Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. From how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. It was a dark night in the
Speaker 1: Naked City, which is probably ideal given all the nakedness.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't concerned with a lack of clothing street
Speaker 1: lighting in this room with troubless and needed answers about
Speaker 1: the resident power of the detective story. So I went
Speaker 1: to meet my man on forty two Street. What do
Speaker 1: you got for me? I got some Raymond Chandler primo stuff,
Speaker 1: the Big Sleep, the Long Goodbye. I'm thinking something a
Speaker 1: work setting or publication date, because I've got some brother
Speaker 1: cat feels some Gordian and I'm trying to understand the
Speaker 1: roots of the thing. Well, why we love it? Why
Speaker 1: we can't get enough? Okay, I have some homes around
Speaker 1: here somewhere, how about pose the murders in the room Morgue.
Speaker 1: We're talking eight forty one here, a killer ap real
Speaker 1: primo stuff. But that doesn't explain why we love it? Well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you just say something? I think I've got
Speaker 1: the perfect thing for you right here. Hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert lamb Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Christian Seger. I hope you enjoyed our little foray
Speaker 1: into radio detective drama. There, because in this episode we
Speaker 1: are of course going to discuss the power of detective fiction.
Speaker 1: There's a little science in here, there's some culture or
Speaker 1: some cultural resonance. Uh, we think you'll enjoy this journey,
Speaker 1: this ride not unlike the journey, not unlike the ride
Speaker 1: that a detective takes us on in a work of fiction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the research really panned out on this one. I like,
Speaker 1: uh that there were so many different paths that researchers
Speaker 1: have gone down looking at how detective stories affect our
Speaker 1: culture and our human psychology and how we come to
Speaker 1: them as well. Yeah, and it's one of those genres
Speaker 1: that I feel like everybody just I can pretty much
Speaker 1: say everybody has at least dipped a toe in this
Speaker 1: if if it's a you know, straight up detective novel
Speaker 1: that you've read or some show that you've watched on television,
Speaker 1: and every one is familiar with the trope and probably
Speaker 1: has enjoyed it at some point in their life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So let's like just dabble into this for a little bit.
Speaker 1: So what's your big experience with detective fiction? Oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: like my earliest experiences were watching Jeremy Brett as Sherlock
Speaker 1: Holmes and like my my family would sit down in
Speaker 1: ones that were on PBS. Yeah, we would watch when
Speaker 1: we were living in Canada and as a kid, that
Speaker 1: would come on and we would watch those and my
Speaker 1: dad would would would take them. Uh, we had tapes
Speaker 1: with like, you know, three different cases per VHS and
Speaker 1: so yeah, that was like my my earliest entry into
Speaker 1: this world of detectives for sure. Yeah, Holmes is definitely
Speaker 1: like the gateway drug for detective stories. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was gosh, like maybe between five and seven, my
Speaker 1: grandfather gave me this leather bound copy of homes Stories
Speaker 1: that he got from he had like a subscription to
Speaker 1: Reader's Digest, and I still have that. That's the like,
Speaker 1: those those are the home stories I read whenever I
Speaker 1: turned back to that stuff is just big tone of
Speaker 1: of detectives. Was this the one that had the kind
Speaker 1: of if not the original type set, then something that
Speaker 1: was orchestrated to look Yeah, and the paper was like
Speaker 1: like a kind of old tattered ridge to the side
Speaker 1: of the everything, so it felt like you're reading like
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century book. Yeah. Cool, Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think we had the same volume kicking around the house,
Speaker 1: and of course a great thing about detective fiction is
Speaker 1: it you keep coming back to it, right, because they're
Speaker 1: just limitless variations on it. Like like even in the
Speaker 1: past few years, I really I really enjoyed a book
Speaker 1: from our Scott Baker called Disciple of the Dog, which
Speaker 1: involved a uh, a detective by the name of Disciple
Speaker 1: Manning who has perfect just photographic memory, but also of
Speaker 1: course is plagued with different personal problems and he's like
Speaker 1: going up against an end of the world cult. That
Speaker 1: sounds like the perfect example for one of the research
Speaker 1: studies we're going to touch on later. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: you know, looking back on it, I realized that I
Speaker 1: was more influenced I think by detective fiction in tell
Speaker 1: vision and films, and I was by literature. I think
Speaker 1: Holmes was obviously my big starting point, and then like
Speaker 1: kind of detective type genre stuff within comics, especially Batman
Speaker 1: in the whole, like detective comics idea of Batman being like,
Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate detective. But um, for me, it
Speaker 1: was definitely uh the Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter type stuff,
Speaker 1: specifically with Will Graham as the detective trying to solve
Speaker 1: these primes. Red Dragon. Yeah, I love the movie Red Dragon.
Speaker 1: I love Man Hunter. Uh. Um. And and the new
Speaker 1: TV show as well has been something that I've been
Speaker 1: really into, and then just recently I've gone back and
Speaker 1: started rewatching that nineties TV show Millennium with Lance Hendrickson.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, this is from the same guy did the
Speaker 1: X File. Yeah, Chris Carter and um. You know, it's
Speaker 1: basically the same premise as as a the Will Graham character.
Speaker 1: You know, Lance Hendrickson plays this guy Frank Black who uh,
Speaker 1: when he he's a profiler, when he comes across a
Speaker 1: scene of a crime, he can see glimpses through the
Speaker 1: killer's eyes and stuff like that. Yeah. So so very
Speaker 1: similar to especially the the TV version of Will Ground
Speaker 1: that we get with Hannibal. Yeah. Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'd say that that the New TV show
Speaker 1: probably pulls a little bit from Millennium, but it's a
Speaker 1: whereas Millennium I think pulls a lot from Seven from
Speaker 1: the movie Seven and Uh, and that movie is a
Speaker 1: perfect example. That's another one that I loved when I
Speaker 1: was Gosh, I think it came out like my freshman
Speaker 1: year in college. But Um, that is, that's a movie
Speaker 1: that really expresses that certain kind of detective drama that's
Speaker 1: just nihilistic and this view of the world. And the
Speaker 1: detectives themselves aren't particularly geniuses. I mean, we see Morgan
Speaker 1: Freeman go to the library one time and read a
Speaker 1: bunch of things about religion. But other than that, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not like they're not like Sherlock Holmes solving this
Speaker 1: stuff on the fly, you know. Of course, another great
Speaker 1: example of detective fiction and film is is probably Blade Runner,
Speaker 1: because that's one that I feel, especially on a visual level,
Speaker 1: like really resonates with everyone, and it drew from you know,
Speaker 1: sort of classic motifs as well as a new kind
Speaker 1: of cyberpunk vibe. Yeah. Yeah, Blade Runner, like more than
Speaker 1: I think a lot of things that are called noir nowadays,
Speaker 1: incorporates the genre of noir into science fiction. Now. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we could keep going just talking about like the various
Speaker 1: detective stories that you and I have read and the
Speaker 1: film variations, um, and as well as just all the
Speaker 1: stuff that's out there and in the popular culture, because
Speaker 1: it seems like every other TV show is some sort
Speaker 1: of police procedural or some sort of detective story that's
Speaker 1: going on. You could just name them one after another,
Speaker 1: but at heart, like, what is the what are the
Speaker 1: basics of the detective story. Yeah, there's something inherently comforting
Speaker 1: about the detective story, whether it's on TV or you're
Speaker 1: reading just like a pulpy paperback novel. But essentially, what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is crime fiction that centered around
Speaker 1: a single investigation, which is almost always a murder. Right,
Speaker 1: every every investigator, a police officer, is a homicide detective
Speaker 1: in these because that's the most serious, right, that's the
Speaker 1: most potent, life shattering, existential thing you could possibly look exactly.
Speaker 1: They're not like usually going after an arsonist, although that's
Speaker 1: pretty serious as well. You know, you're breaking the law.
Speaker 1: You're also just like the law in a legal sense,
Speaker 1: but also in a moral sense, you've committed a crime
Speaker 1: and to God. Yeah, and there's a there's an aspect
Speaker 1: to murder as well that plays into the aesthetics of
Speaker 1: the detective drama that we'll get into later, but in particular,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this idea that they are a professional
Speaker 1: that's usually outside of the institutions of law somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: like Sherlock Holmes for instance, was a private investigator. He didn't,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a part of the police force, he didn't
Speaker 1: work for Scotland Yard And and in a lot of
Speaker 1: the examples that we were just talking about, all those
Speaker 1: all those various characters Will Graham, Frank Black, uh Decker
Speaker 1: from Blade Runner, they're all operating on their own, outside
Speaker 1: of the system, even though there's somewhat connected to it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the so many of our detectives. There at least
Speaker 1: if they are still on the force and still part
Speaker 1: of beneficial system, then they're there. There may be a
Speaker 1: little bit dirty, or at least they're damaged by what
Speaker 1: they're having to deal with. Yeah. Absolutely, Which, Okay, one
Speaker 1: last example here, which I think we should get into
Speaker 1: a True Detective, which was huge last year when it
Speaker 1: came out. I don't know about you, but I was
Speaker 1: massively influenced by it. It's one of the best things
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen, just completely television fiction. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh and obviously, you know, without giving anything away, that
Speaker 1: story is very much about guys who are part of
Speaker 1: the police force but are just torn to shreds by
Speaker 1: you know, the things that they see in the the
Speaker 1: drama of this murder that they're trying to solve. It's
Speaker 1: a serious of murders, that's right, And new season kicking
Speaker 1: off I think this weekend. So yeah, cross your fingers.
Speaker 1: I really hope that it's good too. Yeah, We've we've
Speaker 1: had some The first trailer that came out was a
Speaker 1: little uh, felt a little off uh. And then when
Speaker 1: we learned that there wasn't going to be an occult
Speaker 1: um theme in this one, that was also maybe a
Speaker 1: little disappointing to some of us. But I think it's
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, it's going to be like, um,
Speaker 1: the whatever, the follow up to Mad Max Fury Road
Speaker 1: is right, like the criticism the praise has been so
Speaker 1: high for that and and was so high for season
Speaker 1: one of True Detective, that no matter what happens, people
Speaker 1: are going to be critical of it and and find
Speaker 1: a reason for to kind of shoot it down, you know.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping to have, you know, like we're talking
Speaker 1: about here that just like the fun experience of a
Speaker 1: detective ride, but also something that will statiate me sort
Speaker 1: of intellectually. Yeah, and you know, he said there wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna be anything occult in this particular season, but he
Speaker 1: didn't see anything about aliens. So I'm holding out hope
Speaker 1: that alien invasion in California is going to be the
Speaker 1: subplot here that sounds to about halfway. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a perfect use of Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams um.
Speaker 1: But indeed, the detective story oftentimes centers around murder. You
Speaker 1: could you could even make a case that one of
Speaker 1: the oldest, if not the oldest detective stories out there,
Speaker 1: with its roots and in the Bible and pre biblical sources,
Speaker 1: is that of kine Enabel, right, right, And we were
Speaker 1: talking about this earlier and my reaction was really the
Speaker 1: detective And to give your answer, I think it's intriguing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the detective here is God, etective God on the scene.
Speaker 1: And granted he doesn't even have a very hard case
Speaker 1: because there's one suspect, period and they're what you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're only a handful of people in the
Speaker 1: world in this particular scenario. So God comes on the
Speaker 1: scenes that a Caine who killed Abel, and then he
Speaker 1: nails him for the crime. Right, Yeah, it's not it's
Speaker 1: a it's a one and done who done it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and judges him dishes out punishment like everything is. We'll
Speaker 1: discuss like there's a lot in the Cane enable uh
Speaker 1: story that uh that is that is kind of that
Speaker 1: distilled detective story. Yeah, and plays out over the centuries.
Speaker 1: Is detective stories go on? But so I think like
Speaker 1: the one that really kicked things off though, for like
Speaker 1: the the current genre that we think of would be
Speaker 1: Edgar Allen Poe's Murders of the Room Morgue are sorry
Speaker 1: Murders in the Room Morgue, which we reference to the intro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one and uh and that one, that one
Speaker 1: is often cited as being one of the really early
Speaker 1: key detective stories that that that that really influences everything
Speaker 1: to come there after. And there's this surge in the
Speaker 1: mid to late nineteenth century with detective stories, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Poe really kicks it off, but that's when you get
Speaker 1: you know, kind of Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and and
Speaker 1: and and lots of others. Also early twentieth century as well,
Speaker 1: with Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterson, Uh what else? Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the list goes on and on. Chandler
Speaker 1: and Dashel Hammett, Yeah, the the the Philip Marlowe books,
Speaker 1: which I read one of those and and really loved it,
Speaker 1: and I keep meaning to pick up more because yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read a lot Chandler's short stories, but I've never
Speaker 1: read the Marlowe stuff. Yeah it's good. It's good. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: and you you do see kind of I mean, certainly,
Speaker 1: detective fiction is almost has a viral consistency because it
Speaker 1: it spreads out. It starts as this kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the classic Golden Age stuff, which is which is often
Speaker 1: all about like a very intellectual individual using their intellect
Speaker 1: to solve this crime. Uh, and then it, you know,
Speaker 1: it spreads into different countries and in different cultures and
Speaker 1: then into different sub genres, etcetera. Of course, the the
Speaker 1: the the the hard boiled detective fiction becomes really big
Speaker 1: in the United States, which is and it kind of
Speaker 1: takes off as its own thing, and that's very different
Speaker 1: from what we're thinking of as this sort of traditional
Speaker 1: nineteenth century detective drama where hard boiled detectives or you know,
Speaker 1: they've always got that self narration kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: the gritty It was a dark and stormy night, and
Speaker 1: everybody's corrupt, the all organizations are corrupt. And there's this
Speaker 1: cycle of violence that the detective finds themselves trapped within
Speaker 1: their almost like an anti hero, right yeah. And it's
Speaker 1: it's less a matter of like one intellect against the problem.
Speaker 1: It's it's like the detectives and the hard boiled fiction.
Speaker 1: They tend to be as much gut and heart and
Speaker 1: lust I guess too, as they tangle with various fin fatales. Right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: fim fatals spent out of that. We've also got, you know,
Speaker 1: coming up on I don't know, I wonder when the
Speaker 1: police procedural officially started. Do you think the seventies? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you probably earlier than that, right, because you
Speaker 1: have like dragnet and stuff. Yeah, I guess right. Dragnet
Speaker 1: was what late sixties? Yeah, I think so, okay, so yeah,
Speaker 1: but police procedurals are everywhere now. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: every time I don't have cable, but anytime I'm like
Speaker 1: at a hotel or something and I flip through the channels,
Speaker 1: it's like of TV is uh, shows with acronyms that
Speaker 1: I don't understand that are about various detective solving crimes yea,
Speaker 1: And those are I guess they're more almost a return
Speaker 1: to the the intellectual detective in a sense, because here
Speaker 1: is the you know, they have individuals, of course, individ
Speaker 1: characters in the shows, but it seems to be more
Speaker 1: about here is a system, and here's a science, and
Speaker 1: the system and the science works, and it works in
Speaker 1: a ways of course on TV that it doesn't actually
Speaker 1: in real lite, right absolutely. Yeah. I had a big
Speaker 1: wake up call with that when I served as former
Speaker 1: on a jury duty and they had a forensic expert
Speaker 1: coming and present to the jury as they often do
Speaker 1: in cases, and it was nothing like like C S
Speaker 1: I or any of those things, and even you know,
Speaker 1: the expert themselves, so there wasn't a lot of uh
Speaker 1: certainty with the science that they were performing. But that
Speaker 1: that's a whole another episode, which I think it would
Speaker 1: be fun to talk about. Forensic science is fascinating, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're surrounded by police procedurals. I think serial
Speaker 1: killer mysteries like we've been you know we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, those are kind of my jam the millennial
Speaker 1: type stuff for Hannibal Lecter, Like there's a there's a
Speaker 1: popularity of that right now, probably since the nineties. I
Speaker 1: would say, um, seven maybe kicked that off, although you know,
Speaker 1: you could go back further that Thomas Harris stuff started
Speaker 1: in the eighties, I think so, yeah, yeah, and then
Speaker 1: uh yeah, there are a number of books that kind
Speaker 1: of Another one is Falling Angel by William Hortsburg. I
Speaker 1: don't know that one. Um. William Hortsburgh wrote the screenplay
Speaker 1: to legend and then Falling Angels made into the fairly
Speaker 1: lackluster in my opinion film Angel Heart with Mickey Rourke
Speaker 1: and Robert de Niro. I have heard about Angel Hart,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen it. Okay, yeah, the book the
Speaker 1: books look pretty fun though, because it's very much this
Speaker 1: uh this hard boiled detective story but with satanic elements. Okay,
Speaker 1: sounds right at my alley. All Right, I'll check it out.
Speaker 1: So forgive this. We're gonna continue to get a little
Speaker 1: off topic talking about various examples of the detective genre here,
Speaker 1: but to return to the mid eighteen hundreds, particularly to
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties, because that's when you really see the
Speaker 1: boom happen like full force. Um. And there are a
Speaker 1: number of interesting factors to take into accoun about the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. UM. First of all, industrialization and the growth
Speaker 1: of literacy. You have more people than ever that are
Speaker 1: able to read. You have new machinery that's pumping out
Speaker 1: more books than ever. They're sold in stalls that you're
Speaker 1: you know, your local metro station, and you have a
Speaker 1: growing population of readers who tend to go for more
Speaker 1: sensational content, more entertaining content, rather than you know, upper
Speaker 1: crust stuff. This is so we're talking books for the
Speaker 1: middle class. Um, yeah, and I think that there's a
Speaker 1: there's a connection there too. We're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: influence of religion on the detective story, and there's a
Speaker 1: connection there's certainly between the emergence of literacy and the
Speaker 1: lower classes and the availability of books too pretty much anybody,
Speaker 1: and that the connection of sort of roles of religion
Speaker 1: shifting away from the church into detective stories. Indeed, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and granted at the time as well, you
Speaker 1: actually had real detectives out there, you know, there were Um,
Speaker 1: it was about this time that the Metropolitan Police in
Speaker 1: London created its detective branch. Um it was two but
Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties there was one particular case in
Speaker 1: which you had Jack Whicher of the Detective Branch making
Speaker 1: headlines investigating a sensational child murder. That's a great, great name.
Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't make that, which Jack Witcher does.
Speaker 1: Yeah you could. It sounds made up, but this is
Speaker 1: the dude's name. Every time Jack Witcher gets his name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know if if he did. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how the case actually turned out. I'm
Speaker 1: curious to know. But but in a way it's I mean,
Speaker 1: the key here was that it ended up in the headlines,
Speaker 1: and so people were were fascinated by the story of
Speaker 1: this real life detective. And we have all the crime
Speaker 1: fiction popping up as well. And then, as you mentioned
Speaker 1: on the religion angle, um, there's a strong case to
Speaker 1: be made and it's made rather elegantly, I think by
Speaker 1: crime writer Jason Webster in two thousand fifteen Ian mag
Speaker 1: As an article titled Unholy Mystery, and essentially he argues
Speaker 1: that the that the modern detective serves as a sort
Speaker 1: of secular shaman um he or she is the priest,
Speaker 1: the inter mediary between God and man, between truth and man. Uh.
Speaker 1: That can no longer exist entirely within the religious world
Speaker 1: because our world view continues to break free from the
Speaker 1: shackles of religious thinking. I really like this idea. It's
Speaker 1: something that I had been thinking about independently, not particularly
Speaker 1: about detectives, but about storytelling in general, that that fiction,
Speaker 1: modern day fiction especially sort of serves the same role
Speaker 1: that a shaman or a priest used to serve in
Speaker 1: a small kind of microcosm community like we used to
Speaker 1: think of. And Uh, this this, this definitely plays out
Speaker 1: in his uh, his thesis, I guess for this piece, right,
Speaker 1: he talks about how detectives like shamans are the problem
Speaker 1: solvers for their community. There's somebody who can restore order
Speaker 1: when there's chaos. Uh. They give us answers. This is
Speaker 1: a quote directly from his piece. They give us answers
Speaker 1: to the most pressing and urgent questions, not only who
Speaker 1: done it, but how and why and what the means
Speaker 1: are and uh, and all of it's done through the journey, right,
Speaker 1: which we which we brought up earlier. It's a it's
Speaker 1: all about the journey. That's the that's the fun experience
Speaker 1: of it. I would this is gonna be a weird connection,
Speaker 1: but I'd liken it to watching a cooking show actually, like,
Speaker 1: like there's pleasure in watching people bake a cake on TV.
Speaker 1: They're going through all the steps putting the ingredients together
Speaker 1: and the thing comes out right. And the detective story
Speaker 1: is very similar, and that the detectives going through this
Speaker 1: journey collecting this evidence, seeking out hints and clues, and
Speaker 1: then getting the bad guy. Yeah, I mean, like the
Speaker 1: best detective fiction often involves like all the pieces are
Speaker 1: out there for us to see, you can't put it together.
Speaker 1: In a way, We're looking at that table of ingredients
Speaker 1: and saying, I can't imagine what this is possibly going
Speaker 1: to turn into, and then the detective, the cook comes in,
Speaker 1: turns into a cake and you're like, whoa, it was
Speaker 1: there all along. I was essentially looking at a k exactly.
Speaker 1: And those are the best kind, right, or at least
Speaker 1: that's how I experience it. Like the best ones are
Speaker 1: the ones where you you don't figure it out on
Speaker 1: your own. It's not like a Scooby Doo episode. Scooby
Speaker 1: Doo the hallmark of detective fiction for our generation, where
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much from the first five minutes into
Speaker 1: a Scooby Doo episode, you're like, okay, and it's the
Speaker 1: you know, amusement park owner wearing a mask pretending to
Speaker 1: be the real estate agent or something. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought up Scooby Doo that because really, before I watched
Speaker 1: Herlock Holmes, I was watching Scooby Doo. I was watching
Speaker 1: these little mystery stories. Yeah, it's funny, Like I think
Speaker 1: at the time, I never really thought of them as
Speaker 1: detective stories, but they certainly are right there playing around
Speaker 1: with that. And but that now the stuff that I
Speaker 1: enjoy is true detective right, Like, remember when the first
Speaker 1: season was playing and social media was going insane trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who was responsible, what was going on, where,
Speaker 1: where the story was going, you know, and and everyone
Speaker 1: was wrong basically, uh, and that was satisfying in some way,
Speaker 1: especially you know, there was a nice bow put on
Speaker 1: it at the end. A lot of people really wanted
Speaker 1: that Scooby Doo moment where the mask was ripped off,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really provided. Yeah, but let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about this shaman thing here. So the
Speaker 1: industrialization part is definitely connected to this, I think. So
Speaker 1: you've got literacy growing. People are more than ever able
Speaker 1: to read. And the reason I should clarify and like
Speaker 1: kind of connect the dots here so the church really
Speaker 1: used to be the ones who are sort of in
Speaker 1: control of literacy, right. They church, the clergy to people
Speaker 1: who worked there, they were the ones who read. They
Speaker 1: were the ones who could explain to you what was
Speaker 1: within a book, which was subsequently explaining the world around you, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: in connection with the religion at hand. Whereas the detective
Speaker 1: novel becomes available, literacy is for everybody. You've got books everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming these are like novellas, like pamphlet books to write,
Speaker 1: like Murders of the Room or isn't that long? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or they're published they were coming out in publications. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it allows you the reader to sort of explore
Speaker 1: the world around you vicariously through this detective who's you know,
Speaker 1: leading you about and throughout these stories, the detectives are
Speaker 1: very priestly, right. There's a lot of connections to religious figures,
Speaker 1: whether they're shamans, monks, priests. Uh. It's interesting. They're almost
Speaker 1: always monk like in their dedication to solving the crime. Right.
Speaker 1: They're very singular in their focus, and there's no Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not the hard boil detectives that were used to write.
Speaker 1: They're not tempted by outside influences if a fem at
Speaker 1: all came across, Uh, you know, Sherlock Holmes. This is
Speaker 1: old Sherlock Holmes, not like Robert Downey junior Sherlock. Uh,
Speaker 1: he would largely ignore them in favor of solving the crime. Right,
Speaker 1: he wasn't interested in in anything beyond the dedication to
Speaker 1: solving the mystery. Yeah, I mean, there there are a
Speaker 1: lot of comparisons to be made between in Holmes and
Speaker 1: a member of the clergy, right, because he's um, he's
Speaker 1: likely celibate. Um. Right, I remember particularly, I remember a
Speaker 1: line from the TV adaptation where Holmes talks about how
Speaker 1: he's never loved anyone. Oh yeah, and it's when you
Speaker 1: get this idea and it's a creature that it exists
Speaker 1: outside of that. Yeah. Yeah. And there's something compelling about
Speaker 1: that obviously to us that like the the urge and
Speaker 1: necessities of the human body or not, something that he
Speaker 1: succumbs to. Right, Whereas in like I recently reread the
Speaker 1: Irene Adler story, what is that the Bohemian the title?
Speaker 1: But yeah, a scandal in Bohemia, I think is what
Speaker 1: it's called. And they recently did that on the Benedict
Speaker 1: cumber Patch, uh BBC show version, and it was much
Speaker 1: more titilating, you know, like I believe that he first
Speaker 1: encounters Irene Adler and she's totally naked in a room
Speaker 1: when he when he first meets her, you know, and
Speaker 1: there's obviously this play on will they won't they kind
Speaker 1: of stuff going on, and he's certainly not meant to
Speaker 1: be celibate in that show. But uh, going back to this,
Speaker 1: you know, resurgence of detective fiction in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: that was that was off the table. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: part of the concerns. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's certainly
Speaker 1: a strong case to be made that that that Holmes
Speaker 1: was essentially kind of a Franciscan friar who um uh.
Speaker 1: You know, his natural habitat is a you know, mystical
Speaker 1: retreat where he isolates himself for weeks, you know, just
Speaker 1: you know, he's on the couch, not moving, just in
Speaker 1: pure intellectual thought, almost as if in prayer. Uh, of
Speaker 1: course he's in prayer to his his intellect um. And
Speaker 1: of course um burto Echo picked up on this when
Speaker 1: he recashed Herlock Holmes as brother William of Baskerville in
Speaker 1: the Name of the Rose. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's perfect.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, Yeah, because he's like, that's
Speaker 1: he's very on the note that, like, that's he's essentially
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes, to the point that the first few pages
Speaker 1: of of the novel like match up with a study
Speaker 1: in scarlet, Like really, I didn't know that. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: now it makes me kind of want to go back
Speaker 1: and at least rewatched that movie. Was sean con replay
Speaker 1: that character? Huh um? And then of course, you know
Speaker 1: we mentioned G. K. Chesterson. I'm saying his name wrong, right,
Speaker 1: Chesterton is Chesterton Chesterton? Yeah, I meanly know him from
Speaker 1: the book The Man Who Was Thursday, but his father
Speaker 1: Brown series was about a priest or maybe he was
Speaker 1: a former priest I can't remember, who was also a detective.
Speaker 1: And this is a big there's a whole line of these,
Speaker 1: like like even in the States, like was it father down,
Speaker 1: Father Downey, Father Down? Deep mysteries Like oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know those ones. It was kind of you know, it
Speaker 1: was kind of a murder she wrote just about the
Speaker 1: same murder she wrote is sort of like a version
Speaker 1: of this as well. I don't particularly remember Angela Lansbury
Speaker 1: having anything but dedication for her writing and solving these mysteries.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like had a lot of outside interests. But
Speaker 1: I think there was maybe even a crossover. I'd have
Speaker 1: to go back, but yeah, there was. There was at
Speaker 1: least one US show that had a a priest solving crimes.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are various examples of this in British television,
Speaker 1: like It's I think an ongoing trope. Yeah. Um, now
Speaker 1: we've talked about the church here, but but I do
Speaker 1: want to return to the idea of the shaman itself
Speaker 1: and the older sense of the word um, because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of fantastic comparisons to be made here. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, you look to a shaman and a it's
Speaker 1: particularly in an an older culture, right, as someone who
Speaker 1: looks inward to the mysteries of the soul and human consciousness,
Speaker 1: and they take us on a journey, sometimes a terrifying,
Speaker 1: soul wrenching journey of discovery. They help you, they help
Speaker 1: an outsider explore questions by bringing you into a sacred space,
Speaker 1: by producing a tray of magical substances. Often they alter
Speaker 1: your perception and experience of reality. And key here too.
Speaker 1: The shaman is is very much an individual with a
Speaker 1: foot into world, both the real world that we live
Speaker 1: in every day and this other world, this spirit world,
Speaker 1: this demon world, god world, whatever you want to make
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, and that's key to the detective story
Speaker 1: as well, the living within two worlds. Right. That's why
Speaker 1: these guys more often than not are not part of
Speaker 1: law institutions of law because they in order to catch
Speaker 1: the criminal, in order to solve the mystery, they have
Speaker 1: to somewhat have that darkness in their heart right and
Speaker 1: be able to travel the road that the criminal travels
Speaker 1: as well and understand them. Yeah, indeed. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: know there's also a case to be made, particularly with
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes. Um. Sherlock Holmes sometimes takes a powerful drug
Speaker 1: to help him answer the questions he secret. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: in the case of did you ever read or see
Speaker 1: an adaptation of The Devil's Foot, No, it's probably my
Speaker 1: favorite home story because it involves a powerful african Um
Speaker 1: substance uh one as the Devil's Foot When when when
Speaker 1: it's just basically a shamanistic powder, but it's used in
Speaker 1: to commit a crime where like one or two people
Speaker 1: were murdered. I forget that body count. Uh, they just
Speaker 1: killed dead byde and the rest are driven insane and uh.
Speaker 1: And so Holmes ends up breathing in some of it
Speaker 1: just to experiment with the substance and has like a
Speaker 1: terrifying vision. So that sounds right up my alley. I'm
Speaker 1: curious about that because right like, this is one of
Speaker 1: those things about homes that is often disputed and people
Speaker 1: go back and forth on I remember when the new show,
Speaker 1: the BBC one that's popular right now, sorry airing, and
Speaker 1: there was there were all the suggestions to him having
Speaker 1: a drug problem. There are people complaining about it not
Speaker 1: having a drug problem, about about him having and saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: what is this. This isn't part of the Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 1: that I know, And it's right there in the original texts,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I remember in the Jeremy Brett um
Speaker 1: versions it was it was very very present. But then
Speaker 1: I believe I remember correctly Brett made it a priority
Speaker 1: to sort of to get homes off the drugs. So
Speaker 1: like there's a scene where he buries his pipe and
Speaker 1: all because he didn't he didn't want young kids to
Speaker 1: watch ar like Holmes and inspired to partake, whereas, like
Speaker 1: I think, in the new one he just wears like
Speaker 1: a lot of nicotine patches or something that's right, which
Speaker 1: is which is another interesting way of of tackling the
Speaker 1: same issue. But I love this idea of the scientist
Speaker 1: as shaman, particularly when you look at it coming out
Speaker 1: of the eighteen sixties, right on the heels of the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin
Speaker 1: of Species, which had a profound impact, just leaving a
Speaker 1: kind of a cultural vacuum in its wake. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's something that I would like to touch on here
Speaker 1: as well, from another article that I researched for for
Speaker 1: this episode. Uh. It was an article called Detective Fiction
Speaker 1: in the Aesthetic of Crime, which is in the two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen issue of Raritan magazine and based really it's
Speaker 1: a fairly simple premise, which was that detective stories came
Speaker 1: out of this connection to Darwinism, uh, and that time's
Speaker 1: obsession with medical knowledge and especially vivisection. Right, and we
Speaker 1: get Jack the Ripper around that same time, the Elephant Man,
Speaker 1: all these sort of like you know, learned men of
Speaker 1: England examining the body and basically tearing it apart. And
Speaker 1: there so, the author of this piece, J. S. Harpham
Speaker 1: basically puts forward the idea that the aesthetic of murder,
Speaker 1: the aesthetic of taking a body apart and killing somebody,
Speaker 1: was prevalent within British society at the time. Uh and
Speaker 1: and as such an influence the detective fiction. Uh it
Speaker 1: made it so that there was almost a celebration, celebration
Speaker 1: of murder as an art form. I mean when I
Speaker 1: think about all of these different examples that we've just
Speaker 1: been talking about, right, and all these detective fiction authors
Speaker 1: coming up with these incredibly morbid ways for UM characters
Speaker 1: to find bodies, right, like Unhannibal Man Alive. Like I
Speaker 1: remember watching I think it was in the first season,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I can't believe they're getting away
Speaker 1: with this on network television. Not that I just liked it,
Speaker 1: but like, I think there's a point where they find
Speaker 1: a human totem pole and it's like twenty people all
Speaker 1: like stacked on top of one another. Oh that's right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: nice connection to millennium there. And like I'm reading a
Speaker 1: book by UM. I believe he's pronouncer named Lauren bukes
Speaker 1: or bucas. It's called Broken Monsters. And this isn't a
Speaker 1: spoiler for the book. It's like right in the first chapter,
Speaker 1: but the premises that they find a body of a
Speaker 1: boy that's cut in half and sewn to the body
Speaker 1: of a deer. And you think about this stuff in
Speaker 1: these grizzly circumstances that we dive into with this fiction,
Speaker 1: and there is a celebration of murder of in this
Speaker 1: weird artistic way. It's almost like the I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the things that's coming out of this period of
Speaker 1: time and continues to sort of, you know, be a
Speaker 1: point of consideration for the money here. I think it's
Speaker 1: like the basic biomechanical nature of the body and uh
Speaker 1: and and it seems that, you know, when when you
Speaker 1: have these villains and these pieces that are doing elaborate
Speaker 1: things to take it apart and rearrange it, it's all
Speaker 1: kind of a meditation on on that. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: it just occurred to me. Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, similar
Speaker 1: kind of thing they're going on, the taking the body apart,
Speaker 1: putting it back together again and making it walk around.
Speaker 1: I will say this about Hannibal. I remember when I
Speaker 1: first started watching the TV show and and it became
Speaker 1: clear that they were going to just go ahead and
Speaker 1: roll out a new, just unrealistically complex murder every week.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, well, that's good. They've embraced it. They've
Speaker 1: decided we were going to live in a universe. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna go ahead and live in a universe. It's
Speaker 1: a little different than the than the reality, and not
Speaker 1: try and make the world of Hannibal conformed to it.
Speaker 1: It is, Yeah, it is. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I love about that show is that it's so over
Speaker 1: the top. I keep thinking to myself when I'm watching
Speaker 1: in it, like, why would anybody stay in the Baltimore
Speaker 1: area with all the like every time you open the
Speaker 1: newspaper it's like, oh, we found a human totem poll
Speaker 1: of twenty people on the beach yesterday, and like every
Speaker 1: week there's some totally bonkers serial killer running around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would have that whole support groups just for people
Speaker 1: who have themselves or have loved ones that have wound
Speaker 1: up in some one of these scenarios. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's grizzly, but like, getting back to the meat
Speaker 1: of this, there's something about that that we like, right,
Speaker 1: We like getting into no pun intended, the meat of
Speaker 1: the story, going along the journey with the detective and
Speaker 1: sort of learning how to understand the world from their
Speaker 1: journey and from the evidence that they gather. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean to go back to Canyon Abel. You know, you
Speaker 1: need detective God to step in and say what's what.
Speaker 1: But in an age when God has less way over
Speaker 1: our world view in our daily life, you need somebody else.
Speaker 1: And it's all about the drawing the line of morality, right,
Speaker 1: That's what God was doing in the Canable story. That's
Speaker 1: what we're finding out here, you know. Uh, in a
Speaker 1: lot of these cases, like you were telling me about
Speaker 1: some examples of Sherlock Holmes, when Holmes does not bring
Speaker 1: the criminal in, uh, and and it lets them go
Speaker 1: basically because Holmes has decided where the demarcation for morality
Speaker 1: is and that you know, this, this or that criminal
Speaker 1: don't need to be locked away. Uh. And you get
Speaker 1: that as well. Obviously, you know we've we've touched on
Speaker 1: it already that there's a there's a part of the
Speaker 1: detective that has to be a criminal themselves, has to
Speaker 1: sympathize and um, you know, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it works, sometimes it doesn't, Like, Oh, have you seen Luther?
Speaker 1: I haven't yet. Yeah. Yeah. Another priestly character is that
Speaker 1: names because we should probably hit on that before we
Speaker 1: break that. You see so many, not all, but so
Speaker 1: many detectives whose name whose last names, uh, generally have
Speaker 1: something priestly in them, something to do with the clergy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in this case, Luther is in Martin Luther. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And um, you know this is right from the very
Speaker 1: first episode that there's a character that is a murderer
Speaker 1: that he comes across and he can't exactly prove that
Speaker 1: she's a murderer. And over the course of the series
Speaker 1: they're sort of friends. She's sort of a fem fatale character,
Speaker 1: but they're in there and an antagonist, but they're also
Speaker 1: friendly with one another and help one another out. And
Speaker 1: it's like he's decided that she's not the kind of
Speaker 1: murderer that he needs to be pursuing. Is a fascinating
Speaker 1: line that these characters draw in the sand for us.
Speaker 1: There's a whole list of characters you could you could
Speaker 1: run through that have priestly names, including Dr Priestley from
Speaker 1: John Rhodes for forensics. He's a forensic scientist. In the
Speaker 1: nine twenties fiction, there's Um John Creasy's commander George Gideon
Speaker 1: as in the Bible. Yeah. Um. On TV Today, in
Speaker 1: addition to John Luther, we have, of course Adrian Monk. Yeah, right, ones,
Speaker 1: right on the head. What about I feel like I
Speaker 1: remember reading Alex Crosses character James Patterson's Alex cross there's
Speaker 1: Simon Templer, a k the st there's Um on the
Speaker 1: TV show Castle. Of course, I think we have with
Speaker 1: Frank Is it Frank Castle in the name of the character.
Speaker 1: I've never watched that show. It's basically murder, she wrote, Right,
Speaker 1: So I haven't watched it either, but I know there's
Speaker 1: a character named Castle, and his name is just more
Speaker 1: of an idea that if you have a detective, they
Speaker 1: have to have something kind of cool in their name. Right,
Speaker 1: But there is a Kate Beckett on there, so okay,
Speaker 1: I can sort of chalk that up to it. Um. There,
Speaker 1: I already mentioned our Scott Baker's disciple Manning. He conforms
Speaker 1: to the trope Will Graham of Red Dragon. You could
Speaker 1: make an earth case that there's Bill Billy Graham, essentially
Speaker 1: Billy Graham Yeah, that before there you go. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: writer whose rise to power was right around the time
Speaker 1: that Thomas Harris was writing the novels. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't remember any of the names of the characters
Speaker 1: from that Learned Bukes novels. But now I'm going to
Speaker 1: think about this when I'm when I'm finishing up that book.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're gonna take a quick break, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna talk about the detective
Speaker 1: fiction a little more. We're gonna draw in uh scientific study,
Speaker 1: some thoughts about how the human mind works and uh
Speaker 1: and where the detective fiction stands uh in particularly in
Speaker 1: twentieth century culture. Hey, we're back. We're talking about detective fiction.
Speaker 1: The fictional detective as a seeker of truth, resolver of conflict,
Speaker 1: and a signer of blame. A shaman, a priest, uh
Speaker 1: A an individual that stands with one foot in our
Speaker 1: world and one in another world, and they can help
Speaker 1: us in theory, um, figure out the mysteries that played us.
Speaker 1: And so we we teased before the break that we're
Speaker 1: gonna touch on some some scientific studies about detective fiction,
Speaker 1: and the first one is this interesting article from Psychology
Speaker 1: Today written by a guy. It's a Christopher Badcock, I
Speaker 1: believe is his name, and it's called the Genius of
Speaker 1: Detective Fiction. And he has this theory that there's two
Speaker 1: modes of cognition that are involved in our favorite detectives,
Speaker 1: right in reading about our favorite detectives, and that sort
Speaker 1: of make up these characters. Do you want to hit
Speaker 1: on that? Yeah, yeah, he uh you know. Basically, he's
Speaker 1: he's looking at two different ways in which our mind work.
Speaker 1: One is he calls mentalism, and this is kind of
Speaker 1: theory of mind folk psychology, uh uh. And then there's mechanism,
Speaker 1: which is more theory of bodies and folk physics. And
Speaker 1: the two big examples of the of this to look at,
Speaker 1: the ones that the bad Cock drawls out here are
Speaker 1: that you look at Sherlock Holmes, right, and there are
Speaker 1: obviously no doable autistic tendencies in his character, his lack
Speaker 1: of social interests interest, his his you know, the degree
Speaker 1: of concentration that he brings to any given case, and
Speaker 1: his eye for detail where a crime or a mystery
Speaker 1: is concerned. And we do see this more and more,
Speaker 1: I feel like in these in these modern uh uh
Speaker 1: interpretations of Holmes, these modern explorations of because with this
Speaker 1: increased knowledge of of of what autism is like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the Holmes is one of those characters that
Speaker 1: is probably going to be revisited for centuries. And it
Speaker 1: seems like every time we revisit the character, there's more
Speaker 1: and more of the psychological understanding that we have through
Speaker 1: science brought to the character. And there's I think there's
Speaker 1: that infamous line in the new TV show where he
Speaker 1: says something like I'm not a psychopath, I'm a highly
Speaker 1: functioning sociopath. Uh, something along those lines. Uh, And that
Speaker 1: touches on, you know that the second aspect here of
Speaker 1: bad Cox's theory, which is that you've got the mechanistic
Speaker 1: part but which he sort of likens to being autistic,
Speaker 1: and then there's this mentalistic aspect, which he likens to
Speaker 1: being on the spectrum of the psychotic disorder. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he says that there's, you know, a play between the
Speaker 1: two of being on the autistic spectrum and being on
Speaker 1: the psychotic spectrum. And for detectives, they in particular detectives
Speaker 1: play this out for us, right. Uh. In the general population,
Speaker 1: there's this incredibly low rate of people who would have
Speaker 1: that combination of mental factors, but we see them in
Speaker 1: things like his these are bad Cocks examples John Nash
Speaker 1: who just passed away last week. Yes, yeah, Isaac Newton,
Speaker 1: and then his other example was Beethoven, that these are
Speaker 1: examples of these sort of autistic slash psychotic characters that
Speaker 1: that we fall for, and that the detective character plays
Speaker 1: this out for us. You know, our actual cognition doesn't
Speaker 1: have to go down this route, but you know, I
Speaker 1: could imagine, I can easily imagine uh, fiction coming out
Speaker 1: in the years to follow where all three of those
Speaker 1: guys solve crimes. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, that's a really
Speaker 1: good idea. Together they travel, Yeah, yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: cool thing about Badcock's paper is that, you know, you
Speaker 1: really shows that there's there's the way the human mind works,
Speaker 1: and then these two different extremes. Like that's where we
Speaker 1: tend to position our detectives as as is stream modes
Speaker 1: of human cognition. Yeah, and if they fall too far
Speaker 1: to one side, they're not effective detectives. Right, So, like, uh,
Speaker 1: take the Will Graham character for example, Like he's constantly
Speaker 1: being pushed further towards the edge of psychotic and rather
Speaker 1: than being somewhat in the middle between psychotic and autistic. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's when he you know, he's at his worst,
Speaker 1: he's not able to catch the killer. Um. But on
Speaker 1: the other end of it, I'm trying to think like
Speaker 1: Holmes is probably the one that comes to mind as
Speaker 1: being the one that leans heavily towards the autist stick side, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like he was the best example of that. Um.
Speaker 1: And on the other end of the spectrum, Batcock brings
Speaker 1: out Agatha Christie's Miss Marple example, but I've never read
Speaker 1: Miss Marple. Yeah, I have not. I speak to that. Huh.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of other examples here. Where would
Speaker 1: Lebowski fall, because he has the same Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Lebowski is we're referring to the Cohen Brothers movie The
Speaker 1: Big Lebowski. Uh yeah, Lebowski would be definitely more towards
Speaker 1: the psychotic end, I think, right, He's he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a particular focus or dedication to anything whatsoever. But he
Speaker 1: does have a disregard for social conventions, does Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and that's that's something you do see, isn't that? Isn't that?
Speaker 1: The theory I've heard is that Lebowski is a like
Speaker 1: scene for seeing adaptation of Chandler's The Big Sleet. You know,
Speaker 1: I never really thought about it, supposedly. I think I've
Speaker 1: heard that rumor somewhere. I'm sure one of listeners will
Speaker 1: debunk that idea. But I remember somebody telling me that
Speaker 1: one time. All right, Well, moving along to a little
Speaker 1: more science. Um, this this next study comes down to
Speaker 1: a basic question. Who doesn't love a good who done
Speaker 1: it right? Well, in theory, nobody right, Like I would think,
Speaker 1: like a great who done it? Like? That's that's what
Speaker 1: you want in your detective story. You don't want to
Speaker 1: call the ending like right from the beginning like that's
Speaker 1: always the worst, right, especially if you're if you don't
Speaker 1: see the ending coming and you're watching say detective show
Speaker 1: with somebody who does you like, Oh, it's the wife
Speaker 1: that killed him? Right? This is like the original spoilers
Speaker 1: before the internet was really kicking around. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: who it is. I you know, I haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: the last page yet. There's those people who do like
Speaker 1: to skip ahead, read the last page and then read
Speaker 1: the rest of the book though, And I think this
Speaker 1: study touches upon that, right. Yeah, indeed, this is a
Speaker 1: two thousand six Ohio State University study that they conducted
Speaker 1: in conjunction with the Hanover School of Music and Drama
Speaker 1: in Germany. Um, and they looked at particularly, They're curious
Speaker 1: to see how people with low self esteem reacted to
Speaker 1: crime and detective stories that either confirmed their suspicions in
Speaker 1: the end or threw them for a curve. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so this is essentially the methodology of the study, right.
Speaker 1: There were eighty four German college students that were their subjects,
Speaker 1: and they all took these personality assessments basically um self
Speaker 1: reporting on what their self esteem levels were. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then they were each assigned to read a short one
Speaker 1: page mystery which was called Murder because of Lust or Greed,
Speaker 1: which is a very very German title for a detective story.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it sounds a lot sexier in German itself. Everything, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: But the without getting into whatever the story was about, essentially,
Speaker 1: these students were given three different versions of the story,
Speaker 1: one in which the suspects are equally likely to have
Speaker 1: commit of the crime. The second version hints that one
Speaker 1: of the suspects was more likely than the other to
Speaker 1: be the killer. And then the third one hinted that
Speaker 1: one suspect was more likely to be the murderer. But
Speaker 1: the end, the killer turns out to be done, Done
Speaker 1: done somebody that you're not even aware of. Is the
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo twist, right, somebody pulls a mask off. And
Speaker 1: what they found was that of these self reporting students,
Speaker 1: people with low self esteem rated the surprise ending as
Speaker 1: less enjoyable than the confirmation ending, So they didn't like
Speaker 1: the surprise if they had low self esteem, whereas the
Speaker 1: people who reported that they had high self esteem reacted
Speaker 1: the opposite way. They really liked the surprise and they
Speaker 1: didn't like knowing ahead of time who committed the crime.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, this is a weird one to wrap my
Speaker 1: head around, because I mean, I guess the best I
Speaker 1: can imagine is like try and put myself in that that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the mindset of someone who's like, had
Speaker 1: a really add date work and you know, just everything is, uh,
Speaker 1: everything's everything's a disaster, just one after the other all
Speaker 1: day and then you get home and you read your
Speaker 1: detective story. And maybe there's an argument to be made
Speaker 1: that that this individual reads a detective story and if
Speaker 1: and if he's able to guess the outcome correctly. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: I got one, yeah, exactly. Finally something went right for me. Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I can understand that. But jeez, I mean, no matter
Speaker 1: how bad my day gets. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: this is an indicative of me having a particularly high
Speaker 1: self esteem or anything like that, but I like the twist.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not advocating for an m Night Shamalan
Speaker 1: twist to every single ending of the story. But I
Speaker 1: like to be surprised. I like to not know where
Speaker 1: the story is going. I think like, as somebody who
Speaker 1: consumes a ton of fictional entertainment, you get to a
Speaker 1: point where you you start recognizing the narrative beats, and
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times you often know where
Speaker 1: it's going. Um, So it's always surprising. I mentioned your
Speaker 1: detective earlier. It's always surprising when something leads to a
Speaker 1: direction that you weren't expecting. You know, I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you mentioned the beats. Um. It reminds me of an
Speaker 1: example from Lucha Libre where someone someone brought up It
Speaker 1: was a discussion about like big mask versus Mask. Luja
Speaker 1: Libre matches in particular, and someone brought up was that
Speaker 1: they said, well, you always know who's gonna win, like
Speaker 1: because generally the good guy wins. Really yeah, the good
Speaker 1: guy wins and the bad guy loses his mask. Um
Speaker 1: and uh, anyway, someone is saying, well, there's no surprise
Speaker 1: here because this is the story always in the same way.
Speaker 1: And then um, someone countered by saying that it's there's
Speaker 1: a mythic quality in that that when the story always
Speaker 1: confirms conforms to a certain pattern and a certain mythic story,
Speaker 1: then there's comfort in that because the story, every story
Speaker 1: is important in in in the way that it confirmed
Speaker 1: conforms to a pre existing narrative. Yeah, and I can
Speaker 1: see the there's a pleasure to be had there as well,
Speaker 1: right Uh. In in your example, like you get home
Speaker 1: from work at the end of a terrible day and
Speaker 1: maybe you don't need any more surprises. Maybe you just
Speaker 1: want to have something familiar be there for you. It's
Speaker 1: like a blanket. Yeah, but it's like a thunder sure, thundersure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but then I mean again to your point, it's like,
Speaker 1: even if I've had a bad day, I feel like
Speaker 1: I would want the story to just suck me away
Speaker 1: and take me into a place I can't they escape
Speaker 1: as a mask. Yeah, but according to their study. Now,
Speaker 1: I do have to say here that you know, when
Speaker 1: I read this, I thought, well, the evidence here is
Speaker 1: a little loosey goosey, and I'd like to see some
Speaker 1: more research done here. I mean, in particular, they've got
Speaker 1: this very subjective group of students that they're looking at.
Speaker 1: They're all college students, they're all German, they're all of
Speaker 1: a particular age, right, and um, they're all also self
Speaker 1: reporting on their self esteem. So I think it would
Speaker 1: be interesting to see a study where there was like
Speaker 1: more of a quantitative psychological assessment going on here, and
Speaker 1: then you compare that to their results of you know,
Speaker 1: reading the story. But um, again, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a very subjective world of research here. I agree. I agree. Now,
Speaker 1: another role for the detective we thought we'd mentioned here
Speaker 1: is that of a subcultural liaison. And this idea comes
Speaker 1: to us from theory and practice of classical detective fiction
Speaker 1: by Jerome Delamater and Ruth Pragazi of Hofstra University. I
Speaker 1: would have to say neither of those last names particularly
Speaker 1: good detective names. Yeah, I think I would have to
Speaker 1: go back to bad Cock who mentioned earlier, yeah, that
Speaker 1: he would be an excellent detective. He probably changed his
Speaker 1: name just for that piece. Not very religious sounding though,
Speaker 1: And what do we mean by subcultural liaison though? Well, um,
Speaker 1: you know you think of any crime story, right, and
Speaker 1: it involves like sword pass right and dark secrets, uh,
Speaker 1: and some sort of convergence between the normal world and
Speaker 1: some sort of a subworld. So you know, we already
Speaker 1: talked about the sho and having one foot in ours
Speaker 1: and one in you know, the realm of the spirits.
Speaker 1: And the detective of course has one foot in ours
Speaker 1: and one and uh at least in the criminal element, right,
Speaker 1: and least through investigations conducted there, if not some portion
Speaker 1: of his life existing there. So the detective often serves
Speaker 1: as this, uh, this vehicle through which we get to
Speaker 1: explore a subculture that we would otherwise just not be
Speaker 1: privy to. Yeah, I mean when you think about it,
Speaker 1: especially for I think a certain sect of people who
Speaker 1: love detective stories, right, there's this m M vicarious like
Speaker 1: toe dipping into the world of the criminal, right, it's
Speaker 1: the safe way to do so. And um, I mean
Speaker 1: I'll admit it myself, like I don't particularly have like
Speaker 1: a dark criminal past. But I like watching shows where
Speaker 1: I get like some sort of a hint at what
Speaker 1: criminal activity is like in America, you know, even though
Speaker 1: it's fictional and it's obviously like way off base, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, the closest version of this is like
Speaker 1: The Wire, Right, So if you're watching David Simon's The Wire,
Speaker 1: and you're like, now, I have an understanding for drug
Speaker 1: culture in Baltimore, and that's probably the closest you're going
Speaker 1: to get to accuracy. And even that is, you know,
Speaker 1: I believe, highly fictionalized. Yeah, but still to the you know,
Speaker 1: to the average viewer, they suddenly know a little more
Speaker 1: about the reality of that than they would have. In
Speaker 1: particular that subculture of being African American in Baltimore and
Speaker 1: living in a neighborhood that's immersed within the drug scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that which is not something that I in particular
Speaker 1: have access to now, you know. Of course, that's not
Speaker 1: to say that every detective story is going to really
Speaker 1: give you an authentic feel for the subculture. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: detective investigates a murder in a dungeon doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: going to end up with a better understanding of what
Speaker 1: b D s M culture is all about. You're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have a very skewed, uh idea very sensational idea
Speaker 1: of what it consists of. That's probably part of the
Speaker 1: safety though, too write, is that like it, it's just
Speaker 1: far enough, it's arms reach away enough that it's not
Speaker 1: you know, it's not entering into our own lives, but
Speaker 1: it gives us it's back to the shawn again, it
Speaker 1: gives us a broader understanding of the world. But then
Speaker 1: I guess when you get used to your your shamanistic
Speaker 1: detective taking you into these worlds, you maybe get a
Speaker 1: little more comfortable each time. And so we end up
Speaker 1: with this growing trend of the detective fiction allowing us
Speaker 1: safe journeys into these varying worlds. Often uh times, you'll
Speaker 1: also end up getting to take these journeys with a
Speaker 1: little inside help from the the author of themselves. Um.
Speaker 1: It's been pointed out that since detective fiction, even in
Speaker 1: its early goings, was more about fun and entertainment, it
Speaker 1: meant that writing detective fiction was was more open to
Speaker 1: female writers. Yeah, right, And obviously Agatha Christie, you know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the twentieth century having such a
Speaker 1: surge of popularity was unusual. Huh. So now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about like these examples of detective fiction that we like
Speaker 1: that we're you know, we were talking about earlier at
Speaker 1: the top, and how they're sort of giving us access
Speaker 1: to subcultures. I mean, so this, this Broken Monsters book
Speaker 1: that I'm reading right now is very much about like, uh,
Speaker 1: post industrial Detroit. It's set in the present day. It's
Speaker 1: very heavily linked to social media, uh and the art
Speaker 1: world of Detroit in particular, and so it's giving you
Speaker 1: this access and view into this world of you know,
Speaker 1: I I don't have any connection to that particular scene
Speaker 1: at all. Uh So I guess I'm I'm living it
Speaker 1: vicariously through the detective who's who's scurrying about the streets
Speaker 1: of Detroit trying to solve this guy who's sewing people's
Speaker 1: bodies to animals. Yeah, or even think of the first
Speaker 1: season of True Detective, So much of that concerned some
Speaker 1: very authentic feeling scenes of rural Louisiana like that was
Speaker 1: It's far different from you know, movie Louisiana, like Hollywood
Speaker 1: Louisi entity. You got stay on a true blood, right
Speaker 1: or or any given a bit of fiction that takes
Speaker 1: place in in Louisiana or New Orleans. That was one
Speaker 1: of the things I loved about that show so much
Speaker 1: was that Louisiana was a character in that show, and
Speaker 1: it really made me think about the Southern Gothic genre
Speaker 1: in a very different way than I ever have before. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite bits and all of True
Speaker 1: Detective and this isn't a spoiler at all, is we're
Speaker 1: set in the mid nineties. These detectives are trying to
Speaker 1: figure out a murder and they pull over at a
Speaker 1: roadside Vietnamese fast food place in Louisiana and just have
Speaker 1: a quick snack. And there's no commentary on it whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's just there, and it's something you wouldn't expect, right,
Speaker 1: You wouldn't think, like, oh, rural Louisiana is going to
Speaker 1: just have these roadside Vietnamese places. But the author's familiarity
Speaker 1: with that region obviously came through there and it was
Speaker 1: a nice glimpse. Yeah. So with detective fiction, you you
Speaker 1: and are kind of skirting sensationalistic displays, but you're also
Speaker 1: getting this at least a little insight into other social classes,
Speaker 1: economic divisions, lifestyle choices, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, and when
Speaker 1: you get into international um detective fiction too, that often
Speaker 1: allows you to, you know, immerse yourself in a different
Speaker 1: time and place. Well, certainly when you speak of time,
Speaker 1: you know, any kind of historical detective stories, uh, such
Speaker 1: as say the Gordion Honest books that take place in
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, you get to explore these different times in
Speaker 1: places and characters, but with the sort of the safe structure,
Speaker 1: the kind of enclosing shark cage of the of the genre. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean this explains I think partially why
Speaker 1: we as Americans love British Victorian era detective stories. Right,
Speaker 1: There's something about that era that we keep coming back
Speaker 1: to over and over and over again and again, Like
Speaker 1: the detective story gives us the shark cage to kind
Speaker 1: of immerse ourselves in there. I don't think anybody in
Speaker 1: the present day would would be particularly thrilled with the
Speaker 1: everyday amenities of that world, but you know that it's
Speaker 1: it's attractive to look back to. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: instantly gives you that that kind of comfort level. Like
Speaker 1: if I were to say, hey, let's go see a
Speaker 1: movie about ancient Babylon. Let's go see a detective story,
Speaker 1: a detective movie set in ancient Babylon. Like instantly, I
Speaker 1: have a little more idea of what I'm expecting with
Speaker 1: the sort of cultural flavoring surrounding it. Yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 1: really like this idea. I'm going to be looking out
Speaker 1: for this a lot more now. I'm thinking of, like, uh, um,
Speaker 1: what is this movie that it's a West Craven movie
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the title of it. You might
Speaker 1: know it. It's about an Amish community where there's these
Speaker 1: strange murders happening, and the X Files revisited it as well,
Speaker 1: but there's a you know this detectives trying to solve
Speaker 1: murders in an Amish community, and there's there's a sort
Speaker 1: of supernatural bent to it as well. But it's very
Speaker 1: much one of those like here's how the world of
Speaker 1: the Amish work, you know, like an introduction to it
Speaker 1: through the detective story. You know the tropes, you know
Speaker 1: the beats of the detective story, but the setting is
Speaker 1: something that we're unfamiliar with. So given the role of
Speaker 1: the detective and fiction, and given the power of the
Speaker 1: sub genre and the and the kind and the ultimately
Speaker 1: the subversive nature of it. Uh, it's understandable to see
Speaker 1: that it has it has been banned. There has been,
Speaker 1: there have been governmental crackdowns on detective fiction in recent history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider what we're talking about earlier, that
Speaker 1: most detectives are somewhere on the side. They're outsiders of
Speaker 1: institutional authority, right, and so it makes sense that governments
Speaker 1: and institutional authority would would frown upon that right and
Speaker 1: and want there to be more respect for their institutions,
Speaker 1: for their laws, etcetera. Yeah, Stalin banned the detective story
Speaker 1: and the restrictions remained in effect until after his death
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three. Uh. Italy followed a similar pattern.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And this is interesting to the German approach. Um. So,
Speaker 1: one of the most influential authors back in the the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties was the guy named by the name of
Speaker 1: Eric Costner and h. When the Nazis came to power,
Speaker 1: they burned all of his books, but they didn't ban
Speaker 1: the detective genre outright. Instead, they they decided to sort
Speaker 1: of fold it into their propaganda and they only allow
Speaker 1: detective stories um that depicted honest and highly competent policemen
Speaker 1: that were upholding the rule of law. Really, so I'm
Speaker 1: just imagining, like, Okay, here's our Hollywood pitch. Right, we
Speaker 1: walk into the meeting, there's this big long table of
Speaker 1: Hollywood executives, and we go, Okay, it's a detective story.
Speaker 1: But the detective is an s S officer, and they're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's great. He's gonna be conflicted, and he's gonna
Speaker 1: he's gonna be like a good German trapped in a
Speaker 1: awful system. He said, no, no, he's just really good.
Speaker 1: He's a flat out Nazi. Yeah. It doesn't sound very
Speaker 1: interesting at the end of the day, but you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories that are designed to support
Speaker 1: you know, authoritarian regimes are not either. Well, it kind
Speaker 1: of brings us back to the forensic uh slant in
Speaker 1: the sort of modern police procedurals right in your purest form. Again,
Speaker 1: it's about a system and a science that works. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of those I mean, I have
Speaker 1: to admit, like I'm not a huge fan of police procedurals.
Speaker 1: I can understand that there's a quality of uh. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like what we were talking about earlier that
Speaker 1: that quality of familiarity right where you throw on an
Speaker 1: episode of Law and Order and you're like, I know
Speaker 1: how this is gonna go, right, Like the beats are
Speaker 1: the same every episode, and and for the most part
Speaker 1: you know where it's heading. It's a Law and Order
Speaker 1: and Scooby Doo have a lot in common that way.
Speaker 1: But but however, you know there is something to be
Speaker 1: said here, like the characters in Law and Order buying large. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of the show, but from
Speaker 1: my understanding, like their lawyers and police officers, right, and
Speaker 1: they're working within the system to solve the crimes that
Speaker 1: they solve. And then you know and shows such as
Speaker 1: like C S I or jeez, what is it? N
Speaker 1: C I S Is that the military one? Okay? Uh,
Speaker 1: they're using science to solve these crimes within these institutions,
Speaker 1: but we pretty much know where they're going, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of spins on it. I think
Speaker 1: there was like one C. S I where like Quentin
Speaker 1: Tarantino did a directed it and wrote it, I think,
Speaker 1: and it was like one of the guys got buried
Speaker 1: alive or something that was the twist. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Um. You know, I just want
Speaker 1: to close with a quick quote from literary critic Edmund Wilson. UM.
Speaker 1: And this is from a PC that he wrote in
Speaker 1: The New York Or in nineteen forty four, where he
Speaker 1: was asking the same question, why do we love detective fiction? Um?
Speaker 1: And he says the following. Yet the detective story has
Speaker 1: kept its hold, and even in the two decades between
Speaker 1: the Great War, has become more popular than ever before.
Speaker 1: And there is I believe a deep reason for this.
Speaker 1: The world during those years was written by an all
Speaker 1: pervasive feeling of guilt and by a fear of impending disaster,
Speaker 1: which it seemed hopeless to try to avert because it
Speaker 1: never seemed conclusively possible to pin down the responsibility who
Speaker 1: had committed the original crime and who was going to
Speaker 1: commit the next one. That murder, which always in the novels,
Speaker 1: occurs at an unexpected moment when the investigation is well underway,
Speaker 1: which may happen as in one of the Nero Wolf
Speaker 1: stories right in the Great Detective's office. Everybody is suspected
Speaker 1: in turn, and the streets are full of lurking agents
Speaker 1: whose allegiances we cannot know. Nobody seems guiltless, nobody seems safe,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly the murderer is spotted and relief. He
Speaker 1: is not, after all, a person like you or me.
Speaker 1: He is a villain known to the trade as George Gruesome,
Speaker 1: and he has been caught by an infallible power, the supercilious,
Speaker 1: an omniscient detective who knows exactly how to fix the guilt.
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, if you want to check out more
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the
Speaker 1: mother ship. That's where you will find all the podcast episodes,
Speaker 1: the blog posts, the videos, links out to social media accounts,
Speaker 1: you name it, And if you have any thoughts about
Speaker 1: the detective genre, let us know about your favorite detective
Speaker 1: stories how you think they fit into these ideas we've
Speaker 1: talked about today, Shaman's subcultural liaisons bands all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think by writing to us
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com,
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