article in The Journal of General Belgium (January 2011) in the folder thriller directed by Jean-Baptiste Baronian
Simply ask the question POLICYBRIEFING and commitment with regard to literature policièrerevient to questions about its definition. Detective story, thriller, whodunit, thriller, techno thriller? We do are not here simply enprésence sub-genres but also literary projects that have greatest thing to have them, if not their place on the shelves of a library, a municipal or unebibliothèque library when they rassemblearbitrairement convenience commercial or intellectual laziness.
And that can make you smile because some minutes of lucidity on the part of one of these publishing professionals devraientpourtant show that there is not much or more in common between unlecteur who will buy the latest and Fred Vargas one that will afford laréédition recent in a single volume novels of Dashiell Hammett (1), which borrows entrecelui spasmodically the Agatha Christie and other queens ducrime like Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George, who swears by the Scandinavian thriller façonMankell and one for whom such became the literary narrative and stylistic lieud'expérimentations, especially among the English DavidPeace but also Americans like James Ellroy, James Sallis, ChuckPalahniuk and Don De Lillo.
The crime fiction is, laze, literature disorder. It will set the stage for the reader who finds it with the traditional fun of lapeur, murders, robberies, conspiracies, manipulations, scams, killings with mobiles more violent because plusprimaires: envy, jealousy, greed, drunkenness of power, madness or psychosis will to power. It is, strictly speaking, this accursed share this in all societies, this unthought radical mentioned Georges Bataille and Baudrillarddéfinit thus: " Dansl'optique Battle, is cursed by some something that can not pass'échanger exchanged by treaty, and therefore must be sacrificed pourretrouver a form of functional balance. "
We see also why lalittérature police is so directly the daughter of the ancient tragedy etqu'elle plays in the contemporary reader the cathartic role assignaitAristote him to the Greek audience of Aeschylus or Sophocles "The tragedy of pity and his fellow lacrainte purge passions of his fellows."
Whether in the lobbies of lacI or in the library of an English manor in the shallows mondialisésde the horror in New York, London, Paris or in the camera stifling provincial desfamilles annealed in their hatred genealogical The littératurepolicière is here to bring disruption, crisis, the end of a well mêmecelle harmony when it would have proved entirely fictitious. Disorder, yes, and then revelation.
Ilreste to know what crime fiction is going to make this revelation.
And this is where the problem del'engagement of the author. Crime fiction, even by his plan, estvite suspect in the eyes of the established order and criticism officielle.Contrairement the tragedy it is for a popular audience in uneforme itself always held a bit suspicious a less "noble": the novel. It is thus potentially subversive. It also noted the absence almost total littératurepolicière in totalitarian societies that live by nature perfect.
One of the first occurrence of the term "detective novel " is defeated, pejorative. It appears from the pen of some of Gaschon Molènes in 1842 in the Revue des Deux Mondes . He describes well A mysterious affair of Balzac mean that this book belongs the worst kind of literary .. " We now classify A mysterious affair catégoriedes political thrillers in Balzac and here is one of the first to show decisive Lerole secret police forces operate in modern societies andwhose ability to handle and mount to allow the provocations pouvoirde consolidate itself in the repression of imaginary perils.
Quadruppani Serge, himself deromans black author, essayist and analyst but also the subtle issue, called " terrorism ideology" cetteétrange practice that even democracies are used extensively. For s'enconvaincre, one can read, precisely, Detectives romansnoirs or rather: the triptych of James Ellroy on U.S. history at the time of Kennedy and Nixon, deCuba and the Vietnam War but also for example Terrorists of Sojwall and Walhoo happens in the much calmer décorapparemment of Sweden Social Democratic annéessoixante.
Painting a disorder is one thing that makes BusinessAccessibility is another.
Ellroy, for example, is a conservateuret does not hide while Sojwall Walhoo and was a member of the Swedish particommuniste. For one show the infamy of the policy refers to uneméditation pretty desperate on the intrinsic evil of nature humainetandis than for others it is primarily a criticism socialemontrant imperfections and dead ends of a welfare state too complacent.
Social criticism, the word is out. Lalittérature police also became, somewhat ambiguously, a littératurede social criticism. The case of France is as such exemplairepuisqu'elle was born a current, neo thriller, which has issued a peupartout in Europe, but nonetheless a specific phenomenon as ontmontré in a relevant study, Lepolar French (2), two German academics Elfriede Müller etAlexander Ruoff. Neo polarapparaît the early 70s and will renew a genre after soufflecomme evidenced by the decline in practice of some commercial collectionshistoriques as the Black River or even the Black Series.
The authors are cetteépoque New thriller for the most part, old May 68 that belonged to different chapellesles more extreme left Maoist, Trotskyist or situationniste.Le father of this movement is John Patrick Cuff (1942-1995). It estaujourd'hui considered a full-fledged writer and author of lalittérature "white" as prestigious as Jean Echenoz huge stylistic debt reconnaissentune him.
The idea is simple cuff: sila revolution failed in 1968, it must continue by other means and leroman is a policeman. It disqualify the passage of this term and prefer to talk about romanpolicier thriller. In this sense, it refers to trèsclairement current " hardboiled " American born at the time of the crisis of 29 with great DashiellHammett, Communist and political prisoner jails Mac McCarthy, whose Red Harvest is the founder masterpiece. Red Harvest , in short, tells a bloodbath. The boss by with a little mining town in Montana has used the services of thugs to réprimerles strikes. But these, like the mercenaries in Carthaginian Salammbo, no longer want leurpart release the cake. We hired a private investigator who is the narrator and who will play lacarte division between the gangsters, until what they are massacrentjoyeusement. The interest of the book, of course, is foremost in letraitement this plot by a totally new form of writing, that we have called behavioral or behaviorist. Motivations and sentimentsdes characters are never expressed or explained. The reader can devinerce happens only from external cues are given.
Jean-Patrick Cuff matter what Styleen France for his novels but he also imported the theme with quiallait. The thriller was no longer content with the murder in closed room, or the banal story bad boys so Albert Simonin, it abordaitfrontalement social issues, criticism of the capitalist system of production relations VIOLENCE. And most importantly, the "hard-boiled " refused to tracerune border between good and evil as he refused to give unefin "where everything goes dansl'ordre " precisely because, the order in question is critiquablevoire harmful. No way to stop the criminal to reassure all mondepuisqu'il is more certain that either a criminal or in any case to have committed sesraisons not be a crime infinitely more respectable quecelles of those who will be arrested and tried. Like Dashiell Hammett influenceradirectement that all the big names of the three black American novel décenniessuivantes (Goodis, Thompson, Himes, Burnett ...), Jean-Patrick Cuff will also be followed by a serie ' writers, from the extreme left (3), which will give œuvresimportantes. These include, for memory and Thierry Frederick Fajardie
Jonquet, died in 2008 and 2009 but aussiJean Pouy Bernard, Jean-François Vilar, Serge Quadruppani or DidierDaenincks. despériodes they revisit historical dark as the occupation or the war Algeria ouqu'ils expose a company living a war low noise in its relegation banlieueset other neighborhoods, these authors have been very successful tantils were echoing with a company Thirty plight of Glorieusesà through a prolonged economic crisis that was to change all lesrepères.
The creation of the collection of the Octopus, anti SAS (the spy created by Gerard de Villiers anticommunism rabies), parPouy, Raynal and Quadruppani in 1995 marked a peak in this desire for a committed polarouvertement. Recurring hero, The Octopus, aka Gabriel Lecouvreur, is confrontéaux main problems encountered by the French company in chacunede his adventures with all the title a play on words (4) and written by unauteur different: cults, corruption, rising xenophobia, délocalisationsmassives ... Sometimes very successful, sometimes downright failures, the Octopus sontnéanmoins a literary phenomenon of collective writing unique which underwrites after a hiatus of several years, has flared up and està its 270 th adventure.
The problem is that the very neo neo n'estplus polar and tends to dry up for lack of renewal. The antifascismeaffiché often among successors and imitators now taken activitéde Cuff the shape of a posture than a commercial engagementde background. Available, or you croitdisposer a niche to an audience convinced. A kind Debonne aware politically correct sanctimony of Manichaeism or inverted demaccarthysme like Didier Daeninck périodiquementdes compiling lists of colleagues he considers wrong thinking leads to an exhaustion of neo detective and figure partrop limited to the committed writer .
This is particularly unfortunate that this videlaisse way to a detective story who finds his safety purdivertissement consumerist at a time that would need yet, more than ever, a detective who can tell good stories but also take dessonnettes alarms on new dangers of our world as lescatastrophes ecological or ethnic-tensions religious. Success and a unFrank Thilliez Maxime Chattam with their thrillers "àl'américaine" or Fred Vargas, who prides herself to write "thrillers sedatives. ; 'n'estpas necessarily a good sign. Whatever the literary quality we puissereconnaître these texts, it represents a form of regression in relation to unelittérature who had almost succeeded in establishing itself as a literary genre àl'égal other.
Cuff But, once again, neremarquait it not in 1978: " whenthe world has ceased to be frivolous, the crime fiction become"
(1 ) Gallimard, Quarto collection
(2) The factory editions
(3) with the notable exception of large ADG, morten 2004. The author of the Black Series is a contemporary of his petitscamarades red, beautifully tells the same stories but adopteun perspective of right-wing anarchist who earned him the enmity of idiots etl'amitié free spirits like Frederic Fajardie, ex-mao and so frankly on the other side.
(4) Lapetite rider to CAFT , Sarko and Vanzetti , Death Denise ...
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