I have realized that I need to stop reading mystery novels because I don’t enjoy them any longer. Maybe I grew out of the genre or something. It’s so sad because I’ve been a great fan of mystery for 26 years, since I read Agatha Christie’s phenomenal The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Am I doomed to only reading serious literature now? Nothing trashy? That is so sad.
A couple of quotes from one of my favorite writers:
By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.
In a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Hiney, Tom; Frank MacShane (2000). The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. p. 77. ISBN 0871137860.
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.
From The Simple Art of Murder Atlantic Monthly. November 1945
LikeLike
There are seasons in reading, and tides, and perhaps you will find some other kind of ‘mind candy ‘ reading to enjoy, or come back to mysteries… It’s sad when old comforts stop working, though, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Sad! I feel quite at a loss.
LikeLike
Maybe you’re becoming more …..hmmm…. neurotypical? It might be that if you lay off the mysteries and find some other genre for fun then after a few months or years you’ll enjoy mysteries again.
LikeLike
Very possible! That analyst sure did a number on me. 🙂
LikeLike
In unrelated news, I stopped by
http://tdstrumpnicknamegenerator.com/
Say hello to Sicko Cliff!
LikeLike
This is fun! 🙂
LikeLike
I can’t read contemporary fiction at all any more. It either bores me or pisses me off; maybe I have just had really bad luck picking books in recent years. I also can’t reread books and rewatch movies, as it turns out I remember everything too well and I am again bored. I don’t like fantasy, I can’t see the point — there is no effing magic, and medieval times were nothing to romanticize.
But I have found out I really love science fiction, so that’s my go-to fun genre these days (aliens! robots! space travel! terrifying depths of space!).
LikeLike
Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers: Interesting story. Apparently it won a Nebula?
LikeLike
Wow, that was great! Thanks for the link.
LikeLike
Maybe this means you are now ready to write a mystery story of your own?
Is there any particular reason why you find yourself bored with them now?
LikeLike
Very well, you shall have a serious book that also includes a few mentions about Agatha Christie …
David Burke’s “The Lawn Road Flats”, at Amazon US:
“A number of British artists, sculptors and writers were also drawn to the Flats, among them the sculptor and painter Henry Moore; the novelist Nicholas Monsarrat; and the crime writer Agatha Christie, who wrote her only spy novel N or M? in the Flats.”
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment