期刊名称：Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature
印刷版ISSN：1412-3320
电子版ISSN：2502-4914
出版年度：2006
卷号：6
期号：1
页码：87-95
DOI：10.24167/celt.v6i1.240
语种：English
出版社：Soegijapranata Catholic University
摘要：The mainstream literary establishment has always shown a great reluctance to treat crime writing and other related genres as “real” literature. One of the great values of the detective story, according to Phyllis Dorothy James, is that it gives “an extraordinary realistic picture of what life was like at the time it was written much more so than many serious novels” (Snowden1978:37). In accounting for the continued popularity of Dorothy L. Sayers’s mysteries, James notes how clearly they reflect their period. “Perhaps because clue-making so often involves the routine and minutiae of ordinary life, the detective novel can tell us more about contemporary society than many a more pretentious literary form” (Foreword ix) What she means, of course, goes beyond the mere learning of details of the theatre from Ngaio Marsh or horse racing from Dick Francis or banking from Emma Lathen or orchids from Rex Stout. It is also learning about the mores and manners of Southern California from Ross MacDonald, the racial antagonisms and tensions in South Africa from James McClure, and insights into life among the ill and dying from P. D. James.
