问答题 6 With its common interest in lawbreaking but its immense range of subject-matter and widely varying methods of treatment, the crime novel could make a legitimate claim to be regarded as a separate branch of literature, or at least, as a distinct, even though a slightly disreputable, offshoot of the traditional novel.
The detective story is probably the most respectable (at any rate in the narrow sense of the word) of the crime species. Its creation is often the relaxation of University dons, literary economist, scientists or even poets. 7 Fatalities may occur more frequently and mysteriously than might be expected in polite society, but the world in which they happen, the village, seaside resort, college or studio, is familiar to us, if not from our own experience, at least in the newspaper or the lives of friends. A story set in a more remote environment, African jungle or Australian bush, ancient China or gaslit London, appeals to our interest in geography or history, and most detective story writers are conscientious in providing a reasonably authentic background. 8 The elaborate, carefully-assembled plot, despised by the modern intellectual critics and creators of "significant" novels, has found refuge in the murder mystery, with its sprinkling of clues, its spicing with apparent impossibilities, all with appropriate solutions and explanations at the end. With the guilt of escapism from Real Life nagging gently, we secretly revel in the unmasking of evil by a rarely superhuman detective, who sees through and dispels the cloud of suspicion which has hovered so unjustly over the innocent.
Though its villain also receives his rightful deserts, the thriller presents a less comfortable and credible world. 9 The sequence of fist fights, revolver duels, car crashes and escapes from gasfilled cellars exhausts the reader far more than the hero, who suffering from at least two broken ribs, one black eye, uncountable bruises and a hangover, can still chase and overpower an armed villain with the physique of a wrestle. He moves dangerously through a world of ruthless gangs, brutality, a vicious lust for power and money and, in contrast to the detective tale, with a near-omniscient arch-criminal whose defeat seems almost accidental. 10 Perhaps we miss in the thriller the security of being safely led by our imperturbable investigator past a score of red herrings and blind avenues to a final gathering of suspects when an unchallengeable elucidation of all that has bewildered us is given and justice and goodness prevail. All that we vainly hope for from life is granted vicariously.