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JUST_JOSHI
September 11, 2006
May 25, 2008
The "low arts" in
literature are often
somewhat neglected by Here meaning, mystery
academic scholarship. novels, science fiction,
fantasy, comic books... Delany's term:
So instead, we're "paraliterature".
left with the One might object,
attention of pointing at the UMBERTO_NET
volunteer critics ubiquitous
arising out of the undegraduate
ranks of the fan surveys...
press.
But that's just it: they're
Science Fiction at surveys, and almost always
least has been very undergraduate level.
lucky to get some Though they
intelligent critics sometimes Write a thesis about
(James Blish, and complained Robert Heinlein, if you
Samuel R. Delany come of the likes like, but don't expect
to mind). of Moskowitz. to get to teach a class
in that specialty later...
More often than not
we're left with the Or, say,
likes of S.T. Joshi... Darryl
Schweitzer DELANY
I sincerely appreciate the
fact that he's working on POV
projects like the annotated
editions of H.P. Lovecraft
stories...
ROERICH
And his study of the works of
the fiction of John Dickson Carr
shows some admirably detailed
scholarly work (an amazingly
thorough bibliography). The
literary criticism, however
leaves something to be desired.
It's subtitled "A Critical
Study" and Joshi seems to have (Yes, we might think of someone
"critical" confused with else with similar problems.)
"opinionated".
For example, he repeatedly complains
that Carr's humor isn't as funny as
P.G. Wodehouse, as though Wodehouse When I say *repeatedly*
were the sole measure of all things I mean repeatedly: like Did Carr
humorous... every chapter, if not *ever* claim
every other page. to be
Certainly Carr was not often funny in emulating
the same way that Wodehouse was funny. Wodehouse?
Typically, Carr went for a broader humor, Not to my
sometimes heavy on the old slapstick... knowledge.
Oh no, someone conked The
Captain on the head with a
whisky bottle *again*!
The wheeled suitcase rolls away
Sometimes I think the downhill, everyone chases it,
jokes work, sometimes including a gang of screaming
they don't... kids and a pack of barking dogs;
it hits a bump, bounces and pops
As far as mystery open dumping it's contents on
writers go, Carr the head of someone standing in (But then,
was pretty amusing. their front yard. Joshi
actually
A better question *liked*
would be, was Carr as this one.)
funny as Thorne Smith?
Then there's a scene in (And I would have to
"Suspect Below" that Joshi say, no, not usually.)
quotes to demonstrate
the insufferable character
of Carr's Patrick Butler:
Butler is a lawyer, defending
a woman accused of murder, SUSPECT_BELOW
trying to figure out what's
going on in her head.
He suddenly stops and thinks:
"... 'she's falling for me!'
His female clients often did,
and it was damned awkward."
And that's it, that's
Joshi's main evidence.
Is the trouble that Butler is
insufferably conceited, or that Actually, I've heard that this is
he does better with women than a fairly common syndrome:
the critic? consulting professionals like
doctors, lawyers and psychologists
However, the Butler character have to deal with clients that
certainly *is* conceited, but form emotional attachments.
much better evidence exists: he
likes to make pronouncements
like "I am never wrong."
Now myself, I thought it was
interesting that this "Patrick
Butler" appears to have been
inspired by a detail in a SUSPECT_BELOW
Chesterton story. I was
congratulating myself on spotting a
nerdy detail that Joshi had missed,
but I see that he had spotted it
(or perhaps more likely, had it
pointed out to him) and relegated
it to a footnote, claiming that he
was unconvinced that it was
anything other than a coincidence.
Now, John Dickson Carr:
o was a noted admirer of Chesterton. An early Chesterton
collection: "The
o based his major detective Club of Queer Trades".
character on Chesterton.
A Carr collection:
o wrote a story ('Unicorn Murders') "The Department of
about a flamboyant French thief named Queer Complaints"
Flamande, ala Chesterton's thief
Flambeau.
... and wrote about a defense
attorney named "Patrick Butler",
just as Chesterton did.
And Joshi takes that as a coincidence?
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