Traditional Crime Fiction (1 Viewer)

[aussiechica]

Hello!
Hi- this is my first post here. This forum seems pretty awesome- just what I needed

Anyhow, my teacher set an essay, the title of which is:
While a set of conventions is central to traditional crime fiction, composers are judged by how effectively they manipulate these to create challenging and interesting variations and subversions of the gene

I think Im fine with the 2nd half of the question, but when I questioned her on exactly what traditional CF is, she just went all misty on me and gave me that 'figure it out for yourself my child' kind of look that she has.

Anyway, heres what Ive written.
Any suggestions corrections or ideas appreciated

You dont even have to refer to my giant gob of bullshit below, (actually, if you dont even wanna read it I understand, it is fairly long and boring) just an idea of what you think traditional CF is and a few quotes or sumthing to back it up would be ace

ok, what I have so far:

Genre theory deals with the ways in which a work may be considered to belong to a class of related works. The word genre if French, meaning gender or type.
The application of genre theory could perhaps be compared with the process of taxonomy in biology- the dissection of a work until it fits into a species of related works.
Brian Moon states that Genres are categories set up by the interaction of textual features and reading practises, which shape and limit the meanings readers can make with text.
Conventions within a particular genre are the implied rules with which composers follows, and which responders come to expect.
It is these inherent forms or purposes which, upon identification, categorise a text into a particular genre.

Crime fiction can be defined as a subgenre of fiction that deals with crimes and their detection and criminals and their motives.
Crime fiction is the umbrella title for a genre which has many facets and any number of subgenres contained within it. One of the most prevailing of these is the sub-genre of detective fiction. According to Roanld Knox, a detective story must have, as its main interest, the unravelling of a mystery; a mystery whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end. Also, with this sub genre is a sleuth of detective fiction sub-genres, one of the most popular of which was the who-dunnit, popularised in the 20s and 30s by the proclaimed grand dames of crime fiction Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers.
Other detective fiction sub-genres include the hard boiled school, championed by writers such as Raymond Chandler and Jonathan Latimer and immortalised on celluloid in such films as The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon and the police procedual, some examples of which are Nelson DeMilles The Generals Daughter and Jeffery Deavers The Bone Collector.

Other sub genres of crime fiction include the caper novel , distinguished by use of humorous narration, scrambling action, bumbling but lovable characters and a driving undercurrent of sheer fun, the spy novel, or espionage thriller and the pyschological suspense novel.

Each of these subgenres has a different audience, set of values and set of conventions.

Therefore, describing traditional crime fiction from a scholastic point of view is nearly impossible. Tradition, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is an artistic or literary principle(s) based on accumulated experience or continued usage. Yet, there are no actual conventions of crime fiction, besides the actual rhubric of crime fiction- that there is crime / detection / criminals / their motives at the heart of the story, only conventions of crime fiction sub genres. And often, as these conventions often tend to contradict each other (ie. The Golden Age convention of ineptly of the police is directly discordant with the conventions of the sub-genre of the police procedural).
Therefore, there is no true traditional Crime Fiction idiom from a Scholastic perspective. Every work that may seem unconventional for its time shapes the genre of crime fiction, leaving new subgenera in its wake. As the John Hartley offered, the addition of just one film to the western genre...changes that genre as a whole- even though the Western in question may display few of the recognised conventions, styles or subject matters traditionally associated with the genre

However, from a pop-culture perspective, traditional crime fiction is accessible.
From this more informal perspective, traditional Crime Fiction is in fact, whatever the responder thinks it is. Many viewers may cite the works of Christie and Doyle as being the pinnacle of traditional crime fiction, others may consider the film noirs The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep as being the personification of perfect traditional crime fiction. As Jane Feur noted, Genre is ultimately an abstract conception, rather than something that exsists empirically in the world.
Therefore, traditional Crime fiction is any composition the respondant recognises as adhereing to the set conventions which they are familiar with


Thanks very much
AussieChica

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

the question is a bit vague (more room for bullsh!t lol) regarding to "traditional crime fiction". i agree with you that there are very little conventions that encompass the entire CF genre(besides maybe a crime, suspects, an accretion of evidence, a resolution), today because so many subgenres have spawned since the classical days. the question seems more plausible if one discusses a particular subgenre such as a hard boiled school etc and/or then u can make a generic discussion bout how each subgenre, and its conventions, has been extended, alterd subverted over time 2 survive and blah blah and all the rest that goes wif the 2nd part. so in this case the traditional cf would b the classics of each genre as in the 1s which set the conventions(eg hammet and chandler 4 hb cf) but the q didnt say subgenres so it may just refer 2 the classical cf from which all the modern subgenre of hb and cosy branched from (like poe and doyle) and 1 can say how the pioneers of each subgenre manipulated the values conventions etc to create a successfull school that has prospered since which follows wif the second part of da q... or it could b comparing modern cf 2 those classicals values ...or comparing modern cf 2 the a4mentioned generic broad conventions so as u said it depends completely on the responders perspective(like different responders taking different readings of taht generic qs lol). u could make that statement and jsut base ur essay on that although i dun think that is what the qs ask . personally if this was in an exam id just pick 1 of the above and just bs as much as i can bout it

 

[aussiechica]

Wow, thanks. That really cleared chunks of what I was stressed about up

The two set texts we have are the Real Inspector Hound and Skull beneath..., and we have to refer to them as well as 2 others (I was thinking maybe big Sleep and an Episode of Jonathan Creek- because I love that show
), do it has to emcompass CF as a whole and I cant really go to deeply into a particular subgenre unfortunately

Thanks very much, youve really cleared alot up for me

Just so Im 100% clear- there is no such thing as traditional CF right, its only what I make it to be?


Thanks sensai! Hya!

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

well im not sure bout the term "traditional cf" as our class never used it, but there is classical cf, as in the pre 20th century crime fiction which can b classified as that i suppose. and for a subgenre there are also the traditional txts of that subgenre ie maltese falcon, continental ops of dashell hammett-hboiled and agatha christie for cosy school, which founded the original conventions of each subgenre. this is y i thought that term is so vague.

 

[aussiechica]

Thankyou for that information, its very useful
However, as for the 'founding' texts of subgenres, I dunno, Im a bit afraid to say that. My teachers fave phrase ia 'genre is evolutonary and every text adds to the genre'- so im not 100% sure its safe to say that

But thanks very much- you really cleared up loads for me cheers

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

np. writing this help myself clear out a few things 2

of course each texts adds to the original copnventions but take hb 4 example. hammett and several others at the Black Mask basically pioneered the h-b school, and the following 20 yrs of the h-b golden age authors mimicked its conventions while adding a few personal touches that may or may not have added to or subverted the conventions. not all text in the 80 or so years of h-b followed every single convention and each text added something to it to various degrees of significance, but the most distinctive characteristics of the genre was created by hammett and co in the 20s-30s. while newer text may add to the subgenre and some may slightly subvert it, most ppl 2day would hav no trouble identifying the conventions(that have even become cliched) which sets it aprt andlink it with the early hb writers

 

[aussiechica]

Oh, okay, I follow ya- youre right, that does sound a good way to do it (althouh it might be harder to find 'traditional' texts for all the subgenres, especailly some of the newer ones, but hey, I only need 4 examples so thats cool

Would you put Skull in the cozy genre ? Even though its a parody, is its still cosy school (same with Gosford Park)

Thankyou for all your help once more

 

[McLake]

Skull is a modern text, written in Cosy style (note that this is different to a cozy text, as is Gosford Park)

 

[aussiechica]

I am confused- if it has all the aspects/coventions of cozy- isnt it cozy?
Im a bit slow- can you explain further?

Thankyou

 

[McLake]

You have to be clear about the differnce between being cozy (or any other sub-genre) and being written "cozy-like". This, of course, blurs the sub-genre boundry any way, but think of it as the difference between A subversion of the CF genre, and a "cliqued" (spelt right?) version.

Bassically, when giving a response make sure you don't call Skull a "cozy" text, call it something like "a modern adaptation of the cozy sub-genre".

PS: You're not slow.

 

[aussiechica]

Alright then, I getcha- Thanks for the advice