Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge

Beschreibung

This book establishes the genealogy of a subgenre of crime fiction that Antoine Dechêne calls the metacognitive mystery tale. It delineates a corpus of texts presenting 'unreadable' mysteries which, under the deceptively monolithic appearance of subverting traditional detective story conventions, offer a multiplicity of motifs – the overwhelming presence of chance, the unfulfilled quest for knowledge, the urban stroller lost in a labyrinthine text – that generate a vast array of epistemological and ontological uncertainties. Analysing the works of a wide variety of authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Henry James, this book is vital reading for scholars of detective fiction. 
 
Takes a new and innovative approach to address aspects of the mystery tale that have not been discussed previously Ranges across the work of a wide variety of both canonical and lesser-known authors Contributes to the burgeoning field of literary urban studies

Autor*in

Antoine Dechêne

Themen in »Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge«

Detective Flaneur Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne Herman Melville Henry James Mystery tale City Urban Iain Sinclair Paul Auster Roberto Bolaño Franz Kafka Samuel Beckett Jorge Luis Borges

Stimmen zu »Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge«

 
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“Using examples from the works of writers and artists as diverse as Poe, Melville, Beckett, Borges, Bolaño, and Auster and confronting them with old and recent theories about the goals and methods of governing "mainstream" detective fiction, Antoine Dechêne's impressive volume takes us beyond a consideration of the detective genre per se into a reconsideration of neglected domains of thinking which only a full confrontation with the genre’s diversity and plasticity can reveal.” (Michel Delville, Université de Liège, Belgium)

“Daring and ambitious in its approach, up to date and cutting edge in its scholarship, and always solid and frequently brilliant in its analysis, Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge will make a significant contribution to popular culture studies generally and crime fiction studies in particular, as it convincingly argues for the superiority of the term metacognitive mystery tale over metaphysical detective story.” (John Gruesser, Sam Houston State University, USA) 

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