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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. From how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. It was a dark night in the

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Speaker 1: Naked City, which is probably ideal given all the nakedness.

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Speaker 1: But I wasn't concerned with a lack of clothing street

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Speaker 1: lighting in this room with troubless and needed answers about

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Speaker 1: the resident power of the detective story. So I went

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Speaker 1: to meet my man on forty two Street. What do

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Speaker 1: you got for me? I got some Raymond Chandler primo stuff,

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Speaker 1: the Big Sleep, the Long Goodbye. I'm thinking something a

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Speaker 1: work setting or publication date, because I've got some brother

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Speaker 1: cat feels some Gordian and I'm trying to understand the

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Speaker 1: roots of the thing. Well, why we love it? Why

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Speaker 1: we can't get enough? Okay, I have some homes around

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Speaker 1: here somewhere, how about pose the murders in the room Morgue.

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Speaker 1: We're talking eight forty one here, a killer ap real

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Speaker 1: primo stuff. But that doesn't explain why we love it? Well,

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Speaker 1: why didn't you just say something? I think I've got

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Speaker 1: the perfect thing for you right here. Hey, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert lamb Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm Christian Seger. I hope you enjoyed our little foray

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Speaker 1: into radio detective drama. There, because in this episode we

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Speaker 1: are of course going to discuss the power of detective fiction.

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Speaker 1: There's a little science in here, there's some culture or

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Speaker 1: some cultural resonance. Uh, we think you'll enjoy this journey,

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Speaker 1: this ride not unlike the journey, not unlike the ride

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Speaker 1: that a detective takes us on in a work of fiction. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the research really panned out on this one. I like,

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Speaker 1: uh that there were so many different paths that researchers

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Speaker 1: have gone down looking at how detective stories affect our

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Speaker 1: culture and our human psychology and how we come to

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Speaker 1: them as well. Yeah, and it's one of those genres

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Speaker 1: that I feel like everybody just I can pretty much

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Speaker 1: say everybody has at least dipped a toe in this

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Speaker 1: if if it's a you know, straight up detective novel

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Speaker 1: that you've read or some show that you've watched on television,

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Speaker 1: and every one is familiar with the trope and probably

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Speaker 1: has enjoyed it at some point in their life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So let's like just dabble into this for a little bit.

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Speaker 1: So what's your big experience with detective fiction? Oh, I mean,

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Speaker 1: like my earliest experiences were watching Jeremy Brett as Sherlock

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Speaker 1: Holmes and like my my family would sit down in

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Speaker 1: ones that were on PBS. Yeah, we would watch when

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Speaker 1: we were living in Canada and as a kid, that

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Speaker 1: would come on and we would watch those and my

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Speaker 1: dad would would would take them. Uh, we had tapes

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Speaker 1: with like, you know, three different cases per VHS and

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Speaker 1: so yeah, that was like my my earliest entry into

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Speaker 1: this world of detectives for sure. Yeah, Holmes is definitely

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Speaker 1: like the gateway drug for detective stories. I remember when

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Speaker 1: I was gosh, like maybe between five and seven, my

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Speaker 1: grandfather gave me this leather bound copy of homes Stories

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Speaker 1: that he got from he had like a subscription to

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Speaker 1: Reader's Digest, and I still have that. That's the like,

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Speaker 1: those those are the home stories I read whenever I

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Speaker 1: turned back to that stuff is just big tone of

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Speaker 1: of detectives. Was this the one that had the kind

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Speaker 1: of if not the original type set, then something that

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Speaker 1: was orchestrated to look Yeah, and the paper was like

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Speaker 1: like a kind of old tattered ridge to the side

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Speaker 1: of the everything, so it felt like you're reading like

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Speaker 1: a nineteenth century book. Yeah. Cool, Yeah, I think I

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Speaker 1: think we had the same volume kicking around the house,

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Speaker 1: and of course a great thing about detective fiction is

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Speaker 1: it you keep coming back to it, right, because they're

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Speaker 1: just limitless variations on it. Like like even in the

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Speaker 1: past few years, I really I really enjoyed a book

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Speaker 1: from our Scott Baker called Disciple of the Dog, which

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Speaker 1: involved a uh, a detective by the name of Disciple

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Speaker 1: Manning who has perfect just photographic memory, but also of

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Speaker 1: course is plagued with different personal problems and he's like

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Speaker 1: going up against an end of the world cult. That

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Speaker 1: sounds like the perfect example for one of the research

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Speaker 1: studies we're going to touch on later. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: you know, looking back on it, I realized that I

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Speaker 1: was more influenced I think by detective fiction in tell

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Speaker 1: vision and films, and I was by literature. I think

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Speaker 1: Holmes was obviously my big starting point, and then like

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Speaker 1: kind of detective type genre stuff within comics, especially Batman

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Speaker 1: in the whole, like detective comics idea of Batman being like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate detective. But um, for me, it

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Speaker 1: was definitely uh the Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter type stuff,

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Speaker 1: specifically with Will Graham as the detective trying to solve

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Speaker 1: these primes. Red Dragon. Yeah, I love the movie Red Dragon.

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Speaker 1: I love Man Hunter. Uh. Um. And and the new

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Speaker 1: TV show as well has been something that I've been

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Speaker 1: really into, and then just recently I've gone back and

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Speaker 1: started rewatching that nineties TV show Millennium with Lance Hendrickson.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, this is from the same guy did the

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Speaker 1: X File. Yeah, Chris Carter and um. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: basically the same premise as as a the Will Graham character.

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Speaker 1: You know, Lance Hendrickson plays this guy Frank Black who uh,

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Speaker 1: when he he's a profiler, when he comes across a

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Speaker 1: scene of a crime, he can see glimpses through the

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Speaker 1: killer's eyes and stuff like that. Yeah. So so very

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Speaker 1: similar to especially the the TV version of Will Ground

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Speaker 1: that we get with Hannibal. Yeah. Yeah, very much so.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I'd say that that the New TV show

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Speaker 1: probably pulls a little bit from Millennium, but it's a

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Speaker 1: whereas Millennium I think pulls a lot from Seven from

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Speaker 1: the movie Seven and Uh, and that movie is a

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Speaker 1: perfect example. That's another one that I loved when I

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Speaker 1: was Gosh, I think it came out like my freshman

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Speaker 1: year in college. But Um, that is, that's a movie

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Speaker 1: that really expresses that certain kind of detective drama that's

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Speaker 1: just nihilistic and this view of the world. And the

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Speaker 1: detectives themselves aren't particularly geniuses. I mean, we see Morgan

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Speaker 1: Freeman go to the library one time and read a

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Speaker 1: bunch of things about religion. But other than that, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're not like they're not like Sherlock Holmes solving this

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Speaker 1: stuff on the fly, you know. Of course, another great

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Speaker 1: example of detective fiction and film is is probably Blade Runner,

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Speaker 1: because that's one that I feel, especially on a visual level,

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Speaker 1: like really resonates with everyone, and it drew from you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of classic motifs as well as a new kind

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Speaker 1: of cyberpunk vibe. Yeah. Yeah, Blade Runner, like more than

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of things that are called noir nowadays,

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Speaker 1: incorporates the genre of noir into science fiction. Now. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: we could keep going just talking about like the various

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Speaker 1: detective stories that you and I have read and the

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Speaker 1: film variations, um, and as well as just all the

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Speaker 1: stuff that's out there and in the popular culture, because

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Speaker 1: it seems like every other TV show is some sort

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Speaker 1: of police procedural or some sort of detective story that's

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Speaker 1: going on. You could just name them one after another,

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Speaker 1: but at heart, like, what is the what are the

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Speaker 1: basics of the detective story. Yeah, there's something inherently comforting

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Speaker 1: about the detective story, whether it's on TV or you're

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Speaker 1: reading just like a pulpy paperback novel. But essentially, what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here is crime fiction that centered around

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Speaker 1: a single investigation, which is almost always a murder. Right,

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Speaker 1: every every investigator, a police officer, is a homicide detective

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Speaker 1: in these because that's the most serious, right, that's the

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Speaker 1: most potent, life shattering, existential thing you could possibly look exactly.

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Speaker 1: They're not like usually going after an arsonist, although that's

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Speaker 1: pretty serious as well. You know, you're breaking the law.

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Speaker 1: You're also just like the law in a legal sense,

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Speaker 1: but also in a moral sense, you've committed a crime

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Speaker 1: and to God. Yeah, and there's a there's an aspect

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Speaker 1: to murder as well that plays into the aesthetics of

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Speaker 1: the detective drama that we'll get into later, but in particular,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's this idea that they are a professional

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Speaker 1: that's usually outside of the institutions of law somehow, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Sherlock Holmes for instance, was a private investigator. He didn't,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't a part of the police force, he didn't

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Speaker 1: work for Scotland Yard And and in a lot of

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Speaker 1: the examples that we were just talking about, all those

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Speaker 1: all those various characters Will Graham, Frank Black, uh Decker

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Speaker 1: from Blade Runner, they're all operating on their own, outside

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Speaker 1: of the system, even though there's somewhat connected to it. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like the so many of our detectives. There at least

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Speaker 1: if they are still on the force and still part

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Speaker 1: of beneficial system, then they're there. There may be a

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Speaker 1: little bit dirty, or at least they're damaged by what

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Speaker 1: they're having to deal with. Yeah. Absolutely, Which, Okay, one

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Speaker 1: last example here, which I think we should get into

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Speaker 1: a True Detective, which was huge last year when it

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Speaker 1: came out. I don't know about you, but I was

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Speaker 1: massively influenced by it. It's one of the best things

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Speaker 1: that I've ever seen, just completely television fiction. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: uh and obviously, you know, without giving anything away, that

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Speaker 1: story is very much about guys who are part of

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Speaker 1: the police force but are just torn to shreds by

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Speaker 1: you know, the things that they see in the the

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Speaker 1: drama of this murder that they're trying to solve. It's

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Speaker 1: a serious of murders, that's right, And new season kicking

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Speaker 1: off I think this weekend. So yeah, cross your fingers.

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Speaker 1: I really hope that it's good too. Yeah, We've we've

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Speaker 1: had some The first trailer that came out was a

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Speaker 1: little uh, felt a little off uh. And then when

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Speaker 1: we learned that there wasn't going to be an occult

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Speaker 1: um theme in this one, that was also maybe a

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Speaker 1: little disappointing to some of us. But I think it's

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, it's going to be like, um,

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Speaker 1: the whatever, the follow up to Mad Max Fury Road

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Speaker 1: is right, like the criticism the praise has been so

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Speaker 1: high for that and and was so high for season

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Speaker 1: one of True Detective, that no matter what happens, people

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Speaker 1: are going to be critical of it and and find

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Speaker 1: a reason for to kind of shoot it down, you know.

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Speaker 1: But I'm hoping to have, you know, like we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here that just like the fun experience of a

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Speaker 1: detective ride, but also something that will statiate me sort

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Speaker 1: of intellectually. Yeah, and you know, he said there wasn't

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Speaker 1: gonna be anything occult in this particular season, but he

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Speaker 1: didn't see anything about aliens. So I'm holding out hope

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Speaker 1: that alien invasion in California is going to be the

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Speaker 1: subplot here that sounds to about halfway. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: a perfect use of Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams um.

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Speaker 1: But indeed, the detective story oftentimes centers around murder. You

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Speaker 1: could you could even make a case that one of

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Speaker 1: the oldest, if not the oldest detective stories out there,

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Speaker 1: with its roots and in the Bible and pre biblical sources,

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Speaker 1: is that of kine Enabel, right, right, And we were

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Speaker 1: talking about this earlier and my reaction was really the

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Speaker 1: detective And to give your answer, I think it's intriguing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the the detective here is God, etective God on the scene.

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Speaker 1: And granted he doesn't even have a very hard case

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Speaker 1: because there's one suspect, period and they're what you know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're they're only a handful of people in the

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Speaker 1: world in this particular scenario. So God comes on the

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Speaker 1: scenes that a Caine who killed Abel, and then he

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Speaker 1: nails him for the crime. Right, Yeah, it's not it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a one and done who done it? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and judges him dishes out punishment like everything is. We'll

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Speaker 1: discuss like there's a lot in the Cane enable uh

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Speaker 1: story that uh that is that is kind of that

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Speaker 1: distilled detective story. Yeah, and plays out over the centuries.

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Speaker 1: Is detective stories go on? But so I think like

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Speaker 1: the one that really kicked things off though, for like

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Speaker 1: the the current genre that we think of would be

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Speaker 1: Edgar Allen Poe's Murders of the Room Morgue are sorry

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Speaker 1: Murders in the Room Morgue, which we reference to the intro. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was one and uh and that one, that one

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Speaker 1: is often cited as being one of the really early

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Speaker 1: key detective stories that that that that really influences everything

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Speaker 1: to come there after. And there's this surge in the

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Speaker 1: mid to late nineteenth century with detective stories, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: Poe really kicks it off, but that's when you get

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and and

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Speaker 1: and and lots of others. Also early twentieth century as well,

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Speaker 1: with Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterson, Uh what else? Oh,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the list goes on and on. Chandler

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Speaker 1: and Dashel Hammett, Yeah, the the the Philip Marlowe books,

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Speaker 1: which I read one of those and and really loved it,

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Speaker 1: and I keep meaning to pick up more because yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've read a lot Chandler's short stories, but I've never

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Speaker 1: read the Marlowe stuff. Yeah it's good. It's good. Um yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you you do see kind of I mean, certainly,

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Speaker 1: detective fiction is almost has a viral consistency because it

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Speaker 1: it spreads out. It starts as this kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: the classic Golden Age stuff, which is which is often

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Speaker 1: all about like a very intellectual individual using their intellect

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Speaker 1: to solve this crime. Uh, and then it, you know,

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Speaker 1: it spreads into different countries and in different cultures and

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Speaker 1: then into different sub genres, etcetera. Of course, the the

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Speaker 1: the the the hard boiled detective fiction becomes really big

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Speaker 1: in the United States, which is and it kind of

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Speaker 1: takes off as its own thing, and that's very different

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Speaker 1: from what we're thinking of as this sort of traditional

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century detective drama where hard boiled detectives or you know,

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Speaker 1: they've always got that self narration kind of like you know,

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Speaker 1: the gritty It was a dark and stormy night, and

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Speaker 1: everybody's corrupt, the all organizations are corrupt. And there's this

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Speaker 1: cycle of violence that the detective finds themselves trapped within

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Speaker 1: their almost like an anti hero, right yeah. And it's

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Speaker 1: it's less a matter of like one intellect against the problem.

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Speaker 1: It's it's like the detectives and the hard boiled fiction.

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Speaker 1: They tend to be as much gut and heart and

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Speaker 1: lust I guess too, as they tangle with various fin fatales. Right, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: fim fatals spent out of that. We've also got, you know,

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Speaker 1: coming up on I don't know, I wonder when the

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Speaker 1: police procedural officially started. Do you think the seventies? Uh? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean you probably earlier than that, right, because you

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Speaker 1: have like dragnet and stuff. Yeah, I guess right. Dragnet

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Speaker 1: was what late sixties? Yeah, I think so, okay, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: but police procedurals are everywhere now. I mean it's like

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Speaker 1: every time I don't have cable, but anytime I'm like

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Speaker 1: at a hotel or something and I flip through the channels,

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Speaker 1: it's like of TV is uh, shows with acronyms that

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Speaker 1: I don't understand that are about various detective solving crimes yea,

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Speaker 1: And those are I guess they're more almost a return

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Speaker 1: to the the intellectual detective in a sense, because here

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Speaker 1: is the you know, they have individuals, of course, individ

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Speaker 1: characters in the shows, but it seems to be more

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Speaker 1: about here is a system, and here's a science, and

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Speaker 1: the system and the science works, and it works in

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Speaker 1: a ways of course on TV that it doesn't actually

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Speaker 1: in real lite, right absolutely. Yeah. I had a big

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Speaker 1: wake up call with that when I served as former

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Speaker 1: on a jury duty and they had a forensic expert

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Speaker 1: coming and present to the jury as they often do

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Speaker 1: in cases, and it was nothing like like C S

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Speaker 1: I or any of those things, and even you know,

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Speaker 1: the expert themselves, so there wasn't a lot of uh

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Speaker 1: certainty with the science that they were performing. But that

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Speaker 1: that's a whole another episode, which I think it would

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Speaker 1: be fun to talk about. Forensic science is fascinating, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we're surrounded by police procedurals. I think serial

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Speaker 1: killer mysteries like we've been you know we were talking

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Speaker 1: about earlier, those are kind of my jam the millennial

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Speaker 1: type stuff for Hannibal Lecter, Like there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: popularity of that right now, probably since the nineties. I

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Speaker 1: would say, um, seven maybe kicked that off, although you know,

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Speaker 1: you could go back further that Thomas Harris stuff started

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Speaker 1: in the eighties, I think so, yeah, yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: uh yeah, there are a number of books that kind

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Speaker 1: of Another one is Falling Angel by William Hortsburg. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that one. Um. William Hortsburgh wrote the screenplay

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Speaker 1: to legend and then Falling Angels made into the fairly

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Speaker 1: lackluster in my opinion film Angel Heart with Mickey Rourke

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Speaker 1: and Robert de Niro. I have heard about Angel Hart,

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Speaker 1: but I've never seen it. Okay, yeah, the book the

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Speaker 1: books look pretty fun though, because it's very much this

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Speaker 1: uh this hard boiled detective story but with satanic elements. Okay,

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Speaker 1: sounds right at my alley. All Right, I'll check it out.

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Speaker 1: So forgive this. We're gonna continue to get a little

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Speaker 1: off topic talking about various examples of the detective genre here,

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Speaker 1: but to return to the mid eighteen hundreds, particularly to

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Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties, because that's when you really see the

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Speaker 1: boom happen like full force. Um. And there are a

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Speaker 1: number of interesting factors to take into accoun about the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. UM. First of all, industrialization and the growth

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Speaker 1: of literacy. You have more people than ever that are

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Speaker 1: able to read. You have new machinery that's pumping out

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Speaker 1: more books than ever. They're sold in stalls that you're

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Speaker 1: you know, your local metro station, and you have a

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Speaker 1: growing population of readers who tend to go for more

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Speaker 1: sensational content, more entertaining content, rather than you know, upper

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Speaker 1: crust stuff. This is so we're talking books for the

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Speaker 1: middle class. Um, yeah, and I think that there's a

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Speaker 1: there's a connection there too. We're gonna talk about the

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Speaker 1: influence of religion on the detective story, and there's a

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Speaker 1: connection there's certainly between the emergence of literacy and the

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Speaker 1: lower classes and the availability of books too pretty much anybody,

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Speaker 1: and that the connection of sort of roles of religion

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Speaker 1: shifting away from the church into detective stories. Indeed, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, and granted at the time as well, you

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Speaker 1: actually had real detectives out there, you know, there were Um,

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Speaker 1: it was about this time that the Metropolitan Police in

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Speaker 1: London created its detective branch. Um it was two but

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties there was one particular case in

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Speaker 1: which you had Jack Whicher of the Detective Branch making

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Speaker 1: headlines investigating a sensational child murder. That's a great, great name.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't make that, which Jack Witcher does.

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Speaker 1: Yeah you could. It sounds made up, but this is

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Speaker 1: the dude's name. Every time Jack Witcher gets his name. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know if if he did. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how the case actually turned out. I'm

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Speaker 1: curious to know. But but in a way it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: the key here was that it ended up in the headlines,

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Speaker 1: and so people were were fascinated by the story of

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Speaker 1: this real life detective. And we have all the crime

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Speaker 1: fiction popping up as well. And then, as you mentioned

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Speaker 1: on the religion angle, um, there's a strong case to

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Speaker 1: be made and it's made rather elegantly, I think by

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Speaker 1: crime writer Jason Webster in two thousand fifteen Ian mag

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Speaker 1: As an article titled Unholy Mystery, and essentially he argues

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Speaker 1: that the that the modern detective serves as a sort

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Speaker 1: of secular shaman um he or she is the priest,

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Speaker 1: the inter mediary between God and man, between truth and man. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That can no longer exist entirely within the religious world

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Speaker 1: because our world view continues to break free from the

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Speaker 1: shackles of religious thinking. I really like this idea. It's

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Speaker 1: something that I had been thinking about independently, not particularly

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Speaker 1: about detectives, but about storytelling in general, that that fiction,

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Speaker 1: modern day fiction especially sort of serves the same role

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Speaker 1: that a shaman or a priest used to serve in

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Speaker 1: a small kind of microcosm community like we used to

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Speaker 1: think of. And Uh, this this, this definitely plays out

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Speaker 1: in his uh, his thesis, I guess for this piece, right,

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Speaker 1: he talks about how detectives like shamans are the problem

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Speaker 1: solvers for their community. There's somebody who can restore order

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Speaker 1: when there's chaos. Uh. They give us answers. This is

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Speaker 1: a quote directly from his piece. They give us answers

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Speaker 1: to the most pressing and urgent questions, not only who

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Speaker 1: done it, but how and why and what the means

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Speaker 1: are and uh, and all of it's done through the journey, right,

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Speaker 1: which we which we brought up earlier. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: all about the journey. That's the that's the fun experience

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Speaker 1: of it. I would this is gonna be a weird connection,

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Speaker 1: but I'd liken it to watching a cooking show actually, like,

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Speaker 1: like there's pleasure in watching people bake a cake on TV.

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Speaker 1: They're going through all the steps putting the ingredients together

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Speaker 1: and the thing comes out right. And the detective story

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Speaker 1: is very similar, and that the detectives going through this

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Speaker 1: journey collecting this evidence, seeking out hints and clues, and

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Speaker 1: then getting the bad guy. Yeah, I mean, like the

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Speaker 1: best detective fiction often involves like all the pieces are

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Speaker 1: out there for us to see, you can't put it together.

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Speaker 1: In a way, We're looking at that table of ingredients

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Speaker 1: and saying, I can't imagine what this is possibly going

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Speaker 1: to turn into, and then the detective, the cook comes in,

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Speaker 1: turns into a cake and you're like, whoa, it was

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Speaker 1: there all along. I was essentially looking at a k exactly.

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Speaker 1: And those are the best kind, right, or at least

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Speaker 1: that's how I experience it. Like the best ones are

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Speaker 1: the ones where you you don't figure it out on

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Speaker 1: your own. It's not like a Scooby Doo episode. Scooby

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Speaker 1: Doo the hallmark of detective fiction for our generation, where

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Speaker 1: you know, pretty much from the first five minutes into

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Speaker 1: a Scooby Doo episode, you're like, okay, and it's the

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Speaker 1: you know, amusement park owner wearing a mask pretending to

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Speaker 1: be the real estate agent or something. I'm glad you

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Speaker 1: brought up Scooby Doo that because really, before I watched

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Speaker 1: Herlock Holmes, I was watching Scooby Doo. I was watching

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Speaker 1: these little mystery stories. Yeah, it's funny, Like I think

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Speaker 1: at the time, I never really thought of them as

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Speaker 1: detective stories, but they certainly are right there playing around

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Speaker 1: with that. And but that now the stuff that I

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Speaker 1: enjoy is true detective right, Like, remember when the first

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Speaker 1: season was playing and social media was going insane trying

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Speaker 1: to figure out who was responsible, what was going on, where,

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Speaker 1: where the story was going, you know, and and everyone

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Speaker 1: was wrong basically, uh, and that was satisfying in some way,

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Speaker 1: especially you know, there was a nice bow put on

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Speaker 1: it at the end. A lot of people really wanted

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Speaker 1: that Scooby Doo moment where the mask was ripped off,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't really provided. Yeah, but let's talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about this shaman thing here. So the

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Speaker 1: industrialization part is definitely connected to this, I think. So

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Speaker 1: you've got literacy growing. People are more than ever able

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Speaker 1: to read. And the reason I should clarify and like

403
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Speaker 1: kind of connect the dots here so the church really

404
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Speaker 1: used to be the ones who are sort of in

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Speaker 1: control of literacy, right. They church, the clergy to people

406
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Speaker 1: who worked there, they were the ones who read. They

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Speaker 1: were the ones who could explain to you what was

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Speaker 1: within a book, which was subsequently explaining the world around you, right, Uh,

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Speaker 1: in connection with the religion at hand. Whereas the detective

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Speaker 1: novel becomes available, literacy is for everybody. You've got books everywhere.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming these are like novellas, like pamphlet books to write,

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Speaker 1: like Murders of the Room or isn't that long? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Or they're published they were coming out in publications. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But it allows you the reader to sort of explore

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Speaker 1: the world around you vicariously through this detective who's you know,

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Speaker 1: leading you about and throughout these stories, the detectives are

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Speaker 1: very priestly, right. There's a lot of connections to religious figures,

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Speaker 1: whether they're shamans, monks, priests. Uh. It's interesting. They're almost

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Speaker 1: always monk like in their dedication to solving the crime. Right.

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Speaker 1: They're very singular in their focus, and there's no Uh,

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Speaker 1: they're not the hard boil detectives that were used to write.

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Speaker 1: They're not tempted by outside influences if a fem at

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Speaker 1: all came across, Uh, you know, Sherlock Holmes. This is

424
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:48,679
Speaker 1: old Sherlock Holmes, not like Robert Downey junior Sherlock. Uh,

425
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,359
Speaker 1: he would largely ignore them in favor of solving the crime. Right,

426
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 1: he wasn't interested in in anything beyond the dedication to

427
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: solving the mystery. Yeah, I mean, there there are a

428
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 1: lot of comparisons to be made between in Holmes and

429
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: a member of the clergy, right, because he's um, he's

430
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: likely celibate. Um. Right, I remember particularly, I remember a

431
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:14,199
Speaker 1: line from the TV adaptation where Holmes talks about how

432
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: he's never loved anyone. Oh yeah, and it's when you

433
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 1: get this idea and it's a creature that it exists

434
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: outside of that. Yeah. Yeah. And there's something compelling about

435
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: that obviously to us that like the the urge and

436
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 1: necessities of the human body or not, something that he

437
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: succumbs to. Right, Whereas in like I recently reread the

438
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 1: Irene Adler story, what is that the Bohemian the title?

439
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 1: But yeah, a scandal in Bohemia, I think is what

440
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: it's called. And they recently did that on the Benedict

441
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: cumber Patch, uh BBC show version, and it was much

442
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: more titilating, you know, like I believe that he first

443
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: encounters Irene Adler and she's totally naked in a room

444
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 1: when he when he first meets her, you know, and

445
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: there's obviously this play on will they won't they kind

446
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,639
Speaker 1: of stuff going on, and he's certainly not meant to

447
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: be celibate in that show. But uh, going back to this,

448
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: you know, resurgence of detective fiction in the nineteenth century,

449
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: that was that was off the table. It wasn't really

450
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: part of the concerns. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's certainly

451
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: a strong case to be made that that that Holmes

452
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,479
Speaker 1: was essentially kind of a Franciscan friar who um uh.

453
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,880
Speaker 1: You know, his natural habitat is a you know, mystical

454
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: retreat where he isolates himself for weeks, you know, just

455
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,679
Speaker 1: you know, he's on the couch, not moving, just in

456
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: pure intellectual thought, almost as if in prayer. Uh, of

457
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,479
Speaker 1: course he's in prayer to his his intellect um. And

458
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: of course um burto Echo picked up on this when

459
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: he recashed Herlock Holmes as brother William of Baskerville in

460
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: the Name of the Rose. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's perfect.

461
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, Yeah, because he's like, that's

462
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: he's very on the note that, like, that's he's essentially

463
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes, to the point that the first few pages

464
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: of of the novel like match up with a study

465
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: in scarlet, Like really, I didn't know that. Oh wow,

466
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: now it makes me kind of want to go back

467
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: and at least rewatched that movie. Was sean con replay

468
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: that character? Huh um? And then of course, you know

469
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,479
Speaker 1: we mentioned G. K. Chesterson. I'm saying his name wrong, right,

470
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: Chesterton is Chesterton Chesterton? Yeah, I meanly know him from

471
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 1: the book The Man Who Was Thursday, but his father

472
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 1: Brown series was about a priest or maybe he was

473
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: a former priest I can't remember, who was also a detective.

474
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: And this is a big there's a whole line of these,

475
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: like like even in the States, like was it father down,

476
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 1: Father Downey, Father Down? Deep mysteries Like oh, I don't

477
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: know those ones. It was kind of you know, it

478
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: was kind of a murder she wrote just about the

479
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: same murder she wrote is sort of like a version

480
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: of this as well. I don't particularly remember Angela Lansbury

481
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: having anything but dedication for her writing and solving these mysteries.

482
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: It wasn't like had a lot of outside interests. But

483
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: I think there was maybe even a crossover. I'd have

484
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 1: to go back, but yeah, there was. There was at

485
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:11,119
Speaker 1: least one US show that had a a priest solving crimes.

486
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: Of course, there are various examples of this in British television,

487
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: like It's I think an ongoing trope. Yeah. Um, now

488
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: we've talked about the church here, but but I do

489
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: want to return to the idea of the shaman itself

490
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: and the older sense of the word um, because there

491
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: are a lot of fantastic comparisons to be made here. Uh.

492
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: You know, you look to a shaman and a it's

493
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: particularly in an an older culture, right, as someone who

494
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: looks inward to the mysteries of the soul and human consciousness,

495
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: and they take us on a journey, sometimes a terrifying,

496
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: soul wrenching journey of discovery. They help you, they help

497
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 1: an outsider explore questions by bringing you into a sacred space,

498
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: by producing a tray of magical substances. Often they alter

499
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: your perception and experience of reality. And key here too.

500
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: The shaman is is very much an individual with a

501
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: foot into world, both the real world that we live

502
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: in every day and this other world, this spirit world,

503
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 1: this demon world, god world, whatever you want to make

504
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, and that's key to the detective story

505
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: as well, the living within two worlds. Right. That's why

506
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: these guys more often than not are not part of

507
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: law institutions of law because they in order to catch

508
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: the criminal, in order to solve the mystery, they have

509
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 1: to somewhat have that darkness in their heart right and

510
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: be able to travel the road that the criminal travels

511
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: as well and understand them. Yeah, indeed. Uh. And you

512
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: know there's also a case to be made, particularly with

513
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes. Um. Sherlock Holmes sometimes takes a powerful drug

514
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: to help him answer the questions he secret. Yeah. And

515
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 1: in the case of did you ever read or see

516
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,359
Speaker 1: an adaptation of The Devil's Foot, No, it's probably my

517
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: favorite home story because it involves a powerful african Um

518
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 1: substance uh one as the Devil's Foot When when when

519
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: it's just basically a shamanistic powder, but it's used in

520
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: to commit a crime where like one or two people

521
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: were murdered. I forget that body count. Uh, they just

522
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: killed dead byde and the rest are driven insane and uh.

523
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: And so Holmes ends up breathing in some of it

524
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: just to experiment with the substance and has like a

525
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: terrifying vision. So that sounds right up my alley. I'm

526
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: curious about that because right like, this is one of

527
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: those things about homes that is often disputed and people

528
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: go back and forth on I remember when the new show,

529
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: the BBC one that's popular right now, sorry airing, and

530
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: there was there were all the suggestions to him having

531
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: a drug problem. There are people complaining about it not

532
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: having a drug problem, about about him having and saying like, oh,

533
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: what is this. This isn't part of the Sherlock Holmes

534
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: that I know, And it's right there in the original texts,

535
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I remember in the Jeremy Brett um

536
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: versions it was it was very very present. But then

537
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: I believe I remember correctly Brett made it a priority

538
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: to sort of to get homes off the drugs. So

539
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: like there's a scene where he buries his pipe and

540
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: all because he didn't he didn't want young kids to

541
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: watch ar like Holmes and inspired to partake, whereas, like

542
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: I think, in the new one he just wears like

543
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: a lot of nicotine patches or something that's right, which

544
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: is which is another interesting way of of tackling the

545
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: same issue. But I love this idea of the scientist

546
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: as shaman, particularly when you look at it coming out

547
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: of the eighteen sixties, right on the heels of the

548
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin

549
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: of Species, which had a profound impact, just leaving a

550
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: kind of a cultural vacuum in its wake. Yeah, and

551
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: there's something that I would like to touch on here

552
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: as well, from another article that I researched for for

553
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: this episode. Uh. It was an article called Detective Fiction

554
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: in the Aesthetic of Crime, which is in the two

555
00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen issue of Raritan magazine and based really it's

556
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: a fairly simple premise, which was that detective stories came

557
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: out of this connection to Darwinism, uh, and that time's

558
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: obsession with medical knowledge and especially vivisection. Right, and we

559
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: get Jack the Ripper around that same time, the Elephant Man,

560
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: all these sort of like you know, learned men of

561
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: England examining the body and basically tearing it apart. And

562
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: there so, the author of this piece, J. S. Harpham

563
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: basically puts forward the idea that the aesthetic of murder,

564
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: the aesthetic of taking a body apart and killing somebody,

565
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: was prevalent within British society at the time. Uh and

566
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: and as such an influence the detective fiction. Uh it

567
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: made it so that there was almost a celebration, celebration

568
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: of murder as an art form. I mean when I

569
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: think about all of these different examples that we've just

570
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: been talking about, right, and all these detective fiction authors

571
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: coming up with these incredibly morbid ways for UM characters

572
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: to find bodies, right, like Unhannibal Man Alive. Like I

573
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: remember watching I think it was in the first season,

574
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: and I was like, I can't believe they're getting away

575
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: with this on network television. Not that I just liked it,

576
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: but like, I think there's a point where they find

577
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: a human totem pole and it's like twenty people all

578
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: like stacked on top of one another. Oh that's right, yeah, yeah,

579
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: nice connection to millennium there. And like I'm reading a

580
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: book by UM. I believe he's pronouncer named Lauren bukes

581
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: or bucas. It's called Broken Monsters. And this isn't a

582
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: spoiler for the book. It's like right in the first chapter,

583
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: but the premises that they find a body of a

584
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: boy that's cut in half and sewn to the body

585
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: of a deer. And you think about this stuff in

586
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: these grizzly circumstances that we dive into with this fiction,

587
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: and there is a celebration of murder of in this

588
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: weird artistic way. It's almost like the I mean, one

589
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: of the things that's coming out of this period of

590
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: time and continues to sort of, you know, be a

591
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: point of consideration for the money here. I think it's

592
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: like the basic biomechanical nature of the body and uh

593
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: and and it seems that, you know, when when you

594
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: have these villains and these pieces that are doing elaborate

595
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,719
Speaker 1: things to take it apart and rearrange it, it's all

596
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: kind of a meditation on on that. You know, you know,

597
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: it just occurred to me. Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, similar

598
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: kind of thing they're going on, the taking the body apart,

599
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,479
Speaker 1: putting it back together again and making it walk around.

600
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: I will say this about Hannibal. I remember when I

601
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: first started watching the TV show and and it became

602
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: clear that they were going to just go ahead and

603
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: roll out a new, just unrealistically complex murder every week.

604
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, well, that's good. They've embraced it. They've

605
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: decided we were going to live in a universe. We're

606
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: just gonna go ahead and live in a universe. It's

607
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: a little different than the than the reality, and not

608
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: try and make the world of Hannibal conformed to it.

609
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, it is. One of the things that

610
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: I love about that show is that it's so over

611
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: the top. I keep thinking to myself when I'm watching

612
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: in it, like, why would anybody stay in the Baltimore

613
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: area with all the like every time you open the

614
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: newspaper it's like, oh, we found a human totem poll

615
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: of twenty people on the beach yesterday, and like every

616
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: week there's some totally bonkers serial killer running around. Yeah,

617
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: you would have that whole support groups just for people

618
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:22,479
Speaker 1: who have themselves or have loved ones that have wound

619
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: up in some one of these scenarios. Yeah, yeah, I

620
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: mean it's grizzly, but like, getting back to the meat

621
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: of this, there's something about that that we like, right,

622
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: We like getting into no pun intended, the meat of

623
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: the story, going along the journey with the detective and

624
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: sort of learning how to understand the world from their

625
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: journey and from the evidence that they gather. Yeah, I

626
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: mean to go back to Canyon Abel. You know, you

627
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: need detective God to step in and say what's what.

628
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: But in an age when God has less way over

629
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: our world view in our daily life, you need somebody else.

630
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,239
Speaker 1: And it's all about the drawing the line of morality, right,

631
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: That's what God was doing in the Canable story. That's

632
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: what we're finding out here, you know. Uh, in a

633
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: lot of these cases, like you were telling me about

634
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: some examples of Sherlock Holmes, when Holmes does not bring

635
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: the criminal in, uh, and and it lets them go

636
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: basically because Holmes has decided where the demarcation for morality

637
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: is and that you know, this, this or that criminal

638
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: don't need to be locked away. Uh. And you get

639
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: that as well. Obviously, you know we've we've touched on

640
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: it already that there's a there's a part of the

641
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: detective that has to be a criminal themselves, has to

642
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: sympathize and um, you know, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes

643
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: it works, sometimes it doesn't, Like, Oh, have you seen Luther?

644
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:45,800
Speaker 1: I haven't yet. Yeah. Yeah. Another priestly character is that

645
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: names because we should probably hit on that before we

646
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: break that. You see so many, not all, but so

647
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: many detectives whose name whose last names, uh, generally have

648
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: something priestly in them, something to do with the clergy. Yeah,

649
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: in this case, Luther is in Martin Luther. Yeah, exactly.

650
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: And um, you know this is right from the very

651
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: first episode that there's a character that is a murderer

652
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: that he comes across and he can't exactly prove that

653
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: she's a murderer. And over the course of the series

654
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 1: they're sort of friends. She's sort of a fem fatale character,

655
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,399
Speaker 1: but they're in there and an antagonist, but they're also

656
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: friendly with one another and help one another out. And

657
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: it's like he's decided that she's not the kind of

658
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: murderer that he needs to be pursuing. Is a fascinating

659
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: line that these characters draw in the sand for us.

660
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: There's a whole list of characters you could you could

661
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: run through that have priestly names, including Dr Priestley from

662
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: John Rhodes for forensics. He's a forensic scientist. In the

663
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 1: nine twenties fiction, there's Um John Creasy's commander George Gideon

664
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: as in the Bible. Yeah. Um. On TV Today, in

665
00:35:56,080 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 1: addition to John Luther, we have, of course Adrian Monk. Yeah, right, ones,

666
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: right on the head. What about I feel like I

667
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: remember reading Alex Crosses character James Patterson's Alex cross there's

668
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 1: Simon Templer, a k the st there's Um on the

669
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: TV show Castle. Of course, I think we have with

670
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: Frank Is it Frank Castle in the name of the character.

671
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: I've never watched that show. It's basically murder, she wrote, Right,

672
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:24,839
Speaker 1: So I haven't watched it either, but I know there's

673
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: a character named Castle, and his name is just more

674
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: of an idea that if you have a detective, they

675
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: have to have something kind of cool in their name. Right,

676
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: But there is a Kate Beckett on there, so okay,

677
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: I can sort of chalk that up to it. Um. There,

678
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: I already mentioned our Scott Baker's disciple Manning. He conforms

679
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: to the trope Will Graham of Red Dragon. You could

680
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: make an earth case that there's Bill Billy Graham, essentially

681
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: Billy Graham Yeah, that before there you go. Yeah, his

682
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: writer whose rise to power was right around the time

683
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: that Thomas Harris was writing the novels. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,

684
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:04,720
Speaker 1: I can't remember any of the names of the characters

685
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: from that Learned Bukes novels. But now I'm going to

686
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: think about this when I'm when I'm finishing up that book.

687
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna take a quick break, and

688
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna talk about the detective

689
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: fiction a little more. We're gonna draw in uh scientific study,

690
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: some thoughts about how the human mind works and uh

691
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: and where the detective fiction stands uh in particularly in

692
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: twentieth century culture. Hey, we're back. We're talking about detective fiction.

693
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: The fictional detective as a seeker of truth, resolver of conflict,

694
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: and a signer of blame. A shaman, a priest, uh

695
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: A an individual that stands with one foot in our

696
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 1: world and one in another world, and they can help

697
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:59,879
Speaker 1: us in theory, um, figure out the mysteries that played us.

698
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: And so we we teased before the break that we're

699
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: gonna touch on some some scientific studies about detective fiction,

700
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: and the first one is this interesting article from Psychology

701
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: Today written by a guy. It's a Christopher Badcock, I

702
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: believe is his name, and it's called the Genius of

703
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: Detective Fiction. And he has this theory that there's two

704
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: modes of cognition that are involved in our favorite detectives,

705
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: right in reading about our favorite detectives, and that sort

706
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: of make up these characters. Do you want to hit

707
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,359
Speaker 1: on that? Yeah, yeah, he uh you know. Basically, he's

708
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 1: he's looking at two different ways in which our mind work.

709
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: One is he calls mentalism, and this is kind of

710
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: theory of mind folk psychology, uh uh. And then there's mechanism,

711
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: which is more theory of bodies and folk physics. And

712
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: the two big examples of the of this to look at,

713
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: the ones that the bad Cock drawls out here are

714
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 1: that you look at Sherlock Holmes, right, and there are

715
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: obviously no doable autistic tendencies in his character, his lack

716
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: of social interests interest, his his you know, the degree

717
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 1: of concentration that he brings to any given case, and

718
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: his eye for detail where a crime or a mystery

719
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: is concerned. And we do see this more and more,

720
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: I feel like in these in these modern uh uh

721
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: interpretations of Holmes, these modern explorations of because with this

722
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: increased knowledge of of of what autism is like, Yeah,

723
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: I think the Holmes is one of those characters that

724
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: is probably going to be revisited for centuries. And it

725
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: seems like every time we revisit the character, there's more

726
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: and more of the psychological understanding that we have through

727
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 1: science brought to the character. And there's I think there's

728
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:45,880
Speaker 1: that infamous line in the new TV show where he

729
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: says something like I'm not a psychopath, I'm a highly

730
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: functioning sociopath. Uh, something along those lines. Uh, And that

731
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: touches on, you know that the second aspect here of

732
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: bad Cox's theory, which is that you've got the mechanistic

733
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 1: part but which he sort of likens to being autistic,

734
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: and then there's this mentalistic aspect, which he likens to

735
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: being on the spectrum of the psychotic disorder. Uh. And

736
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: he says that there's, you know, a play between the

737
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: two of being on the autistic spectrum and being on

738
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: the psychotic spectrum. And for detectives, they in particular detectives

739
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: play this out for us, right. Uh. In the general population,

740
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: there's this incredibly low rate of people who would have

741
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: that combination of mental factors, but we see them in

742
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: things like his these are bad Cocks examples John Nash

743
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: who just passed away last week. Yes, yeah, Isaac Newton,

744
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: and then his other example was Beethoven, that these are

745
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:50,760
Speaker 1: examples of these sort of autistic slash psychotic characters that

746
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 1: that we fall for, and that the detective character plays

747
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: this out for us. You know, our actual cognition doesn't

748
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 1: have to go down this route, but you know, I

749
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: could imagine, I can easily imagine uh, fiction coming out

750
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 1: in the years to follow where all three of those

751
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: guys solve crimes. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, that's a really

752
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 1: good idea. Together they travel, Yeah, yeah, I mean the

753
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: cool thing about Badcock's paper is that, you know, you

754
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: really shows that there's there's the way the human mind works,

755
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: and then these two different extremes. Like that's where we

756
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: tend to position our detectives as as is stream modes

757
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: of human cognition. Yeah, and if they fall too far

758
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: to one side, they're not effective detectives. Right, So, like, uh,

759
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: take the Will Graham character for example, Like he's constantly

760
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: being pushed further towards the edge of psychotic and rather

761
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 1: than being somewhat in the middle between psychotic and autistic. Uh.

762
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: And that's when he you know, he's at his worst,

763
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: he's not able to catch the killer. Um. But on

764
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: the other end of it, I'm trying to think like

765
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: Holmes is probably the one that comes to mind as

766
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: being the one that leans heavily towards the autist stick side, right, Yeah,

767
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: I feel like he was the best example of that. Um.

768
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: And on the other end of the spectrum, Batcock brings

769
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: out Agatha Christie's Miss Marple example, but I've never read

770
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: Miss Marple. Yeah, I have not. I speak to that. Huh.

771
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of other examples here. Where would

772
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: Lebowski fall, because he has the same Yeah, that's true.

773
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: Lebowski is we're referring to the Cohen Brothers movie The

774
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:32,479
Speaker 1: Big Lebowski. Uh yeah, Lebowski would be definitely more towards

775
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: the psychotic end, I think, right, He's he doesn't have

776
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: a particular focus or dedication to anything whatsoever. But he

777
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: does have a disregard for social conventions, does Yeah. And

778
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: and that's that's something you do see, isn't that? Isn't that?

779
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: The theory I've heard is that Lebowski is a like

780
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: scene for seeing adaptation of Chandler's The Big Sleet. You know,

781
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: I never really thought about it, supposedly. I think I've

782
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: heard that rumor somewhere. I'm sure one of listeners will

783
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: debunk that idea. But I remember somebody telling me that

784
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: one time. All right, Well, moving along to a little

785
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: more science. Um, this this next study comes down to

786
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: a basic question. Who doesn't love a good who done

787
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,439
Speaker 1: it right? Well, in theory, nobody right, Like I would think,

788
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: like a great who done it? Like? That's that's what

789
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: you want in your detective story. You don't want to

790
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: call the ending like right from the beginning like that's

791
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: always the worst, right, especially if you're if you don't

792
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: see the ending coming and you're watching say detective show

793
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: with somebody who does you like, Oh, it's the wife

794
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,240
Speaker 1: that killed him? Right? This is like the original spoilers

795
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: before the internet was really kicking around. Don't tell me

796
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: who it is. I you know, I haven't gotten to

797
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: the last page yet. There's those people who do like

798
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: to skip ahead, read the last page and then read

799
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: the rest of the book though, And I think this

800
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: study touches upon that, right. Yeah, indeed, this is a

801
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: two thousand six Ohio State University study that they conducted

802
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 1: in conjunction with the Hanover School of Music and Drama

803
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: in Germany. Um, and they looked at particularly, They're curious

804
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: to see how people with low self esteem reacted to

805
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: crime and detective stories that either confirmed their suspicions in

806
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: the end or threw them for a curve. Yeah. And

807
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 1: so this is essentially the methodology of the study, right.

808
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: There were eighty four German college students that were their subjects,

809
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:28,720
Speaker 1: and they all took these personality assessments basically um self

810
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: reporting on what their self esteem levels were. Uh. And

811
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: then they were each assigned to read a short one

812
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: page mystery which was called Murder because of Lust or Greed,

813
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: which is a very very German title for a detective story.

814
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: I'm sure it sounds a lot sexier in German itself. Everything, yeah, um,

815
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 1: But the without getting into whatever the story was about, essentially,

816
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,280
Speaker 1: these students were given three different versions of the story,

817
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: one in which the suspects are equally likely to have

818
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,399
Speaker 1: commit of the crime. The second version hints that one

819
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: of the suspects was more likely than the other to

820
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: be the killer. And then the third one hinted that

821
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: one suspect was more likely to be the murderer. But

822
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 1: the end, the killer turns out to be done, Done

823
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: done somebody that you're not even aware of. Is the

824
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo twist, right, somebody pulls a mask off. And

825
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: what they found was that of these self reporting students,

826
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,839
Speaker 1: people with low self esteem rated the surprise ending as

827
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: less enjoyable than the confirmation ending, So they didn't like

828
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: the surprise if they had low self esteem, whereas the

829
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: people who reported that they had high self esteem reacted

830
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 1: the opposite way. They really liked the surprise and they

831
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: didn't like knowing ahead of time who committed the crime.

832
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, this is a weird one to wrap my

833
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: head around, because I mean, I guess the best I

834
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: can imagine is like try and put myself in that that,

835
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: you know, in the mindset of someone who's like, had

836
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: a really add date work and you know, just everything is, uh,

837
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 1: everything's everything's a disaster, just one after the other all

838
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: day and then you get home and you read your

839
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 1: detective story. And maybe there's an argument to be made

840
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:16,399
Speaker 1: that that this individual reads a detective story and if

841
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: and if he's able to guess the outcome correctly. He's like, well,

842
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: I got one, yeah, exactly. Finally something went right for me. Yeah, yeah, No,

843
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,399
Speaker 1: I can understand that. But jeez, I mean, no matter

844
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: how bad my day gets. And I'm not saying that

845
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: this is an indicative of me having a particularly high

846
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: self esteem or anything like that, but I like the twist.

847
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not advocating for an m Night Shamalan

848
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: twist to every single ending of the story. But I

849
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: like to be surprised. I like to not know where

850
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 1: the story is going. I think like, as somebody who

851
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: consumes a ton of fictional entertainment, you get to a

852
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: point where you you start recognizing the narrative beats, and

853
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times you often know where

854
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: it's going. Um, So it's always surprising. I mentioned your

855
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: detective earlier. It's always surprising when something leads to a

856
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: direction that you weren't expecting. You know, I'm glad that

857
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: you mentioned the beats. Um. It reminds me of an

858
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 1: example from Lucha Libre where someone someone brought up It

859
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,360
Speaker 1: was a discussion about like big mask versus Mask. Luja

860
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: Libre matches in particular, and someone brought up was that

861
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: they said, well, you always know who's gonna win, like

862
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,399
Speaker 1: because generally the good guy wins. Really yeah, the good

863
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 1: guy wins and the bad guy loses his mask. Um

864
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 1: and uh, anyway, someone is saying, well, there's no surprise

865
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: here because this is the story always in the same way.

866
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: And then um, someone countered by saying that it's there's

867
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 1: a mythic quality in that that when the story always

868
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: confirms conforms to a certain pattern and a certain mythic story,

869
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: then there's comfort in that because the story, every story

870
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: is important in in in the way that it confirmed

871
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: conforms to a pre existing narrative. Yeah, and I can

872
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: see the there's a pleasure to be had there as well,

873
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 1: right Uh. In in your example, like you get home

874
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: from work at the end of a terrible day and

875
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: maybe you don't need any more surprises. Maybe you just

876
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: want to have something familiar be there for you. It's

877
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: like a blanket. Yeah, but it's like a thunder sure, thundersure. Yeah.

878
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 1: But but then I mean again to your point, it's like,

879
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 1: even if I've had a bad day, I feel like

880
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: I would want the story to just suck me away

881
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: and take me into a place I can't they escape

882
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: as a mask. Yeah, but according to their study. Now,

883
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: I do have to say here that you know, when

884
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: I read this, I thought, well, the evidence here is

885
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: a little loosey goosey, and I'd like to see some

886
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: more research done here. I mean, in particular, they've got

887
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: this very subjective group of students that they're looking at.

888
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: They're all college students, they're all German, they're all of

889
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,280
Speaker 1: a particular age, right, and um, they're all also self

890
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 1: reporting on their self esteem. So I think it would

891
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: be interesting to see a study where there was like

892
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: more of a quantitative psychological assessment going on here, and

893
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: then you compare that to their results of you know,

894
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: reading the story. But um, again, you know, this is

895
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: a very subjective world of research here. I agree. I agree. Now,

896
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: another role for the detective we thought we'd mentioned here

897
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: is that of a subcultural liaison. And this idea comes

898
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: to us from theory and practice of classical detective fiction

899
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: by Jerome Delamater and Ruth Pragazi of Hofstra University. I

900
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: would have to say neither of those last names particularly

901
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 1: good detective names. Yeah, I think I would have to

902
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: go back to bad Cock who mentioned earlier, yeah, that

903
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: he would be an excellent detective. He probably changed his

904
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 1: name just for that piece. Not very religious sounding though,

905
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,280
Speaker 1: And what do we mean by subcultural liaison though? Well, um,

906
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: you know you think of any crime story, right, and

907
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: it involves like sword pass right and dark secrets, uh,

908
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: and some sort of convergence between the normal world and

909
00:49:56,719 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 1: some sort of a subworld. So you know, we already

910
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,280
Speaker 1: talked about the sho and having one foot in ours

911
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: and one in you know, the realm of the spirits.

912
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,479
Speaker 1: And the detective of course has one foot in ours

913
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: and one and uh at least in the criminal element, right,

914
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 1: and least through investigations conducted there, if not some portion

915
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 1: of his life existing there. So the detective often serves

916
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: as this, uh, this vehicle through which we get to

917
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: explore a subculture that we would otherwise just not be

918
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: privy to. Yeah, I mean when you think about it,

919
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: especially for I think a certain sect of people who

920
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: love detective stories, right, there's this m M vicarious like

921
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,919
Speaker 1: toe dipping into the world of the criminal, right, it's

922
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: the safe way to do so. And um, I mean

923
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,839
Speaker 1: I'll admit it myself, like I don't particularly have like

924
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: a dark criminal past. But I like watching shows where

925
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:56,840
Speaker 1: I get like some sort of a hint at what

926
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: criminal activity is like in America, you know, even though

927
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: it's fictional and it's obviously like way off base, and

928
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, the closest version of this is like

929
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: The Wire, Right, So if you're watching David Simon's The Wire,

930
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: and you're like, now, I have an understanding for drug

931
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: culture in Baltimore, and that's probably the closest you're going

932
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: to get to accuracy. And even that is, you know,

933
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: I believe, highly fictionalized. Yeah, but still to the you know,

934
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: to the average viewer, they suddenly know a little more

935
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: about the reality of that than they would have. In

936
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:32,200
Speaker 1: particular that subculture of being African American in Baltimore and

937
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: living in a neighborhood that's immersed within the drug scene. Yeah,

938
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: now that which is not something that I in particular

939
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: have access to now, you know. Of course, that's not

940
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:44,320
Speaker 1: to say that every detective story is going to really

941
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: give you an authentic feel for the subculture. Like, you know,

942
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:52,279
Speaker 1: detective investigates a murder in a dungeon doesn't mean you're

943
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 1: going to end up with a better understanding of what

944
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 1: b D s M culture is all about. You're probably

945
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:01,280
Speaker 1: gonna have a very skewed, uh idea very sensational idea

946
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 1: of what it consists of. That's probably part of the

947
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 1: safety though, too write, is that like it, it's just

948
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: far enough, it's arms reach away enough that it's not

949
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: you know, it's not entering into our own lives, but

950
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: it gives us it's back to the shawn again, it

951
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: gives us a broader understanding of the world. But then

952
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 1: I guess when you get used to your your shamanistic

953
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 1: detective taking you into these worlds, you maybe get a

954
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: little more comfortable each time. And so we end up

955
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 1: with this growing trend of the detective fiction allowing us

956
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: safe journeys into these varying worlds. Often uh times, you'll

957
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: also end up getting to take these journeys with a

958
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 1: little inside help from the the author of themselves. Um.

959
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 1: It's been pointed out that since detective fiction, even in

960
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: its early goings, was more about fun and entertainment, it

961
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 1: meant that writing detective fiction was was more open to

962
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: female writers. Yeah, right, And obviously Agatha Christie, you know,

963
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the twentieth century having such a

964
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:03,479
Speaker 1: surge of popularity was unusual. Huh. So now I'm thinking

965
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: about like these examples of detective fiction that we like

966
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:08,359
Speaker 1: that we're you know, we were talking about earlier at

967
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 1: the top, and how they're sort of giving us access

968
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 1: to subcultures. I mean, so this, this Broken Monsters book

969
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:17,320
Speaker 1: that I'm reading right now is very much about like, uh,

970
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:20,680
Speaker 1: post industrial Detroit. It's set in the present day. It's

971
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: very heavily linked to social media, uh and the art

972
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: world of Detroit in particular, and so it's giving you

973
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: this access and view into this world of you know,

974
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 1: I I don't have any connection to that particular scene

975
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 1: at all. Uh So I guess I'm I'm living it

976
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: vicariously through the detective who's who's scurrying about the streets

977
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: of Detroit trying to solve this guy who's sewing people's

978
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: bodies to animals. Yeah, or even think of the first

979
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: season of True Detective, So much of that concerned some

980
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: very authentic feeling scenes of rural Louisiana like that was

981
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: It's far different from you know, movie Louisiana, like Hollywood

982
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 1: Louisi entity. You got stay on a true blood, right

983
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:04,359
Speaker 1: or or any given a bit of fiction that takes

984
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 1: place in in Louisiana or New Orleans. That was one

985
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:09,439
Speaker 1: of the things I loved about that show so much

986
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:14,239
Speaker 1: was that Louisiana was a character in that show, and

987
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: it really made me think about the Southern Gothic genre

988
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: in a very different way than I ever have before. Uh.

989
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite bits and all of True

990
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: Detective and this isn't a spoiler at all, is we're

991
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 1: set in the mid nineties. These detectives are trying to

992
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: figure out a murder and they pull over at a

993
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 1: roadside Vietnamese fast food place in Louisiana and just have

994
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: a quick snack. And there's no commentary on it whatsoever.

995
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: It's just there, and it's something you wouldn't expect, right,

996
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: You wouldn't think, like, oh, rural Louisiana is going to

997
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: just have these roadside Vietnamese places. But the author's familiarity

998
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 1: with that region obviously came through there and it was

999
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: a nice glimpse. Yeah. So with detective fiction, you you

1000
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: and are kind of skirting sensationalistic displays, but you're also

1001
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 1: getting this at least a little insight into other social classes,

1002
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: economic divisions, lifestyle choices, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, and when

1003
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,880
Speaker 1: you get into international um detective fiction too, that often

1004
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,280
Speaker 1: allows you to, you know, immerse yourself in a different

1005
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: time and place. Well, certainly when you speak of time,

1006
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: you know, any kind of historical detective stories, uh, such

1007
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:30,400
Speaker 1: as say the Gordion Honest books that take place in

1008
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, you get to explore these different times in

1009
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 1: places and characters, but with the sort of the safe structure,

1010
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 1: the kind of enclosing shark cage of the of the genre. Yeah,

1011
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 1: you know. I mean this explains I think partially why

1012
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 1: we as Americans love British Victorian era detective stories. Right,

1013
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 1: There's something about that era that we keep coming back

1014
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 1: to over and over and over again and again, Like

1015
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: the detective story gives us the shark cage to kind

1016
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: of immerse ourselves in there. I don't think anybody in

1017
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 1: the present day would would be particularly thrilled with the

1018
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 1: everyday amenities of that world, but you know that it's

1019
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:11,080
Speaker 1: it's attractive to look back to. Yeah, I mean, it

1020
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: instantly gives you that that kind of comfort level. Like

1021
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: if I were to say, hey, let's go see a

1022
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: movie about ancient Babylon. Let's go see a detective story,

1023
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: a detective movie set in ancient Babylon. Like instantly, I

1024
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: have a little more idea of what I'm expecting with

1025
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,800
Speaker 1: the sort of cultural flavoring surrounding it. Yeah, absolutely, I

1026
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:33,920
Speaker 1: really like this idea. I'm going to be looking out

1027
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:38,240
Speaker 1: for this a lot more now. I'm thinking of, like, uh, um,

1028
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: what is this movie that it's a West Craven movie

1029
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the title of it. You might

1030
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: know it. It's about an Amish community where there's these

1031
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:50,960
Speaker 1: strange murders happening, and the X Files revisited it as well,

1032
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 1: but there's a you know this detectives trying to solve

1033
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: murders in an Amish community, and there's there's a sort

1034
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: of supernatural bent to it as well. But it's very

1035
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: much one of those like here's how the world of

1036
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: the Amish work, you know, like an introduction to it

1037
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: through the detective story. You know the tropes, you know

1038
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 1: the beats of the detective story, but the setting is

1039
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: something that we're unfamiliar with. So given the role of

1040
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: the detective and fiction, and given the power of the

1041
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: sub genre and the and the kind and the ultimately

1042
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 1: the subversive nature of it. Uh, it's understandable to see

1043
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: that it has it has been banned. There has been,

1044
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: there have been governmental crackdowns on detective fiction in recent history. Yeah,

1045
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:36,960
Speaker 1: especially when you consider what we're talking about earlier, that

1046
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: most detectives are somewhere on the side. They're outsiders of

1047
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 1: institutional authority, right, and so it makes sense that governments

1048
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 1: and institutional authority would would frown upon that right and

1049
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 1: and want there to be more respect for their institutions,

1050
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: for their laws, etcetera. Yeah, Stalin banned the detective story

1051
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: and the restrictions remained in effect until after his death

1052
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three. Uh. Italy followed a similar pattern.

1053
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And this is interesting to the German approach. Um. So,

1054
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,720
Speaker 1: one of the most influential authors back in the the

1055
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties was the guy named by the name of

1056
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: Eric Costner and h. When the Nazis came to power,

1057
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,040
Speaker 1: they burned all of his books, but they didn't ban

1058
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: the detective genre outright. Instead, they they decided to sort

1059
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: of fold it into their propaganda and they only allow

1060
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:38,840
Speaker 1: detective stories um that depicted honest and highly competent policemen

1061
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:42,919
Speaker 1: that were upholding the rule of law. Really, so I'm

1062
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,000
Speaker 1: just imagining, like, Okay, here's our Hollywood pitch. Right, we

1063
00:58:46,080 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: walk into the meeting, there's this big long table of

1064
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: Hollywood executives, and we go, Okay, it's a detective story.

1065
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: But the detective is an s S officer, and they're like, Oh,

1066
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,400
Speaker 1: that's that's great. He's gonna be conflicted, and he's gonna

1067
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,040
Speaker 1: he's gonna be like a good German trapped in a

1068
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 1: awful system. He said, no, no, he's just really good.

1069
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 1: He's a flat out Nazi. Yeah. It doesn't sound very

1070
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 1: interesting at the end of the day, but you know,

1071
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories that are designed to support

1072
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: you know, authoritarian regimes are not either. Well, it kind

1073
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: of brings us back to the forensic uh slant in

1074
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 1: the sort of modern police procedurals right in your purest form. Again,

1075
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:29,680
Speaker 1: it's about a system and a science that works. Yeah, exactly,

1076
00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: and and a lot of those I mean, I have

1077
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 1: to admit, like I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals.

1078
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: I can understand that there's a quality of uh. It's

1079
00:59:38,040 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 1: kind of like what we were talking about earlier that

1080
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,640
Speaker 1: that quality of familiarity right where you throw on an

1081
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 1: episode of Law and Order and you're like, I know

1082
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: how this is gonna go, right, Like the beats are

1083
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:49,439
Speaker 1: the same every episode, and and for the most part

1084
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: you know where it's heading. It's a Law and Order

1085
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 1: and Scooby Doo have a lot in common that way.

1086
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: But but however, you know there is something to be

1087
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,919
Speaker 1: said here, like the characters in Law and Order buying large. Again,

1088
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of the show, but from

1089
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 1: my understanding, like their lawyers and police officers, right, and

1090
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: they're working within the system to solve the crimes that

1091
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 1: they solve. And then you know and shows such as

1092
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: like C S I or jeez, what is it? N

1093
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:17,920
Speaker 1: C I S Is that the military one? Okay? Uh,

1094
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:22,320
Speaker 1: they're using science to solve these crimes within these institutions,

1095
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 1: but we pretty much know where they're going, you know,

1096
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:28,120
Speaker 1: at the end of at the end of the day,

1097
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of spins on it. I think

1098
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: there was like one C. S I where like Quentin

1099
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:35,120
Speaker 1: Tarantino did a directed it and wrote it, I think,

1100
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:37,000
Speaker 1: and it was like one of the guys got buried

1101
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:40,880
Speaker 1: alive or something that was the twist. All right, Well,

1102
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 1: there you have it. Um. You know, I just want

1103
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 1: to close with a quick quote from literary critic Edmund Wilson. UM.

1104
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: And this is from a PC that he wrote in

1105
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,600
Speaker 1: The New York Or in nineteen forty four, where he

1106
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 1: was asking the same question, why do we love detective fiction? Um?

1107
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,560
Speaker 1: And he says the following. Yet the detective story has

1108
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: kept its hold, and even in the two decades between

1109
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 1: the Great War, has become more popular than ever before.

1110
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 1: And there is I believe a deep reason for this.

1111
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,439
Speaker 1: The world during those years was written by an all

1112
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: pervasive feeling of guilt and by a fear of impending disaster,

1113
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: which it seemed hopeless to try to avert because it

1114
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:20,360
Speaker 1: never seemed conclusively possible to pin down the responsibility who

1115
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: had committed the original crime and who was going to

1116
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,400
Speaker 1: commit the next one. That murder, which always in the novels,

1117
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 1: occurs at an unexpected moment when the investigation is well underway,

1118
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: which may happen as in one of the Nero Wolf

1119
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: stories right in the Great Detective's office. Everybody is suspected

1120
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 1: in turn, and the streets are full of lurking agents

1121
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: whose allegiances we cannot know. Nobody seems guiltless, nobody seems safe,

1122
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 1: and then suddenly the murderer is spotted and relief. He

1123
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:48,280
Speaker 1: is not, after all, a person like you or me.

1124
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:52,280
Speaker 1: He is a villain known to the trade as George Gruesome,

1125
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:56,880
Speaker 1: and he has been caught by an infallible power, the supercilious,

1126
01:01:56,880 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: an omniscient detective who knows exactly how to fix the guilt.

1127
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:04,560
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, if you want to check out more

1128
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over

1129
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the

1130
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: mother ship. That's where you will find all the podcast episodes,

1131
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:14,520
Speaker 1: the blog posts, the videos, links out to social media accounts,

1132
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 1: you name it, And if you have any thoughts about

1133
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: the detective genre, let us know about your favorite detective

1134
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 1: stories how you think they fit into these ideas we've

1135
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 1: talked about today, Shaman's subcultural liaisons bands all of this stuff.

1136
01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think by writing to us

1137
01:02:30,320 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com,

1138
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 1: or by reaching out to us on social media for

1139
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it

1140
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com