Metaphysical Detective Story Research Articles

ÇÖZÜMLENMEMİŞ GİZEMLER: THOMAS PYNCHON'UN THE CRYING OF LOT 49 VE INHERENT VICE ROMANLARINDA DEDEKTİF KURGU VE PARODİ

Thomas Pynchon’s novels are noted for their postmodernist characteristics. Some of his novels also include certain features of detective fiction. In The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), the focus of Oedipa –a housewife whose name alludes to Oedipus of Sophocles— shifts to unravelling the mystery of a shadowy underground postal system, and she turns out to be an amateur ‘detective’. The challenge is that the ‘clues’ do not clarify the case, which may or may not be real. A similar pattern is available in Inherent Vice (2009), in which a professional, sandal-wearing, “pothead” detective, Larry “Doc” Sportello, is at work in 1970s California. Inherent Vice does not provide a clear, definitive resolution to the mysteries. Instead, the novel maintains ambiguity and open-endedness, allowing readers to reflect on the intricacies of the narrative and the nature of the quest itself. Thomas Pynchon plays with the detective genre by parodying generic conventions in both works. A parodic work, characterized by its dialogical nature, comically criticizes its target and simultaneously crystallizes its conventions. While utilizing recognizable tropes and characteristics of archetypal private investigators, Pynchon employs unconventional methods for solving the crime, ironic inversions, and absurdities to subvert the stereotypical portrayal of a detective. In this respect, Pynchon, with his examples of postmodern/ metaphysical detective stories, both nurtures and subverts the detective genre. In this paper, The Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice are examined regarding how Pynchon both validates and questions the established norms of the traditional detective genre by using parody.

Death and the Detective: Exploring the Elements of Metaphysical Detective Stories in Charles Bukowski’s Pulp

The change in reception and production of detective stories, which presuppose certain traditional and fixed features, to go beyond the fixed conventions of detective fiction, took place in the 60 s...

Metafictional potentiality of detective fiction and the metaphysical detective stories

The article examines metatextual devices appearing within texts whose genre affiliation — the implementation of the detective novel convention — is unarguable. Such use of selfreferential strategies is juxtaposed with their applications in texts that in English-language reflection on postmodern and modernist novels are defined as metaphysical detective stories. The article examines the genre aspects of the use of these devices and their consequences for the location of a crime novel within contemporary popular culture.

The Labyrinth and the Non-Solution: Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase and the Metaphysical Detective

Many of Murakami’s novels demonstrate his appropriation of the terminology, imagery and metaphor that are found in hardboiled detective fiction. The question of Haruki Murakami’s use of the tropes from hardboiled detective stories has been discussed by scholars such as Hantke (2007), Stretcher (2002) and Suter (2008), who argue that the writer uses these features as a way to organize his narratives and to pay homage to one of his literary heroes, Raymond Chandler. However, these arguments have not adequately addressed the fact that many of Murakami’s novels fit into the definition of the metaphysical detective story, which is “a text that parodies or subverts traditional detective-story conventions” (Merivale & Sweeney 1999:2). Using this definition as a guiding principle, this paper addresses the issue of the metaphysical detective features apparent in Murakami’s third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, and, more specifically, looks at his use of the non-solution and labyrinth as narrative devices. The main argument, then, is that Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase fits in with the metaphysical detective novel and uses the familiar tropes of the labyrinth and the non-solution to highlight our impossible search for meaning.

REBIRTH OF THE POSTMODERN DETECTIVE NOVEL

Introduction. This paper analyzes narrative changes in the detective genre, especially the influence of post-modern era on its reformation. From a metaphysical perspective, such writers as Borges, Eco, Auster, Grillet etc., contributed new narrative techniques to detective fiction. Though it traces back to ancient literature, the detective genre is a product of the XIX th century American literature.Purpose. The paper aims at revealing the features of postmodern detective novel in the focus of fundamental theories of metaphysical detective story by interpreting the samples from the novels written in this genre. The main task of this study is to investigate the features of metaphysical detective fiction.Methods. The research is based on the methods of comparative analysis, structural analysis and textual analysis.Results. By researching metaphysical detective genre, the paper reveals that such significant components of postmodern theory as rhizomatic narrative structure, intertextuality, pastiche, and parody subverted classical form of the detective novel and established new literary genreas an anti-detective or metaphysical detective novel. The paper foregrounds that metaphysical detective story is used to raise a series of questions and suspicions; the author raises interest to a mystery and avoids resolving it by the reader.Conclusions. My research findings indicate that the metaphysical detective is a sub-genre of classical detective, which comprises metaphysical elements depicting author's philosophical views to universal values in a framework of the rhizomatic structure. Metaphysical detective genre is characterized in cultural-historical aspects where the historical facts are reminded to the reader by literary devices as pastiche, parody, intertextuality and rhizomatic maze.

Sublime Gaps

This essay examines the ways in which metaphysical detective stories subvert one of detective fiction’s most emblematic features: the investigation’s resolution and the subsequent narrative closure. In the “The Man of the Crowd” (1840), the father of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe, already introduced mysteries that “[did] not permit [themselves] to be read.” Such texts enact quests for knowledge that cannot reach any kind of intellectual or emotional closure and are, instead, rewarded with more unfathomable questions. The sublime appears as a relevant concept to describe the “gaps” left open in the cognitive process of looking for answers, which will hopelessly remain beyond the detective’s — and the reader’s — reach. Including close readings of Henry James’s “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896) and Samuel Beckett’s Molloy (1951), this essay proceeds to show that the “metaphysical” character of these texts lies predominantly in their lack of faith in language as a reliable tool to convey the multiple and shifting identities of the unsuccessful sleuth confronted with the meaninglessness of his investigation.

Agatha Christie’s Secret Fair Play

This essay challenges the skepticism towards the formal and thematic complexity of Agatha Christie’s detective stories by revealing the role of covert word-play in her works. In doing so, the essay also questions the consensus in detective fiction studies that the use of covert wordplay in British and American detective stories is a distinct feature of works by postmodern authors (with the exception of Edgar Allan Poe) writing in the metaphysical detective story tradition. Combining biographical criticism, close reading, and Michel Sirvent’s concept of diegetic vs. extradiagetic clues as its critical framework, the essay analyzes Christie’s novel The A. B. C. Murders (1936) and the short story “Strange Jest” (1950) to contend that Christie uses clandestine wordplay for two purposes. On the one hand, it functions as a tool for traditional fair play by serving as clues for readers in solving the plot-level mystery. The same wordplay, however, also functions as clues within an intertextual puzzle game in which readers are asked to decipher the stories as competitive rewritings of Poe’s detective tales. As a result, the essay uncovers hitherto neglected aspects of Christie’s formal craft, particularly in terms of the device of fair play, as well as the intertextual relationship between her works and those by Poe. Moreover, it shows that Golden Age detective fiction, like its postmodern successors, also employ clandestine wordplay as a part of an intricate and sophisticated metafictional narrative design.

Maksimalistinen aivokartta. Metafyysinen salapoliisikertomus Jaakko Yli-Juonikkaan Neuromaanin tiedollisena työkaluna


 
 
 A Maximalist Map of the Brain. The Metaphysical Detective Story as a Cognitive Tool for Jaakko Yli­Juonikas’ Neuromaani.
 The contemporary encyclopedic novel is a maximalist narrative form that is based on the excess of information. In this article I hold Jaakko Yli­Juonikas’ Neuromaani (2012) as its ambassador. This as a starting point, the article focuses on arguing that the genre of the metaphysical detective story is a key cognitive tool for the reading of Yli­Juonikas’ encyclopedic novel. The encyclopedic novel describes not only a storage of information but also a process of coming to know, whereupon the reader either follows a surrogate reader (that is, the detective), or has to arrange the data inde­ pendently. As regards Neuromaani, the first of these options is problematic, since the protagonist has a multiple personality disorder, and the reader follows his hallucinations inside the brain. Simultaneously, the reader is encouraged to investigate the crime that has taken place outside the protagonist’s mind. Along with the structure of the brain, Neuromaani is arranged in the forms of a dissertation and a gamebook. It is an ergodic novel that reserves an active role for the reader. But as I argue, the metaphysical detective story plays a leading role: Neuromaani exploits conventions such as a laby­ rinthine space of investigation, an unsolvable crime, and an excessive number of clues. Moreover, the reader begins the reading as a detective, but becomes a criminal.
 
 

Gothic Traces in the Metaphysical Detective Story: The Female Sleuth in Pynchon’s <i>The Crying of Lot 49</i> and Gibson’s <i>Pattern Recognition</i>

This essay argues that William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition (the first volume of his Blue Ant Trilogy) borrows from Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 as regards plot, character, narration, structure, imagery, and theme, even as it transforms these elements to reflect a post-9/11 world. The essay particularly focuses, however, on the fear and anxiety experienced by the protagonists, Pynchon’s Oedipa Maas and Gibson’s Cayce Pollard, who are among the very few female sleuths to appear in postmodernist metaphysical detective stories. It argues that Pynchon and Gibson modeled their narratives on female gothic novels in which a heroine discovers evidence of a conspiracy against her but cannot determine whether it exists or whether she imagined it. The essay thus offers a new context in which to read Pynchon’s novel, in terms of both genre and gender, as well as extensive evidence of its impact on Gibson. At the same time, the essay argues, using the examples of Pynchon’s and Gibson’s novels, that the female gothic genre has been an important influence on the metaphysical detective story, especially its depiction of investigators who project their own interpretations onto insoluble mysteries.

The Mind and Nature of Locked Rooms: Tarjei Vesaas's Novel The Ice Palace and Metaphysical Crime Fiction

The Mind and Nature of Locked Rooms:Tarjei Vesaas's Novel The Ice Palace and Metaphysical Crime Fiction Anna Westerståhl Stenport Norwegian novelist Tarjei Vesaas's The Ice Palace (Is-Slottet 1963; English translation 1966) is a foundational text in modern Norwegian literature. As a novelist, Vesaas (1897-1970) has been characterized as one of the "foremost innovators in Norwegian literary modernism," sometimes compared to Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett (Wærp 321-22). The Ice Palace is one of Vesaas's better-known novels outside of Norway, as it won the prestigious Nordic Council literary prize in 1964, was quickly translated into English and remains in print. Doris Lessing, for example, endorsed the novel in 1993 as a remarkable and unique piece of literature, calling it "subtle," and "strong" (qtd. in Granaas, "The Body" 315), while Arnold Weinstein has recently affirmed its qualities as a masterpiece. These accolades reflect Vesaas's canonical legacy as one of very few authors "writing in Nyorsk to achieve international notoriety" (Wærp 333) and gives credibility to rumors asserting that the author at one time was being considered for the Nobel Prize in literature.1 Telling the story of a thwarted and complicated friendship between two adolescent girls, The Ice Palace is a short and dense novel full of mysterious suggestions and allusions. It is in some ways a classical piece of high-modernist narrative, characterized by psychological complexity, sophisticated schemes of shifting narrative focalization, and lyrical and poetic nature passages. The novel has most often been interpreted along these lines (e.g., Chapman 146-53; Steen 127-29), while more recent thematic interpretations center on questions of budding sexual attraction, tensions between community and individual, constructions of novelistic subjectivity and embodied practices (Granaas), and art and aesthetic representation (Kittang). [End Page 305] I seek in this article to shift the contextual field in which The Ice Palace has been ensconced for decades and show that part of this novel's significance—and its continuing appeal to audiences around the world—lies in its sophisticated manipulation of the postmodern crime genre and its reconstruction of detective fiction as a significant subset of literary modernism. By proposing such a context for what is customarily understood as one of the most canonical novels of Norwegian modernism, I wish to situate Vesaas as part of a larger collective of international writers who elaborate on established conventions of popular fiction to craft novels of stunning complexity. This means addressing The Ice Palace's allusions and veiled references to possible pre-narrative crimes, including ambiguous and ambivalent suggestions of sexual transgressions. Reading the novel in this light repositions this work in several critical ways. It situates it as part of postmodernist world literature as an early and significant counterpart to the successful international exports of Scandinavian crime fiction during the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century as a reworking of fairy-tale tropes that link landscape depiction with trauma suppression and as an implicit comment on the social reconstruction of Norway's collective response to the German invasion of their country during the Second World War. To resituate The Ice Palace in a different literary and historical context, I draw on the term "metaphysical detective fiction," which, as Merivale and Sweeney make clear, is an established term for what other scholars also call "postmodern" (Dettmar) or "anti-detective" (Tani) crime fiction. The term metaphysical detective fiction is particularly useful for analyzing The Ice Palace as it incorporates self-reflexive experimental narrative techniques that signal ambiguity and ambivalence. The metaphysical detective story shares "a kinship to modernist and postmodernist fiction," Sweeny and Merivale argue, while characterized by "the profound questions it raises about narrative, interpretation, subjectivity, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge" (1). As in earlier metaphysical detective fiction by authors such as Borges (e.g., "Death and the Compass" [1942]) or Nabokov (e.g., The Eye [1930]), it is unclear whether an explicit crime has been committed in The Ice Palace. Reading this novel as part of a postmodern interest in the crime genre's complexity allows us to rethink Vesaas's established status as a remarkable but isolated genius of...

‘The Gift of Seeing’ – ‘The Eyes of Faith’: Visuelle Evidenz und Übersinnliches in Julian Barnes’ Arthur & George und anderen neo-viktorianischen Detektivromanen

This article is concerned with the interlaced themes of visual and supernatural 'evidence' in Julian Barnes's novel Arthur & George (2005), which rewrites an episode from the life of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, concerned with a real- life criminal case. Briefly analysing how epistemological questions and modes of detection were represented in Victorian precursors of the genre (Doyle, Poe, Dickens, Collins), the article proceeds to establish the generic conventions of the 'postmodern' neo- Victorian detective novel, differentiating it from High Postmodernism's 'metaphysical detective story' and looking, apart from Barnes's novel, at Peter Ackroyd's Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (1997), and Louis Bayard's Mr Timothy (2003). In order to make visible the invisible, not only former ophthal- mologist Doyle's Sherlock Holmes but also other Victorian and neo-Victorian detec- tives - including the Doyle figure in Arthur & George - are relying on the latest visual aids such as photography, X-rays, microscopes and binoculars as well as on 'pseudo'- scientific investigative techniques such as mesmerism or seances. Especially in Arthur & George the two seemingly antagonistic discourses of rationalism and spiritualism are closely intertwined.

A Vision of Complex Symmetry

A Vision of Complex Symmetry

The Waterworks : E. L. Doctorow's Gnostic Detective Story

Readers of E. L. Doctorow's most recent novel City of God (2000) were often puzzled and perhaps disappointed to see that Doctorow, who has long been recognized as political writer and historical novelist, extended his range of interest from politics and history to an overt investigation of religious questions.1 Yet such move was clearly signaled in his preceding novel, The Waterworks (1994), where he used the form of the metaphysical detective story to meditate upon the salient questions of humanity's relationship to the cosmos. What is particularly intriguing is that The Waterworks presents vision that is heavily marked by gnostic thinking.2 On one level, we might see this as reflecting general American perspective; that is, Doctorow may be suggesting, as Harold Bloom does, that gnosticism has become the basic religion of twentieth-century America (Bloom, Omens, 27-28). On another level, however, the gnostic context reminds Americans that, even with the end of the Cold War, there is still no place of grace in the world. I don't propose to analyze The Waterworks as post-ColdWar cautionary tale, though that may be possible, nor do I want to talk about the novel as an allegory of greed in the Reagan era (Tokarczyk, Doctorow's, 151).3 Rather, I want to investigate the ways in which Doctorow uses the genre of the detective story to explore metaphysical and spiritual issues, and as by-product of this examination, I hope to stimulate discussion of this somewhat neglected novel.4 Doctorow described The Waterworks as a dark that participates in nineteenth-century storytelling conventions staked out by Melville and Poe. It's mystery of sorts, scientific detective tale (Wachtel, 187). His decision to structure the novel as detective story is fortunate for us since the narrative possibilities of the form invite us to unpack some of the book's more esoteric concerns. For The Waterworks is, among other things, an ironic commentary on the American dream and postmodern meditation on language, authorship, history, and epistemology all within the form of the metaphysical detective story. And, as detective story, The Waterworks is also story of reading and of interpretation, but here emphasis on mystery and on uncovering what is hidden advances an occult narrative that, in Mcllvaine's

Gill Plain, Twentieth Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body; Patricia Merivale and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney eds., Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism; Sean McCann, Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism

Gill Plain, Twentieth Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body; Patricia Merivale and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney eds., Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism; Sean McCann, Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism

Review: Detecting Texts: the Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism: Detecting Texts: the Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism

Journal Article Review: Detecting Texts: the Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism: Detecting Texts: the Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism Get access Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 37, Issue 2, 1 April 2001, Page 231, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/37.2.231-b Published: 01 April 2001

Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism by Patricia Merivale , Susan Elizabeth Sweeney (review)

Reed and Clarence Major (rather than just Toni Morrison), among Native Americans Diane Glancy and Gerald Vizenor (beyond Leslie Marmon Silko),and among non-minoritywritersan entire movement reachingfrom Barthto Vonnegut (with historiographicexperiments by Walter Abish, Robert Coover, Grace Paley, and Ronald Sukenickalong the way). These latterauthorsmay be missingnotjust because of Hutcheon's self-imposed limitsbutthanksto Zamora'sotherwiseconvincing conclusion:thatwhile US fiction remains influenced by the romantic reaction to Enlightenment ideas, Hispanic language literature escaped these ideas in favour of existing within the Baroque. Take away the metafictive paradigm and there are baroque styles among US contemporariesgalore. UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA, CEDAR FALLS JEROME KLINKOWITZ DetectingTexts:TheMetaphysical Detective StoryFromPoe to Postmodernism. Ed. by PATRICIA MERIVALE and SUSAN ELIZABETH SWEENEY. Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress. 1999. x + 305 pp. $45; ?35 (paperbound $19.95; ?15.50). This collection oftextsconstitutesa usefulintroductionto the genreof'metaphysical detective fiction' and offersdetailed criticalreadingsof a range of texts fromwithin this genre. The introductionto the volume considersthe distinctivefeaturesof the genre, including intertextuality;textual self-consciousness;exploration of the limits of hermeneutic understanding;and problematic subjectivities.The relation of this genre to other literarygenres and to literaryhistoryas a whole forms an important element of the argumentof the book and many of the contributorsare concerned to identifythe common themes or formaldevices thatunite textswithin the genre. As the subtitle suggests, the volume also seeks to construct a map of the literary influencesthat have shapedthe development of thisgenre:the introductionpresents this in diagrammaticform and many of the articlesalso make a case for particular patterns of influence. Poe emerges as the key figure at the origin of the genre, and there are many readings of Poe's texts within the volume. Perhapsthe most useful for anyone seekingto understandthe issues at stakein the analysisof metaphysical detectivefictionisJohn T. Irwin'sreadingof Poe and Borges,which offersa bracing and informativedetour through the debate between Lacan, Derrida, andJohnson over Poe's 'The Purloined Letter'. Accounts of Poe's founding influence on the metaphysical detective story do not draw simply on his Dupin stories: they also explore the metaphysical issues at stake in tales such as 'William Wilson' or 'The Man of the Crowd'. If Poe is seen as setting in play the epistemological and philosophical questionsthat will drive the development of the genre, Borges is read as giving these concerns their transgressive and self-conscious textual setting. Robert L. Chibka, for example, offers a persuasive and insightful account of the interpretativeand linguistic challenges inherent in a story such as 'The Garden of ForkingPaths', suggestingthat Borges'sstoryleads us eventuallyto the recognition that 'we in our libraries, like Yu in his prison cell, occupy an impossible, an untenable position' (p. 68). The development of this metaphysical genre in contemporaryfiction produces a varied canon of writers,including Umberto Eco, Georges Perec, PatrickModiano, and Thomas Pynchon, butwithin the volume as a whole the key texts are clearly those in Paul Auster's New YorkTrilogy. Auster's intertextuality,his unsettlingof narrativeidentities, and his metafictionalknowingness all make him centralto the account of metaphysicaldetective fiction offeredin thisvolume. Reed and Clarence Major (rather than just Toni Morrison), among Native Americans Diane Glancy and Gerald Vizenor (beyond Leslie Marmon Silko),and among non-minoritywritersan entire movement reachingfrom Barthto Vonnegut (with historiographicexperiments by Walter Abish, Robert Coover, Grace Paley, and Ronald Sukenickalong the way). These latterauthorsmay be missingnotjust because of Hutcheon's self-imposed limitsbutthanksto Zamora'sotherwiseconvincing conclusion:thatwhile US fiction remains influenced by the romantic reaction to Enlightenment ideas, Hispanic language literature escaped these ideas in favour of existing within the Baroque. Take away the metafictive paradigm and there are baroque styles among US contemporariesgalore. UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA, CEDAR FALLS JEROME KLINKOWITZ DetectingTexts:TheMetaphysical Detective StoryFromPoe to Postmodernism. Ed. by PATRICIA MERIVALE and SUSAN ELIZABETH SWEENEY. Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress. 1999. x + 305 pp. $45; ?35 (paperbound $19.95; ?15.50). This collection oftextsconstitutesa usefulintroductionto the genreof'metaphysical detective fiction' and offersdetailed criticalreadingsof a range of texts fromwithin this genre. The introductionto the volume considersthe distinctivefeaturesof the genre, including intertextuality;textual self-consciousness;exploration of the limits of hermeneutic understanding;and problematic subjectivities.The relation of this genre to other literarygenres and to literaryhistoryas a whole forms an important element of the argumentof the book and many of...

Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism

Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism

Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism

Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism

The Esthetics of Perversion: Gothic Artifice in Henry James and Witold Gombrowicz

Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and The Sacred Fount, like Gombrowicz’ Pornografia and Cosmos, are not only Gothic artist parables in the nineteenth-century mode but also metaphysical detective stories and self-reflexive texts in the contemporary mode. Their heroes, whether voyeurs or stage directors, manipulate other, innocent characters into the substance of their own fictions: the creation of texts is thus seen as a morally tainted endeavor.

Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical Detective Stories in Post-War Fiction

HIs paper seeks to make two points: first, what the structural and philosophical presuppositions of myth and depth psychology were to Modernism (Mann, Joyce, Woolfe, etc.), the detective story is to Post-Modernism (Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Nabokov, etc.); secondly, if such is the case, we will have established a relationship between two levels of culture, kitsch and the avant-garde, often thought to be mutually exclusive.