| Detective fiction has suffered from being relegated to the lowly status of "pop" fiction, the result, in part, of codification during its "golden years" early in the twentieth century. This period set the standard for "classical" detective fiction, against which other works were to be measured. Once the pure "puzzle" story of detection fell out of fashion and detective fiction became recognisably more complex and literary, critics began to invent complicated terms to describe these stories, still by implication assuming that they constituted deviants from the basic formula.; This study sets out to show that far from being deviant or a new development, complex metaphysical novels of detection have existed from the inception of the genre alongside the "pure" or "puzzle" kind, and proposes a list of literary "classics" which fulfil more closely the definition of "anti-detective" novels supposedly only sprung into existence in the late twentieth century. Furthermore, it argues that a metaphysical dimension is inherent to the genre, which even in its "pure" form necessarily presents a moral stance regarding good and evil, justice, retribution and healing, the individual and the law.; Even the pure detective story, supposedly simple (in a pejorative sense) regarding characterisation, depth of matter, or structure, presents interesting complexities. By its very essence, the detective narrative juxtaposes different time frames as it proceeds with an investigation while reconstructing the past, giving it a structural complexity beyond its allegedly straightforward linear progression. Some authors, as early as the nineteenth century, wrote detective stories which, far from being simple, foreshadow the twentieth century technique of fragmentation of narrative and present early examples of what has been described as the architectonic novel.; Detective fiction shares many features with myth and epic. Above all the detective, in his quest for the truth and for justice, takes on the dimension of mythical hero as he or she strives to heal the disruption to society that the crime represents. Unlike mythical heroes from the past or modern ones of "pop" culture, detectives, Cartesian in attitude and principle, triumph not through force but through reasoning---they think, therefore they are. |
