tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post3199601925574192846..comments2024-03-17T06:01:06.495-07:00Comments on The Passing Tramp: Myths of the Golden Age 2:Tough Eggs and IntellectualsThe Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-54799727684232573782015-05-06T03:19:15.966-07:002015-05-06T03:19:15.966-07:00Lucy, I agree with you in toto. Thanks for the co...Lucy, I agree with you in toto. Thanks for the comment on what turned out to be a rather disputatious posting of mine!The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-27672337018460252582015-05-05T10:07:54.961-07:002015-05-05T10:07:54.961-07:00Dorothy Sayers certainly quotes a lot of great lit...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.<br /><br />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. Lucy R. Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08632983296994349550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-87544103937066080922015-05-02T21:54:28.106-07:002015-05-02T21:54:28.106-07:00I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Ju...<strong>I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Julian Symons.</strong><br /><br />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.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-53439534131418129162015-05-02T15:12:27.869-07:002015-05-02T15:12:27.869-07:00I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Ju...I would never stomp on books by Lucy Worsley or Julian Symons.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-25172437047343530772015-05-02T14:54:48.577-07:002015-05-02T14:54:48.577-07:00Symons, for what it's worth, has for his dismi...<strong>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.</strong><br /><br />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). <br /><br />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! <br /><br />People should read the kind of books they enjoy.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-85025095477612620772015-05-02T14:41:29.805-07:002015-05-02T14:41:29.805-07:00Symons, for what it's worth, has for his dismi...<strong>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.</strong><br /><br />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). <br /><br />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.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-56299299845089913062015-05-02T12:39:31.363-07:002015-05-02T12:39:31.363-07:00I agree about naturalism, but there's a closer...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. The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-43426671341715959412015-05-02T12:24:45.048-07:002015-05-02T12:24:45.048-07:00The hardboiled school too looked back to the 19th ...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. :)Xavierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05702919450638993709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-661397978413237932015-05-02T10:04:30.791-07:002015-05-02T10:04:30.791-07:00"I'm sure Sayers would have snorted in de..."I'm sure Sayers would have snorted in derision at any suggestion that she was one of the giants of 20th century literature."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-34428777289520917572015-05-02T09:34:44.925-07:002015-05-02T09:34:44.925-07:00You're right, dislikes is too strong a word, b...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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-69535433908866591522015-05-02T00:56:04.853-07:002015-05-02T00:56:04.853-07:00She writes about her great admiration for Sayers a...<strong>She writes about her great admiration for Sayers and Gaudy Night here:</strong><br /><br />I've just read Worsley's piece on Sayers and <em>Gaudy Night</em>. 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.<br /><br />What's really amusing is that Worsley was outraged by Symons' suggestion that <em>Gaudy Night</em> is essentially a “woman’s novel” and yet that's exactly how she approaches the book. She approaches it as a romance novel.<br /><br />Symons, despite his belief that crime fiction could be literature, understands that crime fiction should have something to do with crime.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-10437648482271517762015-05-02T00:22:18.788-07:002015-05-02T00:22:18.788-07:00I don't believe Sayers wanted to "tear do...<strong>I don't believe Sayers wanted to "tear down the evil patriarchal literary canon" when she wrote Gaudy Night</strong><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><strong>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</strong><br /><br />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 <strong>some</strong> literary critics do have political agendas. <strong>Some</strong> 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. <br /><br />I'm sure Sayers would have snorted in derision at any suggestion that she was one of the giants of 20th century literature.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-44393170127807790552015-05-02T00:02:18.487-07:002015-05-02T00:02:18.487-07:00I don't even think Symons did dislike Tey. He ...I don't even think Symons did dislike Tey. He certainly disliked <em>Daughter of Time</em> but his overall assessment of her work is quite favourable. dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-10302357090064697812015-05-01T23:27:46.098-07:002015-05-01T23:27:46.098-07:00I don't believe Sayers wanted to "tear do...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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-5045603549779482202015-05-01T23:15:10.103-07:002015-05-01T23:15:10.103-07:00It's certainly an honest reflection of what Sy...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).<br /><br />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"?<br /><br />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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-79711549934352090682015-05-01T22:58:56.236-07:002015-05-01T22:58:56.236-07:00Yes, I have admiration for Symons as a critic, eve...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!The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-35947224578631482532015-05-01T20:23:31.613-07:002015-05-01T20:23:31.613-07:00Symons is quite out of step on Tey, who is more po...<strong>Symons is quite out of step on Tey, who is more popular than ever</strong><br /><br />I've just reread the section of <em>Bloody Murder</em> dealing with Tey. It seems to me to be remarkably fair. She was a moderately competent second-rank (at best) writer and <em>Daughter of Time</em> is ludicrously over-praised. It's a mess.<br /><br />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. dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-45834021180953799862015-05-01T20:10:33.962-07:002015-05-01T20:10:33.962-07:00It's clear a lot of people share Worsley's...<strong>It's clear a lot of people share Worsley's great admiration for Gaudy Night.</strong><br /><br />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. dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-53650397523671228152015-05-01T20:01:20.023-07:002015-05-01T20:01:20.023-07:00the role of a critic is not to win popularity cont...<strong>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</strong><br /><br />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.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-37968691951068035952015-05-01T10:56:46.417-07:002015-05-01T10:56:46.417-07:00Fascinating point, Xavier. Golden Age detective fi...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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-3601309087561408082015-05-01T10:46:40.442-07:002015-05-01T10:46:40.442-07:00Is that really what Worsley thinks - that GAUDY NI...<i>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><br /><br />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) Xavierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05702919450638993709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-12433017153073032192015-05-01T09:32:33.215-07:002015-05-01T09:32:33.215-07:00I tend to agree with Barzun on this point, I shoul...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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-40252931992359543202015-05-01T08:38:37.086-07:002015-05-01T08:38:37.086-07:00I hope you get a chance to take a look at it somed...<i>I hope you get a chance to take a look at it someday.</i><br /><br />Believe me, it's on my list of books to look out for! I'm much looking forward to reading it in due course.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-84862273924070383392015-05-01T08:17:55.850-07:002015-05-01T08:17:55.850-07:00D, yes, I would agree, the role of a critic is not...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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-14148084815396343532015-05-01T08:14:26.127-07:002015-05-01T08:14:26.127-07:00As I recollect Worsley writes that she could make ...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:<br /><br />http://www.lucyworsley.com/why-i-love-dorothy-l-sayers-and-why-you-should-too/<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com