Crime Thesis

I got asked in a comment what my thesis for university was, and since I had trouble thinking up what to write for the blog tonight, I thought I’d talk about that. Because I’m not going to be doing that for the next eight months…

During my second year at Uni, I took a Crime Fiction class – not because I was particularly interested in studying the genre, but because the lecturer taking the class was (and still is) brilliant, and my girlfriend was also taking the class. And… I was kind of interested in the genre… kind of.

I should eat my words, for I really enjoyed that course – and not just because of the lecturer or the girlfriend, but they certainly helped (I must add that I didn’t list these in the order of how important a factor they were in choosing the class) – and I got to read a lot of books that I really loved. In that class, I read my first Christie (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) and my first Chandler (The Big Sleep) – which directly affected my thesis idea – as well as Silence of the Lambs, The New York Trilogy and The Talented Mr. Ripley, all of which I found fantastic.

Anyway, jump ahead two years, and I got into Honours at Uni, and I decided to base my thesis on Crime Fiction – specifically, the difference in American and British traditions in the genre. I love hard-boiled detective fiction, which is traditionally American – so in my thesis, I want to explore the effects of translating an American tradition (hard-boiled detective and subsequent sub-tropes) into a British environment. There are specific factors that make something work in their country of origin, which doesn’t necessary work in other nations (take all the failed American remakes of British sitcoms which simply copy and pasted the script to disastrous results) and I want to see how I can make certain traditions work in another country.

So I’m researching articles – at the moment I’m reading a really interesting book about the history of crime fiction, which I’m finding really informative, and I’ve also got a whole list of novels to read and films to watch. I’m quite looking forward to this thesis (well… until I actually get to writing it, and then I’m sure I’ll bitch all the time).

If there are any novels/films/text books that you could recommend for me to check out, that’d be most appreciated. Anything could help!

Agatha Christie

I knew that picking a crime-fiction-based-thesis was a great idea, if for no other reason than I’d get to read some awesome crime books.

Tonight, I finished Murder on the Orient Express, written by the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. I’m a late bloomer when it comes to Christie, having only experienced her works a couple years ago because of Uni, and my current total is three novels and one play, and all have been exciting, interesting and maddeningly challenging when it comes to solving the damn crime.

My score is 0 to 4 when it comes to figuring out who the culprit was. Each time my mind was blown and my feeble attempt at guessing blown completely out the window. I’ve gotten to the point whenever I come up with a guess, I automatically add ‘but I’m probably wrong’ at the end of it.

That said, only once have I found that Christie succumbs to ‘crime convention’ – in The Mousetrap, a victim utters the phrase ‘Oh, it’s you. I didn’t hear you come in,’ while the murderer crept into the room. My instant reaction was to withhold laughter, as I thought the other audience members in the theatre wouldn’t appreciate my chortling at the obviously tense scene, but then a thought struck me.

The Mousetrap is over fifty years old. When it originally came out, it was probably original and never been done before. I suppose it’s just telling of Christie’s ability that she can still keep people guessing decades later.

I cannot wait to wrongly guess the ending to another Christie classic.