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We Must Have Certainty
J. Kenneth Van Dover
其他書名
Four Essays on the Detective Story
出版Susquehanna University Press, 2005
主題Literary Criticism / GeneralLiterary Criticism / Mystery & Detective
ISBN15759109189781575910918
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=s8SMQ2GBDcoC&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBookSAMPLE
註釋We Must Have Certainty surveys the development of the genre of the detective story from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century to its current profile in the early twenty-first century. It locates a principal appeal of the genre in the nature of the world that the detective necessarily inhabits: a world of more or less realistic violence and excitement and, at the same time, a world that always, in the end, makes sense. It suggests that there is a significance to a popular narrative formula that requires that an initial world of suspicion and uncertainty be inevitably transformed by the detective into a world of clarity and order. Though scholarship in the field is acknowledged, the author's citations are most often from detective stories themselves. The essays are written in an accessible style; those who have read a few novels in the genre, as well as those who have read many, will find the book stimulating and provocative.