136
murder novel, the escape thriller,
the spy thriller and some of the
better whodunits all have this
im–
pact. The mysterious attraction
which both Mr. Wilson and Miss
McCarthy have missed and which
accounts in a great measure for
their popularity, is that "you can–
not put them down." From this
point of view the humble crime
story raises the problem of the re–
lation between the drama and the
novel.
In the writer's opinion, the na–
turalist-symbolist novel has about
come to the end of its rope. The
three great figures of modern
times, Joyce, Proust and Mann, are
all undramatic. They have loosen–
ed the structure of the novel until
it
sprawls like an encyclopedia and,
like encyclopedists, they have sacri–
ficed economy to comprehensive–
ness. They tend to abandon cause
and effect structure for thematic·
textures which have more in com–
mon with music than narration.
They avoid the climactic event
and chronicle representative detail
with scientific attentiveness; their
characters are superlatively average
enlarged by complex mechanisms
of symbols. Finally, characters are
presented by exposition or
in
terms
of sensation. A point is reached
where this type of novel practically
dispenses with a story-Virginia
Woolfs
The Waves
and
Finnegans
Wake
are the reductio ad absurdum
of the whole trend.
But drama, like murder, will out.
In debased form the thriller has al–
ways preserved certain fundamen–
tal elements of the theatre. In the
PARTISAN REVIEW
first place it deals with murder or
peril of death, themes which have
always been the stuff of drama.
From the Greeks down crimes of
violence have always raised moral
problems, problems involving both
the individual and the community
which force the participants to
make judgments and act upon
them.
Secondly, insignificant though
the crime story has been, it has
projected character dramatically,
in terms of actions, while the reader
participates in judging the signifi–
cance of these actions.
Thirdly, the crime story or thril–
ler is based upon suspense (an es–
sential element in all western dra–
ma with the exception of Brecht's
epic theatre) . There are, of course,
various kinds of suspense. There is
the purely mechanical sort in which
we are supposed to wonder who
knocked out the detective when the
lights went out. But there
is
also
gradual revelation of character
which: forces the reader to suspend
and modify
his
judgment and also
the suspense obtained when a fore–
seen action approaches while the
reader is helpless to prevent it.
These last are legitimate drama.
Creon and Antigone alternately
convince us; we are alternately
convinced and doubtful of the sus–
pect's guilt as we interpret his be–
havior, alternately for and against
the police-the process is the same.
Likewise we await the death of
Clytemnestra and the murder in
Hangover Squ.are
with similar help–
less fascination.
It will be objected that the crime
story is a degenerate form of dra-
