Beyond Authenticity

Mulholland Drive (2001) forms the centerpiece of the final chapter, which assesses not only cinema’s recent transformation of the detective story but also David Lynch’s exploration of the genre’s multiple ancillary pleasures. So enthralled is he by them that the film comes to seem a meta-investigation, reducing any over-arching plot to sustained uncertainty if not complete irrelevance. Instead, it has been displaced by the beguiling divergences offered from the beginning by hard-boiled divergences. In a film in which all the ingredients of “furniture,” attitude, and identity are present (including a femme fatale, flashbacks, noirish lighting, and identity reconstructed) nothing finally adds up, or is meant to. That may be the most satisfying conclusion to a genre vehicle born of diversion and misdirection.

The Comfort of Crime: The Appeal of Formulaic Fiction during the Pandemic

2020 was taxing, and one of the comforting ways of dealing with the uncertainty the COVID-19 pandemic has brought was reading. It seems hardly surprising that the British turned to crime fiction, which they not only avidly consume but also successfully produce. Moreover, 2020 marked the centenary of the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a novel that introduced Agatha Christie and her first detective, Hercule Poirot. The anniversary partly accounts for the resurgence of interest in classic detective fiction. Over the last one hundred years the genre has undergone various developments and diversifications, but this article offers a look back at its past. Acknowledging Jesper Gulddal and Stewart King’s objections to defining crime fiction as formulaic (2020), it draws on John G. Cawelti’s classic work on the mystery and detective story formulas (1976) to addresses the popularity of crime fiction during the pandemic. It contends that while the immense appeal of the crime genre stems from its adaptability, it is the oft-criticised basic mystery formula that offers the greatest comfort during such challenging times.

Paròdia sobre paròdia. C. A. Jordana reescrit per Mercè Rodoreda

This paper proposes a reinterpretation of plot parallelisms between El collar de la Núria (1927), by C. A. Jordana, and Crim (1936), by Mercè Rodoreda. The comparative analysis aims to show how Crim, in addition to working as a parody of the principles of the detective story, can be read as a parody of an earlier parody of the same genre – that is, the text by Jordana. This rewriting exercise strengthens the hypertextual link between these two novels and results in what we may call, following the terminology by Gérard Genette, a hyperparody.

Taxonomy as a Genre and Cycle-Forming Pattern of “Fandorin corpus” by B. Akunin

The issue of classification as the leading principle of organizing the set of texts by B. Akunin about Erast Fandorin are considered in the article. Particular attention is paid to the manifestation of this principle at the level of genre organization of texts and at the level of semantic and character components of works. The relevance of the study is due to the identification of the semantic constant of the metacycle about Erast Fandorin. It has been proved that the principle of taxonomy in the Fandorin corpus has two variants of manifestation — at the level of metacycle organization and at the level of semantics of the key motive of a classic detective — explaining the method used by the detective. The results of a comparative analysis of the image of Fandorin and his literary predecessors: detectives, derived in the texts of the authors of a classic detective story, are presented, and it is proved that Fandorin is the only one who explains in detail his method of investigation based on psychological classification. The authors dwell on the fact that the explanation of the method of investigation is an element of an intertextual game with the reader and at the same time, the opposition of the Russian detective to his English and American literary predecessors. At the same time, the principle of taxonomy is played up in the intertextual dialogue within the Fandorin corpus — other characters in this metacycle also resort to typing.

FABULA WHEEL AND PLOT MOVEMENT: HOW THE MOTIVIC COMPLEX WORKS IN A.P. CHEKHOV

The article considers the plot-forming potential of the invariant Chekhov pattern, which involves paired characters - the doctor and the investigator. Using the example of several texts ("Perpetuum mobile", "On Official Duty", "Drama on the hunt", "Investigator", "Ward No. 6"), we can see how this template works in different genre contexts (romantic novel, Christmas story, detective story) and how these contexts intersect with each other. Common to consider situational template are the motives of feeling and the vicious circle, which charged a mixed modality and intersect with the motive of theatricality, which, in turn, is associated with professional reflection, combining the figures of doctor, investigator and writer. Special attention is paid to the story "Drama on the Hunt", which is updated as a metatext, in which - against the background of the doubling of the character system - an additional semantic dimension of hunting as a narrative strategy is formed. The final texts of the group under consideration can be considered the stories "On Official Duty" and "Ward No. 6", in which a sense of duty and professional guilt is comprehended through an updated motivational complex.

Ruritania by the Sea

Seaside resorts frequently served as locations of murder mysteries in Golden Age detection fiction, since these destinations could provide a diverse clientele, confined to manageably small groups essential to classic detective stories. The fictional seaside town of Wilvercombe serves as the location of Dorothy L. Sayers’s detective novel Have His Carcase (1932), in which Lord Peter Wimsey and detective-story writer Harriet Vane investigate the case of a man found dead on the beach. The location of the body turns out to be a source of confusion: while the detectives expect a traditional locked-room mystery to unfold (albeit in an open-air setting), the death cannot be resolved until the detectives realize that they are working in the wrong genre: instead of a clue-puzzle mystery, they are trapped in a Ruritanian romance, with outlandish tales of intrigue, unlikely members of the Russian aristocracy, and exaggerated and oppressive performances of heterosexual romance. (BH)