We come into the world with a question: Where did I come from? We leave this world with a question: Where am I going? Even religious writers refer to these questions as the mysteries. Science has no answer: the story about the Birds and the Bees will not suffice. As far as l am concerned, the best answer is supplied in Wright & Forrest’s musical Kismet: Wise men come! Wise men go’ Ever promising the riddle of life to know, but over the shifting sands of time they go! Since time immemorial, the detective has thrown himself (later, herself) into this dilemma. Oh! The detective has had many names but whatever the name, the object is really to answer the two unanswerable questions.
A deadly plague has fallen upon Thebes. Oedipus, the world’s first identifiable detective, must find the killer to rid the land of pestilence. You say that’s a different mystery. Maybe! But isn’t Oedipus trying to find out where he came from? Now, you have to be careful ever claiming someone is first. Oedipus’ story was dramatized by Sophocles in a play of that name. However, we only have seven of Aeschylus’s ninety or so plays. Perhaps he wrote an Oedipus. For this article, we will take what we have and consider Sophocles’ Oedipus first.
At the dawn of the genre – the detective looks in the mirror and finds that the murderer is himself. To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, that device will then become a staple of the genre. Agatha Christie used it in The Mousetrap, and the play ran for thirty years in London. It may still be running for all I know. Man must know, even if the price is of everything, but especially his pride. Aristotle’s tragic flaw. Pride, Hubris, the Infernal Machine.
This is as good a time as any to inform you that little seems to be made, even by Freud, of the fact that the father commits the first crime against the child. I am not talking about the crime of failing to ask the son if he wishes to be born. I’m talking about the crime of crippling the son and giving orders for the son to be left out in the cold to die. This because some oracle says the son will murder the father. I adore my boys, and I did from the moment they were born. I’d have crippled the oracle, and taken my chances with my sons.
Not that sons don’t tum against their fathers: See Absalom in the Bible, not to mention all kinds of inter-familial murders in mythology. If you want a dramatization of the Absalom legend filled with Southern gothic horror, give yourself the pleasure of reading Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom.” I warn you, it starts slowly, but picks up speed if you have patience.
Getting back to Oedipus – Only an Irishman could figure out a way to turn it into a comedy. I refer you to J.M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World.” I’d say what happens still fits the mystery mold with the Aran peasant populace as the combined detective. Believe it or not, the Irish greeted this comic masterpiece by rioting. They read it as an indictment of the Irish peasantry for approving patricide. Eventually, it entered the Abbey Repertory as the masterpiece it is, but Synge was probably dead. Is “Playboy” the first comedy mystery? Once again, from the sublime to the ridiculous; try Gregory MacDonald’s “Fletch” or Joan Hess’s “Maggody” series. Belly laughs aplenty!
The greatest novel ever written (Rubin’s ratings), “The Brothers Karamazov,” is a detective story. Who murdered Fyodor? But this father is a monster. He’s a monster even as a father. Vladimir Nabokov, author of “Lolita,” dismisses “The Brothers” as a mere detective novel. As if that’s a satisfactory curse. I can’t forgive him! Maybe that’s why I can’t make it through “Lolita,” although my firstborn assures me it, too, is a masterpiece.
You may recall, included in that the Grand Inquisitor is included in “The Brothers.” It can be excerpted! It can also be argued that it is a mystery story as well. The mystery here is what do we do if Christ returns? Send him back, of course! The Grand Inquisitor postulates that man wants mystery, miracle, and authority. Only if we send Christ back can we have them.
Who is the detective? Ivan? Who did kill Fyodor? The insulted, the injured, the bastard – isn’t it always so? I don’t know! Look at “Crime and Punishment.” Maybe it is always so! Is Raskolnikov like Smerdyakov? Nah! He’s like Dimitri, no Alyosha, no Ivan. Clever fellow this Dostoyevsky. However, I wouldn’t call “Crime and Punishment” a detective story, but you certainly can make the argument. Let’s leave the Russians altogether with this admonition. You can love French, English, and even American literature. Irish, Japanese, Chinese – you name it. But you don’t mess with the Russians – because they may not know how to run an economy, but they know how to get the most out of suffering.
Last, but by no means least, is Hamlet. Maybe the Russians are the greatest overall, but Shakespeare can take on all comers. Hamlet is the greatest play ever written, and Oedipus is second (once again, Rubin’s ratings). Then again, Ernest Jones in Hamlet and Oedipus is saying they are the same play. Maybe same plot – who killed the king? But Hamlet is richer, the play’ s the thing to catch the conscience of the king! Hamlet is the detective, but he has help from the ghost.
So next time you read a good detective novel, don’t feel guilty. His/her ancestors come from an honorable tradition.