I'm watching Jennifer Byrne Presents: Crime at the moment when I should be sleeping. I like sleep. But then I was also interested to hear that one in every three novels sold is a crime novel.
Gah.
When I was younger, I ploughed through crime novels. You start out with things like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden, then migrate on to other crime novels. Most of which are enormously un-memorable and blend into one with hardly anyone standing out. Something happened, some people had their personal life issues while they're solving the crime and then it all gets sorted out. Oh my! What a shock!
It also excuses so much bad writing. It may be crime writing, but it's a crime how utterly bollocks so many of them are. Pulp writers, dime novels, saturated "colour" and all of that, crammed onto shelves in an orgy of mediocrity at your local Dymocks or Angus & Robertson.
Thankfully I'm not the only one who thinks Patricia Cornwell and others are not enjoyable writers. And one pannelist just recounted having asked Kathy Reichs what her literary influences were, to which she replied, "I have no literary influences, I read nothing." He then commented "It shows."
Admittedly, I do have novels by Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, etc. I liked Chandler's black sort of wit. Agatha Christie's work is very "reassuring" in a disturbingly normal way. And when it comes to TV, I love my tacky Midsommer Murders and other such dreadfulness. But that's television.
The discussion about why people love crime novels was interesting though. The conclusions were basically that there's such a variety, it provides a challenge - sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, it also provides a restoration of order, where things get sorted out, wrongs righted and general reassurance that the order of the world can be restored.
Not that that happens in real life every single time.
It just seems like it's a choice between crime novels, chick lit or some variety of bodice ripper in the mainstream book world. Oh, or bad sci-fi. And as much as I love books and reading, these kind of books tend to annoy me. But I guess at least it does mean people are reading. Even though they'd probably find just as much to be challenged and reassured by on the back of a pack of loo rolls.
Oh, was also reading interesting things on Slate today about a few memoirs being exposed as being fake recently. Also loved their guidelines for faking your next memoir.
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