A List of top Mysteries, Literary and otherwise…with one Appalling Oversight
At the end of an essay On Literature and Mystery at Sarah Weinman’s place, Kyle Minor provides a list of mystery stories that belong in the literary canon, and a list of canonical works of literature that are, at their core, mysteries. If it matters, I’ll let you decide which is which, he says (and I’ll let you guess one appalling oversight):
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Atonement, by Ian McEwan
Knockemstiff, by Donald Ray Pollock
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat
The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin
In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien
And:
The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain
Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane
The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler
The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos
Lush Life, by Richard Price
Pop. 1280, by Jim Thompson
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy
Get Shorty, by Elmore Leonard
November 7th, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Couldn’t agree more on this, especially with regard to Chandler and Hammett. I’ve been saying just this for a long time now, as have others.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:41 PM
Wow, both of these lists are kind of weird. Where’s Bleak House, on that first list, for example? Or was it deliberately restricted to the 20thC? No women writers at all on the second,not even Sayers or P D James? I read Mystic River recently and was underwhelmed; I haven’t read Lush Life but I found Clockers pretty unimpressive from a literary perspective as well. Chandler and Hammett are predictable candidates (Chandler himself was among the first to credit Hammett with making mystery fiction literary).I guess I’ll have to click over to the original essay and see how he justifies these choices!
November 12th, 2008 at 2:30 AM
Great Expectations. Fifth Business. Crime and Punishment. The Name of the Rose. The Third Policeman. Gorky Park. Double Indemnity. The Simple Art of Murder. The Big Sleep. Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Our Man in Havana. Dracula. The Quiet American. To Kill a Mockingbird. Murder on the Orient Express. Anatomy of a Murder. The Thirty-Nine Steps. The Woman in White. The Thin Man. Paradise. The Big Sleep. Wuthering Heights. Rebecca . . .
G’Night, Dear Nigel, G’Night . . .
November 12th, 2008 at 2:33 AM
Oh, damn. Pynchon! Vonnegut! Philip K. Dick! Sorry about Two Big Sleeps, hehehehe . . .
November 13th, 2008 at 9:13 PM
Okay, enough with the mysterification of the appallation, Nigel. I am
. . . What’s the appalling oversight? And, more to the
deadly
serial
point, do I
win a prize? Can I borrow, puhleeze, a Boyden pic, IOW, you
lovable loyal
right royal lure-dangler, you?
Third on your list my dear…C&P. As for the prize…I’l have to think on it…and yes, certainly you may borrow Boyden…