monsignor R. Knox, who himself wrote detective stories, formulated the “Ten Commandments of the Detective Story,” which every author who sought to become a member of the closed British “Detective Writers Club” was obliged to observe. They seriously considered expelling Agatha Christie from the club.

Over time, the great detective, this egocentric amateur, began to resemble a living person a little more, and his Watson gradually disappeared from the story. Although the classic detective story represented by the early books of J. Carr, E. Quinn and S. Van Dyne provided masterpieces of impeccably constructed intrigue, its lack of depth and psychological characterization began to irritate readers. Dorothy Sayers predicted that the form might become exhausted "for the simple reason that the public will learn to recognize all the tricks." E. Berkeley refused to follow the principle of a “naked mystery”, declaring that the detective story would develop into a novel “fascinating not so much in logic as in the psychology of the characters,” and brilliantly demonstrated this in two novels about murder, which he published under the pseudonym Francis Isles: Evil intent(1931) and Before the fact (1932).

A blow to the stereotype of the great amateur detective who always knows a lot more than the stupid police officers was dealt by the American school of the “tough” detective in the person of its outstanding masters D. Hammett and R. Chandler. Hammett's Sam Spade and Chandler's Philip Marlowe are private detectives working for money, and not always big money. They are honest, but rather cruel and unscrupulous in their means. Hammett and Chandler received recognition - full in Europe, less unconditional in the USA - as serious writers, talented masters of fiction. Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and E. Queen significantly changed the characters of their heroes and took the plots of the books beyond the strict framework of the classic detective story. The last one, i.e. The mystery detective, by definition, is rare in our time: it has been greatly replaced by spy and crime novels and other types of detective stories.

The spy novel, or action-packed action novel, has long been considered a paraliterary genre, although even serious masters of literature, for example the British W. S. Maugham ( Ashenden, or British Agent, 1928) and G. Green ( Hitman, 1936) and Americans J. Kane ( The postman always rings twice, 1934) and H. McCoy ( The shroud is sewn without pockets, 1937).

The spy novel began to develop in the 1950s with the appearance of Y. Fleming's works about the secret agent James Bond. In a sense, Bond can be considered the literary heir of the great detectives. He is not omniscient, but he is invulnerable; he does not care about any dangers or torture. The Bond film owes its widespread success not so much to its dubious literary merits as to the atmosphere of omnipotence and violence that reigns in it. In addition, Fleming's novels noted another feature of the modern detective story - the principle of cyclization, when a series of works are created, united by common characters. Among the most popular detective series of this kind are the novels by the American Stout, written with a fair amount of humor, about the great gourmet detective and orchid lover Nero Wolfe and his faithful assistant Archie Goodwin. The books of J. Le Carré and L. Deighton are marked by a much more realistic interpretation of espionage. Le Carré's anti-hero spies Alex Leamas and George Sayley are outwardly unattractive and weighed down by a guilt complex; These underground characters operate in an underground world - a realm of deception, of which they themselves often become victims. In Le Carré's pen, espionage symbolizes the decay of modern society. The American R. Ludlem (1927) in such novels as Scarlatti's legacy (1971), Chancellor's manuscript(1977) and Mosaic of Parzival(1982), pits ordinary, unsuspecting citizens against conspirators operating on an almost global scale - a paranoid plot taken as a model by many modern authors. Themes of terrorism, in particular neo-Nazism, have become widespread. F. Forsythe novel Dossier "Odessa"(1972) coined the term "Odessa", the code name for a secret organization of former SS officers, and in Dog of War(1974) made mercenaries full-fledged literary characters.

The most obvious difference between a detective novel and a crime novel is that in the first the reader knows exactly as much as the detective knows, and in the second - no less than the criminal knows, and the main thing in the story is not solving the mystery of the crime, but depicting it and capturing the criminal. The portrayal of police work gradually came to the fore, as evidenced by E. McBain's novels about the 87th police station or J. Wembo's books about the Los Angeles police. At the center of these works is the unsightly reality of police everyday life: corruption, bribery, deception, working with informants. The poetics of the “cool” detective perfectly corresponds to the cruel and rough atmosphere of the crime novel.

Eccentric detectives have not disappeared from literature. M. Collins brought to Fear(1966) by one-armed Dan Fortune, and in the novels by J. Chesbrough Shadow of a Broken Man (1977), The Case of the Sorcerers(1979) and Bloodtide Incident(1993) features the most colorful private detective in modern literature - the dwarf Mongo, a former circus performer, professor of criminology and holder of a black belt in karateka. A significant innovation in the genre was the emergence of female detectives who have a license to investigate and cope with dangerous cases no worse than men. For example, Sharon McCone in the novels of Marcia Mueller Edwin Iron Boots(1978), Sunday is a special day(1989) and others or Kinsey Millhone, the sharp-tongued private eye, the heroine of Sue Grafton's detective stories, arranged in alphabetical order: “A is for Alibi” (1982), “B is for Fugitive” (1989), etc. .

Some modern writers have gone beyond the formal boundaries of the detective story in their work; the most prominent of them are L. Sanders, G. Kemelman, the “father” of the restless detective-rabbi David Small, D. Francis, F. James, J. MacDonald and E. Leonard.

Modern Russian detective in the 1990s - early. In the 2000s, it developed rapidly and became the most popular genre, attracting a diverse reading public. Among the most popular authors of the early 2000s in Russia are B. Akunin, the author of detective stories written on the verge of the genre with their mixture of mysticism, intellectual games and dashingly twisted plots; F. Neznansky, the author of quite “classical”, but created on Russian material, series of novels about Turetsky, E. Topol, A. Konstantinov and other authors, the number of which is steadily growing. Female “detectives” have become a phenomenon of recent years in Russian literature: A. Marinina, P. Dashkova, T. Polyakova, T. Stepanova, who stands out against the general background with her wild imagination and stylistic refinement of her “pulp fiction.”

The detective genre has proven to be very tenacious and continues to develop in many countries, taking on various forms - there are detective drama, detective stories, novellas, social, ironic, psychological, fantasy and other detective stories. All of them attract readers with the opportunity to escape from “daily matters” and focus all their attention on solving ingenious mysteries or on chilling stories that happen to someone else and promise in the end the desired triumph of justice.