The Handy Literature Answer Book (The Handy Answer Book Series) by Daniel S. Burt & Deborah G. Felder

Author:Daniel S. Burt & Deborah G. Felder [Burt, Daniel S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gnv64
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
Published: 2018-06-30T18:30:00+00:00

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.

The successful mystery novel depends on both: there needs to be suspense to keep the pages turning as well as the surprising final revelation, Hitchcock’s “Boom!”

Ultimately, the test of whether a mystery succeeds or fails is whether it can deliver both effectively: engagement in the problem/puzzle as well as the satisfying surprise that the mystery writer has carefully prepared for so that the reader’s response, after initial astonishment, is “How did I not see that coming? It all makes sense now.”

How can mysteries be elevated to literary status?

It is incorrect and misleading to suggest that reliance on a mystery formula only results in entertainment, that a mystery cannot become something more ambitious. After all, the first mystery in Western literature is Sophocles’s great tragedy Oedipus the King. Oedipus sets out to end the plague that afflicts Thebes by following the instructions of the Delphic oracle and solving the mystery of who killed his predecessor, Laius. Sophocles has the play’s initial mystery serve much more profound ends by replacing the initial mystery of who killed Laius with the more existential question that Oedipus must solve: Who am I? Sophocles’s murder mystery takes in issues of free will and fate, the role of the gods in human affairs, even whether knowledge itself is desirable. Sophocles also constructs the first great metamystery in which Oedipus the detective becomes Oedipus the culprit: searching for Laius’s killer, Oedipus learns he is the one he is looking for. Sophocles’s mystery pushes his characters to unsuspected disclosures, more than justifying the form of withheld truth and its gradual revelations.

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