Fact number one : the suspect is covering his tracks. Difference between crime fiction and thriller could appear as a jargon issue. A futile argument between vengeful offsprings of american culture, a simple aesthetic quarrel, or even an assessment of the level of prostitution of the author in a business context (where thriller would be a mass market version of the more "noble" noir novel).
Differences between crime fiction and thriller are no heady or aesthetic arguments and have nothing to do with their economical potentials. These literary genres don’t have the same function. Their understanding of disorder are compatible and complementary, but not identical, and therefore not competitive for their readers.
Crime fiction case
In this genre, the “plot” is a murder (or a series of killings). This event is creating disorder, and this is not acceptable for the reader, who waits for a return to order, which means identifying the culprit(s). For this purpose, the main character (police officer, private detective, journalist, or average guy) is using an unchanging methodology, a legal-inspired routine, based on meetings, talks and data collecting. It is a shared identifying process : the reader tries to name the killer while the main characters does, or even before him (the famous : “I knew it !”), which makes this genre so popular (we would call it an “interactive genre” nowadays). If the story ends by naming X as the “Enemy” (the culprit), from trustworthy witnesses and material evidence, the reader will subscribe to a conclusion in which he himself took part.
Crime fiction’s purpose is to offer its reader an interactive exercise in which a common “Enemy” is to be identified. Naming one’s foe, or the very basis of any political approach. This function allow us to understand why the genre has been labelled as “social”, this word being an empty shell of man exploitation engineering jargon used by dominant classes who want to keep a human appearance.
Thriller case
In this genre, there are generally multiple “plots”. If there is a murder, it is only an opening sub-plot. Disorder is taking place but its inacceptable dimension has not yet been reached. It is coming and the reader is not able to conceive it in its full horror : the very foundations of the power structures are threatened. The main character’s world is endangered by a various and multiple shaped “plot” which comes into life through a conspiracy led by an “enemy group”. This foe is quickly identified, either prior to the novel through real life News (e.g. claimed terror attacks) or through a fast identification in the story set up when the character discovers hidden actions by “known” enemies : evil governments, hostile armed forces, pharmaceutical or industrial lobbies, etc.
Their plans must not be fulfilled and the character has to fight back each of their attacks which now appear in full daylight and are more and more dangerous. This race against time is the very routine of the thriller storytelling. The character has to react in two steps : first survive the threat, then destroy it to save “his” world.
Thriller purpose is to keep alive the fear of the “Enemy”, playing with the paranoid and impeding aspects of its dangers. It is not less political or less important than crime fiction’s role (as was shown through Saddam Hussein’s WMD, Bachar El Assad’s chemical warfare or Iran Nuke, to name a few).
We are now able to understand why crime fiction grew quickly in the thirties, and knew a revival during the seventies (eras of intense political actions and thinkings when several choices were possible) and why thriller came back in full force since the end of the eighties, when final collapse of soviet system claimed a temporay end of political history to enter a phase of market globalization. A post-modern world where fear is the main trigger for popular households consumption, and where fear is therefore used by the world leaders to run a global society based on merchandise worshipping and credit purchase.
The golden age of crime fiction, an avatar of the upper middle-class
To explain the slow decline of classic crime fiction sales, some observers said that readers became bored of it - a statement denied by the overwhelming number of TV cop fictions on dozens of channels – or that working class is not reading anymore. The erotic novel Fifty shades of Grey nonetheless sold 40 millions units, Dan Brown’s esoteric thriller Da Vinci Code sold more than 90 million copies and fantasy novel Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling more than 400 millions. These are pop literature best-sellers, and are strong evidence that working-classes are still reading, and in globalized numbers.
Classic crime fiction decline comes from the changing of times. After WWII, the world is one of material comfort with two strong political blocks fighting each other and where young readers need to know which side to choose and where their parents wants to be confirmed they made the right choice. In an era dominated by upper middle-class with family still a strong value, naming the “Enemy” was of priority for anyone’s peace of mind. The golden age of classic crime fiction, a north american breed, was connected to McCarthysm, to a middle-class need to identify criminals or splinter factions and to assist by the end of each novel to a restoration of law and order. A era when famous illustrators, like James Avati in the US or Michel Gourdon in France, were creating blazing covers filled with young criminals, unfaithful wives, strippers, bad boys and all archetypes of temptation and Fall of Man for the honest guy of that time.
French crime fiction dead end : the “néo-polar” case
By the end of the sixities, young French writers of crime fiction almost all came from the Left Wing. This generation joined two heritages : old “Série Noire” titles of the 50’s (mainly american fiction hastly translated to fit into the main crime fiction collection at Gallimard publishing house) and “may 1968 events” experience ( a period of civil unrest that was labelled by NYTimes as “the revolution that never was”). This combined influence allowed these writers to perform an ideological hold-up by convincing readers, publishers and press secretaries that crime fiction had to be a “social” genre. This semantic shift was required to put their ideological domination in place. As the term “political” was too vague and allowed right wingers to claim it, a new word exclusive to marxism was needed. Jean-Patrick Manchette (leader of this new generation, his novel La Position du tireur couché has recently been adapted to the big screen starring Sean Penn as The Gunman) teached that crime fiction should be a “social operation”. He didn’t believe in his own theory for very long, but his followers made a religion out of it. Behind the curtain of propaganda, this new generation had perfectly understood that the aim of crime fiction was to name the “Enemy”, and took full advantage of it. By a masterpiece of subversive action, they shamelessly inverted the classic crime fiction codes and showcased outcasts, eccentrics and juvenile delinquents, not to serve as scarecrows on covers anymore, but to promote “mass uprising against order and fascist oppression”.
Néo-polar was only a revolutionary literary genre, without any new or specific aesthetic approach (besides the ugly “behaviorism” coming from journalism and american writers) and was mainly a make up for the lack of talent of many authors, deprived of style or evocative power, and whose goals were to write down political flyers disguised as crime fictions, where the “enemy” is always the same. It took only a few years for this trend to exhaust itself. Néo-polar became a caricature and sank into totalitarianism. There was no other way possible since ideology has hijacked the true function of crime fiction : the reader was not convinced anymore – through investigation and material evidence – but forced to “believe” a political statement, with the risk of being accused – if unwilling to do so – to be an accomplice of the Enemy. This genre wasn’t popular anymore and became the private ground of wealthy state employees and academics, who then castigated TV shows as being the reason why the working class gave up reading and crime fiction literature.
To sum it up, french néo-polar opposed a rebel teenager crisis of the 70’s to a family man literature of the 50’s. Without a new vision of storytelling, new plot engineering ways, the néo-polar couldn’t be more than a transition, not to say a mode effect. Literature being an art, a genuine revolution would have been aesthetic. Néo-polar writers never understood it, never had the literary abilities to offer it, this genre mainly created calling for activists, and not artists.
The new reign of thriller fiction
End of the eighties marked the beginning of the uncontested reign of thriller, a regenerated shape of old “mystery” fiction. The historical time of this rebirth is no accident. When two american best-sellers movies adaptations went out in 1990 and 1991 (The Hunt for Red October from Tom Clancy’s novel from 1984, and The Silence of the Lambs from Thomas Harris’ book published in 1988), the audience wasn’t aware that they just witnessed a major power shift inside popular fiction.
In the first one, a classic military and political suspense book, the Enemy is still the Soviet Union, a ideological opponent of American people. In the second one, looking like a crime fiction but owing its success to the thriller, the Enemy is now a new archetype that will invade almost all criminal writing : the serial killer.
Published at the dawn of state communism final collapse, The Silence of the Lambs is a pioneer book at a pivotal time. It is a post-modernity novel, a book of times who see Russia rejoins mafia-style free market and China preparing its new industrial reign. Since the Cold War is over, since merchandise ideology is ruling the world, here come the times of unknown and anonymous “enemies”, psychopaths killing randomly or according to their own strange reasons. The new “enemy” of popular crime fiction is an image of its time : daft and ultra-violent. Without an external enemy, human society has no other choice that to devour itself, thus the cannibalistic character, “Hannibal the man-eater”, to embody this symbolism.
In a society where you can’t make a choice (since there is only one “choice”), the mainspring of the shared identification of an enemy fades and gives space for the only thrill of last minute action. The only option left to crime fiction writer is to use the fear of the enemy, which as we’ve seen is the main function of the thriller. This major change in how one sees the world caused a gradual change in crime fiction codes, the codes of thriller being the ones to now raise interest among readers, and thus selling books, publishers had asked for a “thrillerization” of crime stories, wanting frightful and action-packed blood-thirsty serial killers novels, the very recipe for creating and showcasing fear.
Thrillers now stand out because this literary genre matches the new world order and the growing nihilism. Through its spectacular aspects and its fear inducting function, it is the perfect literature for the “imminent shared impression of global disaster” which took over on many earth populations who are not taken in by the reigning “entertainment/stupefying effect” of modern Show.
Any decent thriller describes the post-modern world and its stakes more accurately than police or journalist investigation of old, which storytelling structure is now has-been when faced with picture dictatorship, networking, social violence, permanent competitiveness and the urgent and mandatory need for noise.
Is crime fiction still alive ?
If the way toward an ever growing nihilism is to be followed, the classic name-your-enemy crime fiction will be diluted into thriller codes and storytelling. Old school cop investigation will barely survive in a niche market, while probably waiting for the end of literature itself among disinterest and permanent noise.
On the other hand, if we assume that a return of political choices, or at least a challenge of unregulated free market as a unique possible future, would constitute a prelude forecasting an abrupt change in the world order as seen in the thirties (when modern American crime fiction gushed out of the Great Depression, the rural exodus and the Prohibition to then set a foot on Europe after WWII), there are some reasons left to believe in a return of this popular kind of storytelling. A return to political matters, to the possibility to make actual choices, would renew the need to name one’s own “enemies” (i.e. not dictated by the market), which is classic crime fiction first function.
What aesthetic shape would then take tomorrow’s crime fiction ? That’s why the coming years will be of the greatest interest.
(This article is a translation of a lecture given to the Georges Orwell Circle in Paris, 7th of may 2014).
Differences between crime fiction and thriller are no heady or aesthetic arguments and have nothing to do with their economical potentials. These literary genres don’t have the same function. Their understanding of disorder are compatible and complementary, but not identical, and therefore not competitive for their readers. Crime fiction case
In this genre, the “plot” is a murder (or a series of killings). This event is creating disorder, and this is not acceptable for the reader, who waits for a return to order, which means identifying the culprit(s). For this purpose, the main character (police officer, private detective, journalist, or average guy) is using an unchanging methodology, a legal-inspired routine, based on meetings, talks and data collecting. It is a shared identifying process : the reader tries to name the killer while the main characters does, or even before him (the famous : “I knew it !”), which makes this genre so popular (we would call it an “interactive genre” nowadays). If the story ends by naming X as the “Enemy” (the culprit), from trustworthy witnesses and material evidence, the reader will subscribe to a conclusion in which he himself took part.
Crime fiction’s purpose is to offer its reader an interactive exercise in which a common “Enemy” is to be identified. Naming one’s foe, or the very basis of any political approach. This function allow us to understand why the genre has been labelled as “social”, this word being an empty shell of man exploitation engineering jargon used by dominant classes who want to keep a human appearance.
Thriller case
In this genre, there are generally multiple “plots”. If there is a murder, it is only an opening sub-plot. Disorder is taking place but its inacceptable dimension has not yet been reached. It is coming and the reader is not able to conceive it in its full horror : the very foundations of the power structures are threatened. The main character’s world is endangered by a various and multiple shaped “plot” which comes into life through a conspiracy led by an “enemy group”. This foe is quickly identified, either prior to the novel through real life News (e.g. claimed terror attacks) or through a fast identification in the story set up when the character discovers hidden actions by “known” enemies : evil governments, hostile armed forces, pharmaceutical or industrial lobbies, etc. Their plans must not be fulfilled and the character has to fight back each of their attacks which now appear in full daylight and are more and more dangerous. This race against time is the very routine of the thriller storytelling. The character has to react in two steps : first survive the threat, then destroy it to save “his” world.
Thriller purpose is to keep alive the fear of the “Enemy”, playing with the paranoid and impeding aspects of its dangers. It is not less political or less important than crime fiction’s role (as was shown through Saddam Hussein’s WMD, Bachar El Assad’s chemical warfare or Iran Nuke, to name a few).
We are now able to understand why crime fiction grew quickly in the thirties, and knew a revival during the seventies (eras of intense political actions and thinkings when several choices were possible) and why thriller came back in full force since the end of the eighties, when final collapse of soviet system claimed a temporay end of political history to enter a phase of market globalization. A post-modern world where fear is the main trigger for popular households consumption, and where fear is therefore used by the world leaders to run a global society based on merchandise worshipping and credit purchase.
The golden age of crime fiction, an avatar of the upper middle-class
To explain the slow decline of classic crime fiction sales, some observers said that readers became bored of it - a statement denied by the overwhelming number of TV cop fictions on dozens of channels – or that working class is not reading anymore. The erotic novel Fifty shades of Grey nonetheless sold 40 millions units, Dan Brown’s esoteric thriller Da Vinci Code sold more than 90 million copies and fantasy novel Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling more than 400 millions. These are pop literature best-sellers, and are strong evidence that working-classes are still reading, and in globalized numbers.
Classic crime fiction decline comes from the changing of times. After WWII, the world is one of material comfort with two strong political blocks fighting each other and where young readers need to know which side to choose and where their parents wants to be confirmed they made the right choice. In an era dominated by upper middle-class with family still a strong value, naming the “Enemy” was of priority for anyone’s peace of mind. The golden age of classic crime fiction, a north american breed, was connected to McCarthysm, to a middle-class need to identify criminals or splinter factions and to assist by the end of each novel to a restoration of law and order. A era when famous illustrators, like James Avati in the US or Michel Gourdon in France, were creating blazing covers filled with young criminals, unfaithful wives, strippers, bad boys and all archetypes of temptation and Fall of Man for the honest guy of that time. French crime fiction dead end : the “néo-polar” case
By the end of the sixities, young French writers of crime fiction almost all came from the Left Wing. This generation joined two heritages : old “Série Noire” titles of the 50’s (mainly american fiction hastly translated to fit into the main crime fiction collection at Gallimard publishing house) and “may 1968 events” experience ( a period of civil unrest that was labelled by NYTimes as “the revolution that never was”). This combined influence allowed these writers to perform an ideological hold-up by convincing readers, publishers and press secretaries that crime fiction had to be a “social” genre. This semantic shift was required to put their ideological domination in place. As the term “political” was too vague and allowed right wingers to claim it, a new word exclusive to marxism was needed. Jean-Patrick Manchette (leader of this new generation, his novel La Position du tireur couché has recently been adapted to the big screen starring Sean Penn as The Gunman) teached that crime fiction should be a “social operation”. He didn’t believe in his own theory for very long, but his followers made a religion out of it. Behind the curtain of propaganda, this new generation had perfectly understood that the aim of crime fiction was to name the “Enemy”, and took full advantage of it. By a masterpiece of subversive action, they shamelessly inverted the classic crime fiction codes and showcased outcasts, eccentrics and juvenile delinquents, not to serve as scarecrows on covers anymore, but to promote “mass uprising against order and fascist oppression”. Néo-polar was only a revolutionary literary genre, without any new or specific aesthetic approach (besides the ugly “behaviorism” coming from journalism and american writers) and was mainly a make up for the lack of talent of many authors, deprived of style or evocative power, and whose goals were to write down political flyers disguised as crime fictions, where the “enemy” is always the same. It took only a few years for this trend to exhaust itself. Néo-polar became a caricature and sank into totalitarianism. There was no other way possible since ideology has hijacked the true function of crime fiction : the reader was not convinced anymore – through investigation and material evidence – but forced to “believe” a political statement, with the risk of being accused – if unwilling to do so – to be an accomplice of the Enemy. This genre wasn’t popular anymore and became the private ground of wealthy state employees and academics, who then castigated TV shows as being the reason why the working class gave up reading and crime fiction literature.
To sum it up, french néo-polar opposed a rebel teenager crisis of the 70’s to a family man literature of the 50’s. Without a new vision of storytelling, new plot engineering ways, the néo-polar couldn’t be more than a transition, not to say a mode effect. Literature being an art, a genuine revolution would have been aesthetic. Néo-polar writers never understood it, never had the literary abilities to offer it, this genre mainly created calling for activists, and not artists.
The new reign of thriller fiction
End of the eighties marked the beginning of the uncontested reign of thriller, a regenerated shape of old “mystery” fiction. The historical time of this rebirth is no accident. When two american best-sellers movies adaptations went out in 1990 and 1991 (The Hunt for Red October from Tom Clancy’s novel from 1984, and The Silence of the Lambs from Thomas Harris’ book published in 1988), the audience wasn’t aware that they just witnessed a major power shift inside popular fiction. In the first one, a classic military and political suspense book, the Enemy is still the Soviet Union, a ideological opponent of American people. In the second one, looking like a crime fiction but owing its success to the thriller, the Enemy is now a new archetype that will invade almost all criminal writing : the serial killer.
Published at the dawn of state communism final collapse, The Silence of the Lambs is a pioneer book at a pivotal time. It is a post-modernity novel, a book of times who see Russia rejoins mafia-style free market and China preparing its new industrial reign. Since the Cold War is over, since merchandise ideology is ruling the world, here come the times of unknown and anonymous “enemies”, psychopaths killing randomly or according to their own strange reasons. The new “enemy” of popular crime fiction is an image of its time : daft and ultra-violent. Without an external enemy, human society has no other choice that to devour itself, thus the cannibalistic character, “Hannibal the man-eater”, to embody this symbolism. In a society where you can’t make a choice (since there is only one “choice”), the mainspring of the shared identification of an enemy fades and gives space for the only thrill of last minute action. The only option left to crime fiction writer is to use the fear of the enemy, which as we’ve seen is the main function of the thriller. This major change in how one sees the world caused a gradual change in crime fiction codes, the codes of thriller being the ones to now raise interest among readers, and thus selling books, publishers had asked for a “thrillerization” of crime stories, wanting frightful and action-packed blood-thirsty serial killers novels, the very recipe for creating and showcasing fear.
Thrillers now stand out because this literary genre matches the new world order and the growing nihilism. Through its spectacular aspects and its fear inducting function, it is the perfect literature for the “imminent shared impression of global disaster” which took over on many earth populations who are not taken in by the reigning “entertainment/stupefying effect” of modern Show.
Any decent thriller describes the post-modern world and its stakes more accurately than police or journalist investigation of old, which storytelling structure is now has-been when faced with picture dictatorship, networking, social violence, permanent competitiveness and the urgent and mandatory need for noise.
Is crime fiction still alive ?
If the way toward an ever growing nihilism is to be followed, the classic name-your-enemy crime fiction will be diluted into thriller codes and storytelling. Old school cop investigation will barely survive in a niche market, while probably waiting for the end of literature itself among disinterest and permanent noise.
On the other hand, if we assume that a return of political choices, or at least a challenge of unregulated free market as a unique possible future, would constitute a prelude forecasting an abrupt change in the world order as seen in the thirties (when modern American crime fiction gushed out of the Great Depression, the rural exodus and the Prohibition to then set a foot on Europe after WWII), there are some reasons left to believe in a return of this popular kind of storytelling. A return to political matters, to the possibility to make actual choices, would renew the need to name one’s own “enemies” (i.e. not dictated by the market), which is classic crime fiction first function.
What aesthetic shape would then take tomorrow’s crime fiction ? That’s why the coming years will be of the greatest interest.
Pierric Guittaut
(This article is a translation of a lecture given to the Georges Orwell Circle in Paris, 7th of may 2014).
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