Thursday, April 30, 2015

Myths of the Golden Age 2:Tough Eggs and Intellectuals

Two other myths of the Golden Age--ones that surfaced in the recent popular studies by Lucy Worsley and the late PD James--are (1) intellectuals had contempt for the Golden Age "classic"--i.e., puzzle-oriented--detective novel (until, arguably, Dorothy L. Sayers lifted it above contempt with Gaudy Night) and (2) American crime fiction in the Golden Age consisted mostly of works by hard-boiled writers, like Raymond Chandler, who also had contempt for British detective fiction. The situation actually is much more complex than these formulations allow, something that I and some other contributors to Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene, discussed last year in the book.

Of course Doug Greene, through his work on John Dickson Carr and other writers, has done much to examine the rich vein of Golden Age American "classic" detective fiction. He also, incidentally, has highlighted the post-WW2 aesthetic feud between Carr and Chandler that arose out of Chandler's famous essay deriding classical detective fiction, "The Simple Art of Murder." This essay, which Chandler acknowledged was deliberately polemical, for decades established the view that Chandler had disdain for all British detective fiction.  "Chandler despised the English school of crime writing," writes PD James, who then quotes Chandler's famous, amusing line that "the English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers."

Hater? Raymond Chandler
However, as I discuss in my Raymond Chandler essay, "The Amateur Detective Just Won't Do: Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction," Chandler in fact was an admirer of two British detective novelists who sometimes have been dismissed as dull ("Humdrum" even), Freeman Wills Crofts, a major subject of my book Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery who recently has been reprinted by the British Library, and R. Austin Freeman, whom in Masters I dub the father of the so-called "Humdrums."

The crime writer and once highly influential critic Julian Symons likened reading Austin Freeman, an author I greatly enjoy myself, to chewing straw.  Chandler certainly did not agree and in fact wrote quite fondly of Freeman's fiction. He saw Freeman and Dashiell Hammett as masters of two different sorts of crime writing. Freeman's writing had "immense leisure," Chandler allowed, but "within his literary tradition" Freeman was, insisted Chandler, "a damn good writer."

In addition to Crofts and Freeman, Josephine Tey and Michael Innes were other British crime writers Chandler enjoyed. The view that Chandler despised the "English school of crime writing" just does not hold. To better understand Chandler's more nuanced view of British detective fiction, one must look at more than his "Simple Art" essay.

For starters I would suggest people might take a look at mine. (but naturally!)  In it I argue that what Chandler really disliked about the "English school of crime writing" was the privileged gentleman amateur detective, today most associated with the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.  About the gentleman detective of classic mystery Chandler could get rather scalding.

There was an immensely rich tradition of classical, puzzle-oriented detective fiction in the United States, but as scholarly studies have focused increasingly on the English Crime Queens to the exclusion of everyone else who worked within the classical tradition, these writers seem to have receded in both popular and academic awareness.

The appetite for puzzle-focused detective fiction in fact broke quite a few boundaries.  For a time it was immensely popular with intellectuals, as I and Henrique Valle discuss in Mysteries Unlocked. More on that to come.

35 comments:

  1. once-influential critic Julian Symons

    I know, I know, I know, but personally I think that adjective's misguided: so far as I'm concerned, he still is influential. And, while I've sometimes enjoyed reading the humdrums, I think he was perfectly correct in his appraisals of the like of Crofts and Freeman. When he talks about the way the heart plummets, while reading a Crofts novel, when the [adjective redacted] railway timetable is whipped out to prove that X couldn't have been where he said he was, I'm right there with Symons.

    On the other hand, the rail-buff husband of my beloved cousin loves that sort of stuff, so obviously it's a matter of taste.

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    1. Thanks very much for the comment. I thought about that before writing it because I knew it might sound provocatively dismissive, but the truth is lately I'm finding myself explaining to more people just who Symons was exactly (not to mention his rival Jacques Barzun). This honestly has come as a surprise to me. I'm nearing my half-century mark, and the debate Symons and Barzun had from the 1970s into the 1990s over the merits of the crime novel and the detective story certainly influenced me (and I know did other people around my age), but lately I've wondered if this is something we have been moving past.

      Now the British Library is reprinting forgotten "classic" mysteries, including ones by Crofts, to what seems to be great favor. Crofts' Antidote to Venom is being praised for moving, gripping, writing--something that absolutely turns everything Symons said about Crofts its head! Even when I was writing Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery (2012), I wasn't trying defend Crofts as a literary stylist, though I do defend his virtues as an ratiocinative detective novelist (what Chandler called an "honest" craftsman). If I were writing Masters today, would I be as concerned as I was about dealing with Symons' arguments so comprehensively? I don't know.

      I do strongly agree with Chandler that Austin Freeman is not a dull writer, merely an old-fashioned one. It's not straw-chewing at all for me (or, if it is, I must like straw). But I still think Symons' Bloody Murder is the best genre history out there currently, even though I disagree with a lot of it. It's better as a comprehensive genre history, certainly, than the PD James and Lucy Worsley books, which follow him generally, though they more highly value the British Crime Queens Sayers, Allingham and Marsh.

      People often forget that Symons' comments about Sayers could be quite withering. Lucy Worsley threw Bloody Murder on the floor and stamped on it after reading what Symons wrote in it about Sayers. Now, that's rejection! One think I can say about myself, I was never moved to stamp on Bloody Murder, not even when he dissed the Humdrums!

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    2. Okay, I edited to "once highly-influential." I think that might be a tad less controversial, and fairer.

      But what an irony it seems that John Bude and M. Doriel Hay are, I presume, selling more copies of their novels these days than Julian Symons (and don't get me wrong, the very talented Symons was far more important in the history of the genre, as a fiction writer). Interestingly. House of Stratus brought Symons, Crofts and Freeman all back into print some fifteen years ago. Crofts has now entered the British Library stable. Crofts' The Hog's Back Mystery is ranked #2808 on amazon.uk; Symons' The Players and the Game (a very good book) 2,183,913. Crofts was too nice a man ever to say Ha! but, gee whiz, that's some difference.

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    3. Lucy Worsley threw Bloody Murder on the floor and stamped on it after reading what Symons wrote in it about Sayers.

      That almost makes me feel a real fondness for Symons!

      The problem with books like Gaudy Night is that when detective fiction (or any genre fiction) starts to move in the direction of mainstream fiction it almost invariably becomes much less successful as genre fiction. As a detective novel Gaudy Night is mediocre. Personally I think it's mediocre as mainstream fiction as well.

      Actually I agree with you about Bloody Murder. Even when I totally disagree with Symons his criticism is still stimulating and thought-provoking. Which is I guess what being a critic should be all about. And Symons most certainly did not worship at the altar of the Crime Queens, a major factor in his favour.

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    4. I'm not so surprised that Symons's fiction has fallen from favor; I always came away from his novels feeling that I'd enjoyed them but that they'd somehow failed to deliver. But I've read Bloody Murder several times, and know exactly where my old battered Penguin of it is on my shelves -- which is more than I can say of most of my books!

      The other study of the field that I've read more than once just for pleasure is Colin Watson's Snobbery with Violence.

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    5. I own three editions of Bloody Murder and two of Snobbery with Violence and they are much marked, though often in disagreement! But I would urge anyone interested in the history of the genre to take a look at Bloody Murder especially. Still, my own published work challenges the Symons-Watson extensively I hope you get a chance to take a look at it someday. Martin Edwards' book should implicitly challenge a lot of Symons and Watson although I don't know how explicit Martin will be about this. But it seems to me you can't write the kind of book Martin evidently has written without challenging central views of Symons and Watson about the Golden Age.

      Certainly a lot of modern readers will disagree with Symons' take not just on Sayers but also on Josephine Tey. Symons is quite out of step on Tey, who is more popular than ever. It's not just a matter of the old argument with Barzun about the value of the puzzle-oriented tale vs. the "crime novel"; it's Symons dismissive takes as well on Sayers' later books, on Tey and a number of pulp and women suspense writers that a lot of people would question today, I think. A lot of modern scholarship is re-embracing the past in ways Symons did not, though as Sergio says, he had his favorites too from the period, like Christie and the earlier Carr and Queen. No slouches they!

      Interestingly, as I mentioned in the blog piece, Chandler praised Tey highly!

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    6. I hope you get a chance to take a look at it someday.

      Believe me, it's on my list of books to look out for! I'm much looking forward to reading it in due course.

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    7. Symons is quite out of step on Tey, who is more popular than ever

      I've just reread the section of Bloody Murder dealing with Tey. It seems to me to be remarkably fair. She was a moderately competent second-rank (at best) writer and Daughter of Time is ludicrously over-praised. It's a mess.

      But Tey was female so of course she must have been a neglected genius who was unfairly neglected because of sexism. Read Val McDermid's bizarre article on Tey to get a taste of this sort of thinking.

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    8. It's certainly an honest reflection of what Symons thought about Tey. And it's certainly out-of-step with popular opinion today. This doesn't of course mean automatically that Symons is wrong. I have been known to be out of step with popular opinion myself over the years and naturally when I was I thought I was the one who was right (sometimes, however, I have been known to change my mind).

      I have to say, though, that I think it's rather sweeping of you to attribute what you see as base political motivations to everyone who might like Tey. How can you know what everyone else who likes Tey thinks? Anthony Boucher was a great Tey fan, as, I have noted was Chandler. Chandler usually isn't seen as one of history's great feminists. Do we really think Chandler praised Tey because she was, as you invariably put it, "female"?

      One could, if one wants to attribute political motivations to people, argue that Symons disliked Tey because he found her conservatism distasteful. Like I wrote above, I think a big factor in Chandler's disliking the Crime Queens was that he hated their detectives, whom he deemed hoity-toity and insufferable.

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    9. I don't even think Symons did dislike Tey. He certainly disliked Daughter of Time but his overall assessment of her work is quite favourable.

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    10. You're right, dislikes is too strong a word, but he certainly undervalues Tey, relative to many people today; and he is quite clear about this: "Many rate Josephine Tey more highly than I do." He sees her as belonging to the past and as not being someone of true significance in the development of the modern crime novel. It's a point that can be debated, but it isn't really productive just to sweepingly denigrate the motivations of people who rate Tey more highly than Symons.

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  2. I would agree with John that Symons remains highly influential, in the sense that here we are, discussing him! BLOODY MURDER went into several editions over a period of a quarter of a century, which just isn't true of any other such work in the field. But I think you are right Curtis - is he being read less and less? I think so. His own fiction was never especially popular, which is understandable given the lack of a series character (same as Margaret Millar after all) and I don't see that changing really. With regard to the Worsley, let's not exaggerate - it is only his comments about GAUDY NIGHT that infuriated her (I think he's right and she's dead wrong). It certainly doesn't say much for her acumen as a historian if that is her reaction to what is a pretty well reasoned argument - on the other hand, behaving like a petulant child does sum up the basis in her reaction, and does no disservice to Symons what so ever - she just loves GAUDY NIGHT, and in her adoration is just not interested in a rational critique of its quite remarkable snobbery and lack of plot. Symons is extremely positve about many of Sayers' earlier books, as he is about so many of the best of the Golden Age writers of the 20s and 30s such as Van Dine, Philip MacDonald, Queen, Carr, Allingham, Blake etc etc. Indeed, what really gets my goat is how little credit Symons gets for being so positive about both the British and American school, as praiseworthy of Carr's plotting as he is is of Hammett's prose.

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  3. Sergio, I agree that Symons definitely praises a number of Golden Age authors, but all the same, I can see why Sayers fans like Worsley, who deem Sayers a significant contributor not merely to detective fiction, but to *literature*, dislike Symons' take in Bloody Murder, which I think is pretty crushing about Sayers' higher literary ambitions for her genre fiction (what is his line, there is a tremendous gap between aim and achievement?). But I never endorse book-stamping as a response to literary criticism. After all, I wouldn't want anyone to stamp on Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery!

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    1. Is that really what Worsley thinks - that GAUDY NIGHT deserves to be in the same place as works by Proust, Hemingway, Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, Bulgakov, Huxley, Thomas Mann, Edith Wharton, Pirandello, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, all of whom were her contemporaries in the 20s and 30s? Anybody who thinks Sayers was writing great literature in that sense clearly hasn't read any.

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    2. Anybody who thinks Sayers was writing great literature in that sense clearly hasn't read any.

      Spot on. My first chuckle of the morning.

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    3. Is that really what Worsley thinks - that GAUDY NIGHT deserves to be in the same place as works by Proust, Hemingway, Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, Bulgakov, Huxley, Thomas Mann, Edith Wharton, Pirandello, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, all of whom were her contemporaries in the 20s and 30s? Anybody who thinks Sayers was writing great literature in that sense clearly hasn't read any.

      I have long thought that crime fiction is the last refuge of those who haven't made their peace with literary modernism, be them readers, critics or writers. It's most particularly true of Sayers who was definetely *not* a modernist and whose works have their roots in nineteenth-century and earlier fiction - I doubt most of the writers Sergio mentions would have met her standards for "great literature". The same can be said of most of her followers (P.D. James wrote very much as if the twentieth century never happened)

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    4. Fascinating point, Xavier. Golden Age detective fiction was part of the modern movement, even though many of the authors were critical of literary modernism. But the "manners mystery" movement was looking back, I think as well, to the 19th century, as do James and Rendell. Who was James always praising as her models--Trollope, Austen, Collins. The American hard-boiled authors wanted to change mystery fiction as well, but they were looking ahead with it, not back.

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    5. The hardboiled school too looked back to the 19th century - but not the same one as Sayers and al. James M. Cain owes a great debt to Zola, Norris and Dreiser for instance and his brand of crime fiction is but a repackaging of the naturalistic novel. Chandler was not a modernist either. I don't think modernism ever set a foot in crime fiction, though some writers used modernist/post-modernist techniques (Philip MacDonald, Bill S. Ballinger, Reginald Hill in his later works or the newly-grandmasterized James Ellroy) Crime fiction is a deeply conservative genre, formally if not always politically. :)

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    6. I agree about naturalism, but there's a closer link to authors of the 1920s and 1930s, like Hemingway, to cite perhaps the most obvious example.

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  4. As I recollect Worsley writes that she could make a case for classing Gaudy Night among the great 20th century novels. She writes about her great admiration for Sayers and Gaudy Night here:

    http://www.lucyworsley.com/why-i-love-dorothy-l-sayers-and-why-you-should-too/

    It's clear a lot of people share Worsley's great admiration for Gaudy Night. It's one of the books from the 20th century that has increased in public estimation over the years.

    It's interesting that, despite their disagreements over the years, Symons and Barzun (who loved Gaudy Night by the way), ultimately had some agreement about the possibility of elevating the crime novel to equal status, potentially, with "great literature." In the last edition of Bloody Murder Symons came to express doubt about this attempt, despite his advocacy for the crime novel. Of course Barzun, more modestly bu still admiringly, viewed crime and mystery fiction as tales.

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    1. I tend to agree with Barzun on this point, I should add. I know Michael Dirda, surely one of the best-read men in the world, agrees about the worth of the tale. Being a good storyteller is an admirable thing.

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    2. It's clear a lot of people share Worsley's great admiration for Gaudy Night.

      A lot of people have a vested interest in wanting to believe it's a great book and that Sayers was a great writer. Just as many female critics have a vested interest in wanting to tear down the evil patriarchal literary canon and replace it with one that is more to their liking. They love the idea of getting rid of those Dead White Males and replacing them with women writers, and if the women writers happen to be second-rate that doesn't bother them a bit. The quality of the writing is irrelevant. It's all about the cause.

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    3. I don't believe Sayers wanted to "tear down the evil patriarchal literary canon" when she wrote Gaudy Night. I'm not going to get into to sweepingly attributing political motivations to those who have responded favorably to Gaudy Night over the years. I can only attempt to judge these things on an individual basis, when I have studied the people, as in the case of my Chandler essay. I'm a great admirer of the writing of Willa Cather and Edith Wharton and would be rather exasperated if someone just pronounced to me, oh, you only like those writers because they are women and you're trying to make some political point. First, it would be rather uncivil to me, I think, and, second, it's just plain wrong. I like them, because, yes, I think they are great writers.

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    4. I don't believe Sayers wanted to "tear down the evil patriarchal literary canon" when she wrote Gaudy Night

      I don't think so either. In fact I'm quite sure such an idea would never have occurred to Sayers. There are however some modern critics and academics who would like to do just that.

      and would be rather exasperated if someone just pronounced to me, oh, you only like those writers because they are women and you're trying to make some political point

      I have no problem with liking women writers. I do believe that we don't do women writers any favours by over-praising the ones whose achievements don't merit such praise. It takes away from the achievements of truly great women writers. When someone like Worsley makes extraordinary claims for someone like Sayers one does have to at least suspect that there might be a political agenda. And there's no question that some literary critics do have political agendas. Some do in fact have base political motivations. Of course it would be insane to suggest that everyone who praises a woman writer does so for such reasons.

      I'm sure Sayers would have snorted in derision at any suggestion that she was one of the giants of 20th century literature.

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    5. She writes about her great admiration for Sayers and Gaudy Night here:

      I've just read Worsley's piece on Sayers and Gaudy Night. Interesting that she talks about the book without mentioning that it includes anything resembling a detective story. In fact from reading her piece you'd have no idea that Sayers wrote detective stories. Worsley is clearly quite uninterested in such boring distractions.

      What's really amusing is that Worsley was outraged by Symons' suggestion that Gaudy Night is essentially a “woman’s novel” and yet that's exactly how she approaches the book. She approaches it as a romance novel.

      Symons, despite his belief that crime fiction could be literature, understands that crime fiction should have something to do with crime.

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  5. D, yes, I would agree, the role of a critic is not to win popularity contests or to sell people's books, but to give forthright opinions about what s/he really thinks.

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    1. the role of a critic is not to win popularity contests or to sell people's books, but to give forthright opinions about what s/he really thinks

      And the saving grace of Symons is that he really was honest about what he really thought, even when it weakened his overall case. I'm sure he would have loved to have hated the early Philo Vance mysteries but he had to admit that judged on their own terms they were pretty darned good and thoroughly enjoyable. He was prepared to advance his own agenda energetically but he was not prepared to be intellectually dishonest about it, and he was not prepared to withhold praise when it was deserved. That basic substratum of honesty is the reason Symons is still very much worth reading on the subject of crime fiction.

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    2. Yes, I have admiration for Symons as a critic, even though I often disagree with him. One thing, though, Bloody Murder should have had endnotes!

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    3. "I'm sure Sayers would have snorted in derision at any suggestion that she was one of the giants of 20th century literature."

      Yet she also had great ambitions for Gaudy Night and was quite proud of its success. I'm sure she would be pleased that some people today think it was a great success in "elevating" the detective novel into something of literary distinction.

      I have done a lot in both Masters and "Was Corinne's Murder Clued" to highlight Sayers' commitment to the detective novel of manners. Frankly I regret how she came in some ways to look down on the puzzle-oriented mysteries and I myself would have preferred that she had written more strong detective novels rather than shift to "middlebrow" novels with a crime elements, like Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. But her books became more popular than ever when she did that, because she reached a new group of readers who wanted precisely what she was offering. And these readers weren't all agenda feminists, surely. I would hazard to guess most of them simply were people looking for books with characters they care about. No doubt Gaudy Night's exploration of women's roles in society appealed to some of these readers.

      Symons, for what it's worth, has for his dismissal of Mary Robert Rinehart (saying her books read as if specifically written for "maiden aunts"), been accused of having a sexist perspective himself. I think that arguably he just didn't appreciate the woman's domestic novel of the period. He's much more interested in mean streets than killer kitchens. As someone who likes those books, I'm glad women scholars have revived interest in them (men have done so too, incidentally). I hope many of them have done so because they genuinely believe these writers are good writers. I think writers like Rinehart, Holding and Millar, etc., can stand on there own as notable writers within their field.

      As for Lucy Worsley, I posted a five-part review of her writing on Golden Age detective fiction, and, yes, I find it inadequate. I don't get the impression that she really has much interest in detective fiction, outside of, yes, Gaudy Night and the rest of the Harriet Vane saga. Her book was a companion volume to a BBC series she presented and, while I haven't seen the series, the book left quite a lot to be desired in my view. Getting someone to write the companion volume who apparently didn't have much interest in Golden Age detective fiction was, I think, a mistake; but she was the series presenter--and a capable and popular one--and she is a well-known name in UK, so it's not surprising that's what was done.

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    4. Symons, for what it's worth, has for his dismissal of Mary Robert Rinehart (saying her books read as if specifically written for "maiden aunts"), been accused of having a sexist perspective himself. I think that arguably he just didn't appreciate the woman's domestic novel of the period.

      Perhaps he just felt that domestic novels and crime fiction don't mix. I personally enjoy gothic fiction very much but generally speaking I don't want vampires running about in detective stories. I'm suspicious of the idea of "genre-bending" - occasionally it works but mostly it doesn't (for me at least).

      And I'm always sad when successful genre writers suddenly decide they want to become "real" writers and turn against the genres in which they initially made their reputations. I feel that in some ways they're saying that they were happy to have genre fans buying their books when they were struggling but now they don't want anything to do with those awful genre fiction fans. To me it comes across as literary snobbery.

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    5. Symons, for what it's worth, has for his dismissal of Mary Robert Rinehart (saying her books read as if specifically written for "maiden aunts"), been accused of having a sexist perspective himself.

      That's something that does irritate me. Everyone, even a literary critic, is entitled to have his own tastes. A lot of women dislike action thrillers. That doesn't mean they're sexist. It's just a genre that doesn't happen to appeal to them. Many men don't like romances. That doesn't mean they're sexist. It's just a genre that doesn't appeal to them. Men and women do have different tastes in books (although obviously there's a lot of overlap).

      Even Lucy Worsley is entitled to her own tastes. As long as she's happy to allow other people to have their own tastes I don't have a problem with that. I'm happy that she enjoys Sayers so much. So long as she doesn't mind the fact that other people don't like Sayers. And so long as she doesn't go around stomping on books by critics who don't like Sayers!

      People should read the kind of books they enjoy.

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    6. I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Julian Symons.

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    7. I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Julian Symons.

      Precisely. Disagreement is fine. It's healthy. But talking about stomping on books because one disagrees with them suggests an unwillingness to tolerate dissent or to engage in debate.

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  6. Dorothy Sayers certainly quotes a lot of great literature. Perhaps this persuades some that she wrote great literature herself. I like her books: they are witty, and give an insight into the past. She also quotes an awful lot of minor, justly forgotten literature, and it gets rather irritating.

    Good writing is good writing (and she wrote well). Just because mysteries are a "despised genre", we don't have to claim they are great literature to get them the respect they deserve. Another thing I like about the genre is that it gives scope for more social observation (and satire) than straight novels. Also, there is usually a large cast of different "types", instead of a small, stifling, respectable middle-class milieu, full of people with perfect taste and refined sensibilities.

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    1. Lucy, I agree with you in toto. Thanks for the comment on what turned out to be a rather disputatious posting of mine!

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