The Ideal
Detective Story
By G.K. Chesterton
Illustrated London News October 25, 1930
Reprinted in <Generally Speaking> and
<Chesterton on Shakespeare>
There has been some renewal of debate on the
problem of the problem story; sometimes called the police novel, because it now
consists chiefly of rather unjust depreciation of the police. I see that Father
Ronald Knox has written a most interesting introduction to a collection of
tales of the kind; and Mrs. Carolyn Wells, the author of an admirable mystery
called "Vicky Van, " has reissued a study on the subject. There is
one aspect of the detective story which is almost inevitably left out in
considering the detective stories. That tales of this type are generally
slight, sensational, and in some ways superficial, I know better than most
people, for I have written them myself. If I say there is in the abstract
something quite different, which may be called the Ideal Detective Story, I do
not mean that I can write it. I call it the Ideal Detective Story because I
cannot write it. Anyhow, I do think that such a story, while it must be
sensational, need not be superficial. In theory, though not commonly in
practice, it is possible to write a subtle and creative novel, of deep philosophy
and delicate psychology, and yet cast it in the form of a sensational shocker.
The detective story differs from every other story
in this: that the reader is only happy if he feels a fool. At the end of more
philosophic works he may wish to feel a philosopher. But the former view of
himself may be more wholesome - and more correct. The sharp transition from
ignorance may be good for humility. It is very largely a matter of the order in
which things are mentioned, rather than of the nature of the things themselves.
The essence of a mystery tale is that we are suddenly confronted with a truth
which we have never suspected and yet can see to be true. There is no reason,
in logic, why this truth should not be a profound and convincing one as much as
a shallow and conventional one. There is no reason why the hero who turns out
to be a villain, or the villain who turns out to be a hero, should not be a
study in the living subtleties and complexities of human character, on a level
with the first figures in human fiction. It is only an accident of the actual
origin of these police novels that the interest of the inconsistency commonly
goes no further than that of a demure governess being a poisoner, or a dull and
colourless clerk painting the town red by cutting throats. There are
inconsistencies in human nature of a much higher and more mysterious order, and
there is really no reason why they should not be presented in the particular
way that causes the shock of a detective tale. There is electric light as well
as electric shocks, and even the shock may be the bolt of Jove. It is, as I
have said, very largely a matter of the mere order of events. The side of the
character that cannot be connected with the crime has to be presented first;
the crime has to be presented next as something in complete contrast with it;
and the psychological reconciliation of the two must come after that, in the
place where the common or garden detective explains that he was led to the
truth by the stump of a cigar left on the lawn or the spot of red ink on the
blotting-pad in the boudoir. But there is nothing in the nature of things to
prevent the explanation, when it does come, being as convincing to a
psychologist as the other is to a policeman.
For instance, there are several very great novels
in which characters behave with what might well be called a monstrous and
terrible inconsistency. I will merely take two of them at random. By the end of
the book we are successfully convinced that so very sympathetic a woman as Tess
of the D'Urbervilles has committed a murder. By the end of the book we are
(more or less) convinced that so very sympathetic a woman as Diana of the
Crossways has betrayed a political secret. I say more or less, because in this
latter case I confess to finding it, so far as I am concerned, an example of
less. I do not understand what Diana Merion was doing in the <Times>
office; I do not understand what Meredith meant her to be doing; but I suppose
Meredith understood. Anyhow, we may be certain that his reason was, if
anything, too subtle, and not, as in the common sensational story, too simple.
In any case, broadly speaking, we follow the careers of Tess of the
D'Urbervilles and Diana of the Crossways until we admit that those characters
have committed those crimes. There is no sort of reason why the story should
not be told in the reverse order; in an order in which those crimes should
first appear utterly inconsistent with those characters, and be made consistent
by a description that should come at the end like a revelation. Somebody else
might first be suspected of betraying the secret or slaying the man. I suppose
nothing would have turned Hardy aside from hounding Tess to the gallows, though
it might have been some gloomy comfort to him to have hanged somebody who had
not murdered anybody. But many of Meredith's characters might have betrayed a
secret. Only it seems possible that they might have told the secret in such an
ingenious style of wit that it remained a secret after all. I know that there
has been of late a rather mysterious neglect of Meredith, to balance what seems
to me (I dare to confess) the rather exaggerated cult of Hardy. But, anyhow,
there are older and more obvious examples than either of these two novelists.
There is Shakespeare, for instance: he has created
two or three extremely amiable and sympathetic murderers. Only we can watch
their amiability slowly and gently merging into murder. Othello is an
affectionate husband who assassinates his wife out of sheer affection, so to
speak. But as we know the story from the first, we can see the connection and
accept the contradiction. But suppose the story opened with Desdemona found
dead, Iago or Cassio suspected, and Othello the very last person likely to be
suspected. In that case, "Othello" would be a detective story. But it
might be a true detective story; that is, one consistent with the true
character of the hero when he finally tells the truth. Hamlet, again, is a most
lovable and even peaceable person as a rule, and we pardon the nervous and
slightly irritable gesture which happens to have the result of sticking an old
fool like a pig behind a curtain. But suppose the curtain rises on the corpse
of Polonius, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discuss the suspicion that has
immediately fallen on the First Player, an immoral actor accustomed to killing
people on the stage; while Horatio or some shrewd character suspects another
crime of Claudius or the reckless and unscrupulous Laertes. Then
"Hamlet" would be a shocker, and the guilt of Hamlet would be a
shock. But it might be a shock of truth, and it is not only sex novels that are
shocking. These Shakespearean characters would be none the less coherent and
all of a piece because we brought the opposite ends of the character together
and tied them into a knot. The story of Othello might be published with a lurid
wrapper as "The Pillow Murder Case." But it might still be the same
case; a serious case and a convincing case. The death of Polonius might appear
on the bookstalls as "The Vanishing Rat Mystery," and be in form like
an ordinary detective story. Yet it might be The Ideal Detective Story.
Nor need there be anything vulgar in the violent
and abrupt transition that is the essential of such a tale. The inconsistencies
of human nature are indeed terrible and heart-shaking things, to be named with
the same note of crisis as the hour of death and the Day of Judgment. They are
not all fine shades, but some of them very fearful shadows, made by the primal
contrast of darkness and light. Both the crimes and the confessions can be as
catastrophic as lightning. Indeed, The Ideal Detective Story might do some good
if it brought men back to understand that the world is not all curves, but that
there are some things that are as jagged as the lightning-flash or as straight
as the sword.
http://chesterton.org/gkc/artist/selfport-20.html