[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” disabled_on=”on|on|off” module_class=”hero-section” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ background_image=”http:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/46667346545_d02b643d61_b.jpg” custom_margin=”0px|||” custom_padding=”0px|||” custom_css_main_element=”max-height: 400px;”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title featured_image=”off” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ title_font=”Roboto||||||||” title_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font_size=”38px” meta_font=”Trebuchet||||||||” meta_text_color=”#ffffff” meta_font_size=”14px” background_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||120px|” filter_sepia=”1%” animation_style=”fold” custom_css_post_image=”margin-top: -190px;”][\/et_pb_fullwidth_post_title][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” disabled_on=”off|off|on” module_class=”hero-section” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ background_image=”http:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/46667346545_d02b643d61_b.jpg” custom_margin=”0px|||” custom_padding=”0px|||” custom_css_main_element=”max-height: 400px;”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title featured_image=”off” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ title_font=”Roboto||||||||” title_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font_size=”32px” meta_font=”Trebuchet||||||||” meta_text_color=”#ffffff” meta_font_size=”12px” background_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||120px|” filter_sepia=”1%” animation_style=”fold” custom_css_post_image=”margin-top: -190px;”][\/et_pb_fullwidth_post_title][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ custom_margin=”||0px|” custom_padding=”||0||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ specialty_columns=”3″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=”Riga” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/photo-1457369804613-52c61a468e7d.jpeg” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ border_width_all=”12px” border_color_all=”#ffffff” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ custom_margin=”-140px|||”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_blurb title=”Crime fiction” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ header_font=”Roboto|300|||||||” header_text_color=”#476399″ header_font_size=”16px” body_font=”Roboto||||||||” body_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.6)” body_font_size=”12px” border_width_top=”2px” border_color_top=”#dbbb03″ custom_padding=”10px||30px|”]Is it possible to argue that the popularity of crime fiction in today\u2019s society depends on its capability to disclose layers and meanings of reality that nonfiction is not capable of revealing? And that the real literary sociologists of today are those who invent stories that are more real than life itself?
\n[\/et_pb_blurb][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ custom_margin=”0px|||” custom_padding=”0px|||”][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ specialty_columns=”3″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_row_inner custom_padding=”0px|||” admin_label=”Riga” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.5.1″]<\/p>\n
\u00a0Jan Baetens<\/strong> (KU Leuven)<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][et_pb_row_inner custom_padding=”0px|||” admin_label=”Riga” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.5.1″]<\/p>\n \u201cCrime fiction\u201d is everywhere, and that is definitely one of the reasons why one can call it \u201cpopular\u201d. But there is more to the notion of \u201cpopular crime fiction\u201d than meets the eye.<\/p>\n To start with, but this is close to a truism, we should hyphenate crime-fiction as we do with science-fiction of sci-fi, to avoid confusion with other forms of literature that also foreground crime, but that are neither \u201ccrime-fiction\u201d (in the sense of linking crime with some kind of police investigation) nor popular (in the sense of having a broad readership that is mainly looking for entertainment). William Faulkner\u2019s Light in August<\/em> (1932), for instance, has a murder at the very heart of its fiction, but I can\u2019t imagine that someone might label it as \u201ccrime fiction\u201d. It would also be very na\u00efve to think that this novel is a \u201cpopular\u201d one. Granted, it is widely read, but its readers are not those who devour crime fiction.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][et_pb_row_inner custom_padding=”0px|||” admin_label=”Riga” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column_inner type=”1_2″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.5.1″]<\/p>\n But the point I would like to make \u2013 or the question I would like to raise \u2013 is another one. What makes crime fiction \u201cpopular\u201d is perhaps less what we conventionally link with the notion of popular literature, that is a mix of commercial access and lack of elitism from a stylistic point of view. Both aspects are of course vital \u2013 can one imagine that a \u201cdifficult\u201d book that does not sell could be called \u201cpopular\u201d \u2013 but what should most draw our attention is the implicit but powerful relationship with the notion of \u201cfiction\u201d. Indeed, while \u201cserious\u201d literature (and by using this term, even between brackets, I try to find an ideologically acceptable synonym of \u201chigh\u201d or \u201celite\u201d, the example I have in mind being that of Storyspace, the software program created in the 1980s by Michael Joyce and Jay David Bolter for creating, editing and reading \u201cserious hyperfiction\u201d) is currently struggling with the very idea of fiction, popular literature does not seem to have any problem using it (and we all know that the \u201ctrue crime\u201d subgenre actually follows the stylistic and thematic do\u2019s and don\u2019ts of fictional crime narrative).<\/p>\n Fiction in popular literature seems to be a license to do with what \u201cserious\u201d literature no longer accepts to do, namely telling exciting stories with bigger than life characters in as efficient a style as possible \u2013 and of course there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. \u201cSerious\u201d literature on the contrary often rejects the very notion of fiction as incompatible with \u201creal\u201d writing. A paradigmatic example might be Charles Reznikoff\u2019s \u201cfound poem\u201d Testimony<\/em> (first volume 1934), a nonfictional refashioning of accounts of actual court cases.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][et_pb_column_inner type=”1_2″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/light-in-august.jpg” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][et_pb_row_inner custom_padding=”0px||0px|” admin_label=”Riga” _builder_version=”3.5.1″ custom_margin=”0px||0px|”][et_pb_column_inner type=”1_2″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/9780226660622-e1590140847132.jpg” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column_inner][et_pb_column_inner type=”1_2″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.5.1″]<\/p>\n Contemporary writing is increasingly hostile to fiction, for reasons that are linked with the evolution of technologies of writing as well as with the growing awareness of the limits of fiction in literature in comparison with fiction in other media such as television, cinema, and games. On the one hand, writing in the digital era is no longer a matter of shaping ideas, it has become a matter of text processing, that is of the creative and original montage of already existing material. Hence the shift, now widely popularized by the twin notions of \u201cunoriginal genius\u201d (Marjorie Perloff, see the eponymous book published with Chicago UP in 2010) and \u201cuncreative writing\u201d (Kenneth Goldsmith, Columbia UP, 2011), or to forms of writing that rework already published material in new and thought-provoking ways. On the other hand, the clash between the power of fiction in print and that of fiction on screen has forced (but shouldn\u2019t we say: helped?) writers to rethink their own practice and commit themselves to more documentary ways of writing, instead of shying away from nonfiction in the false belief that real literature can only be fiction.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][et_pb_row_inner _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.5.1″]<\/p>\n Hence what I consider the real question behind the success of crime fiction today: is it possible to argue that the popularity of crime fiction in today\u2019s society depends on its maintenance of the very category of fiction, even when it claims – nay: proves – that is completely faithful to reality, that discloses layers and meanings of reality that nonfiction is not capable of revealing, that the real literary sociologists of today are those who invent stories that are more real than life itself? Or could it be that the difficulty of finding broader audiences for \u201cserious\u201d crime-related writing has something to do with its own unease with the notion of fiction? The trend towards documentary, that is found footage and montage writing in contemporary \u201cserious\u201d literature, is very different from the mimetic dimension of popular crime fiction, which indeed often succeeds in being seen as more real than reality itself; it has also not much to do with the general category of nonfiction, which is perfectly compatible with old-fashioned ways of writing. [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.5.1″ custom_margin=”0px||0px|” custom_padding=”0px||0px|”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.5.1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_divider height=”13px” _builder_version=”3.5.1″][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cCrime fiction\u201d is everywhere, and that is definitely one of the reasons why one can call it \u201cpopular\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[43,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4207"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4229,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207\/revisions\/4229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.detect-project.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOr is it all a matter of style, easygoing or unruly, not of subject? And what to think of crime fiction on television, which heavily relies upon the notion of fiction (not a very audacious one, by the way, since it is just another way of old school realism) but which at the same time is open to formal experiments?<\/p>\n