Editors' Preface: Crime Fictions

Author(s): Andrea Goulet and Susanna Lee

Source: Yale French Studies, No. 108, Crime Frictions (2005), pp. 1-7
Published by: Yale University Press
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 ANDREA GOULET AND SUSANNA LEE

Editors'Preface:CrimeFictions

Fromthe earlyromanspoliciersof Gaboriau,Leroux,and Leblanc,

throughthenovelsofSimenonand theSerienoire,to themodernpo-
larsofDaeninckxorDantec,Frenchcrimefictionhas attainedthesta-
tusofa modernliterary Indeed,as indicatedbythetermnoir
tradition.
to describean international cinematiccurrentand mood,Francehas
set the aesthetictone and templateformodernrepresentations of
crime.Certainly, Frenchcriticshaveprovidedtheessentialhistorical,
andpsychoanalytic
structuralist, theoriesthatpropelledcrimefiction
fromsuspectdiversionto objectof seriousstudy.But just as impor-
tantly,Franceis perhapsthe countrywhere crimefiction-of the
homegrownorAmericanhard-boiled variety-hasmetwiththemost
commercialand criticalsuccess.
Paradoxically,it is the country'srobusttradein tropes,plots,fig-
ures,and devicesacross nationalboundariesthathas allowedFranceto
attainitspivotalstatusin therealmofcrimefiction.Eventhe"phredu
romanpolicier,"EmileGaboriau,stoodas a switchpointamongthree
nationalliteratures:
he famouslyborrowedEdgarAllanPoe'sinaugural
formulaof detection,thenin turninspiredSirArthurConan Doyle,
whosecribbingfromL'affaire Lerougefor"A Studyin Scarlet"solidi-
fiedwhatwas to becomean abidingAnglo-French connection.Today,
Frenchand francophone crimeauthorscontinueto developcrimefic-
tion'sinternationalist legacies,not onlybecauseglobalizationhas re-
drawnmapsofcriminality, butalso becausethegenredemandsa deep-
ening reflectionon shifting notionsoflocale and location.Withthis
volumeofYaleFrenchStudies,whichexaminesliterary intersections
ofcrime,ethics,terror, andtechnology inthelast 150years,we arefore-
grounding moderncrimefiction'sfundamental resonancewiththecur-
rentglobalsociopoliticalclimateand itslong-brewing tensions.
YFS 108,CrimeFictions,ed.AndreaGouletandSusannaLee,
? 2005byYale University.
1
2 YaleFrenchStudies
The diversity ofthevolume'scontributors-scholars ofliterature,
history,arthistory,classics,and cinemastudies-testifiesto the re-
newedvitalityofcrimefictioncriticismtoday.Mostnotably,thefield
seemsto havegonebeyondthehistory/form dividethatcharacterized
earlierstudies.The 1970sand 1980ssaw theemergenceoftwoprinci-
pal currents ofcriticism:on theone hand,Foucauldianreadings(such
as D. A. Miller'sThe Novel and thePolice) thatemphasizedthecon-
textofsurveillanceand changingdemographics ofurbancriminality;
and,on theother,psychoanalytic and poststructuralist analyses(like
Lacan's and Derrida'sreadingsof Poe's "The PurloinedLetter")that
highlighted psychicstructures andlinguisticsignifiers. Today'sschol-
arsofcrimefictionreconnectliterary formto culturalhistoryin origi-
nal and compellingways.The contributors to thisvolumealone,for
example, rethink the tropes ofcrime fiction in its ideological,techno-
logical,and aestheticcontexts-fromduelsto traintravel,cinemato
punkrock.And thoughit wouldbe possibleto traceamongthesees-
saysmanyotherpointsofcontact,we willbeginourbriefprefacebyre-
flectingon thevariedresponsesthattheyraiseto one broadquestion:
Is crimefictionpolitical?
The answerthateverything is political(a truismin thewakeofcul-
turalmaterialism),does not accountforthe broadrangeof literary
strategies,withinthis genrealone, from"unconscious"to avowed,
fromparlor-game whodunitto noirengage.Crimefiction-especially
in itsclassicdetective-story form-standsin an uneasyrelationtopol-
itics,often sideliningthebig-hHistoryofworldeventsto homein on
privatedramas,whileat thesame timeineluctablytouchinguponthe
economicand societalstructures thatlead to criminalacts. The tell-
ingly awkward structure ofEmile Gaboriau's1869MonsieurLecoq-
an investigation plotthatgetsinterrupted forhundredsofpagesby a
flashbackto Restorationpolitics-testifiesto thegenre'sattemptsto
extricateprivatefrompublicmodesofviolence.The essaysin thisis-
sue revealtheindirector "diagonal"strategies takenbycrimefiction
toreconcileitsrecurrent tropeofthedetecting subject'suniversalquest
forknowledgeand justice with the shiftingconditionsof violence
in that subject'sworld.The resultis a literaryhistorythat gauges
the genre'spotentialforsocial critiquewithoutreducingit to mere
polemic.
In his article,Uri Eisenzweigidentifiesprivateviolence-as op-
posed to theglobal,collectiveviolenceofwars,forexample-as the
provincenotonlyofcrimefiction,butoftwoothersocioculturalphe-
 ANDREA GOULET AND SUSANNA LEE 3
nomenathatflourished at thefin-de-siecle:duelsand terrorism. Para-
doxically, these threemodes,thoughbased on sporadic and punctual
scenesofviolence,resistitsverynarratability. Evenwhilesurrounded
by discourse-whetherliterary(crimefiction),regulatory (duels),or
ideological(terrorism)-the individualacts ofviolence remain untold
anduntellable.Byexposingtheresistanceof"random"violencetonar-
rativeintegration, Eisenzweigalignsthedetectivegenrenotonlywith
otherliterary formsbutwithcontemporaneous culturalpracticesthat
blurthepolitical/apolitical dichotomy.
Claire Gorrara'sessay,on theotherhand,focuseson crimefiction
thatexplicitly engagescollectivehistory: theromannoirengage.In the
traditionofcommittednoirwriting,authorsofthe 1980s and 1990s
like Daeninckxand Jonquetreflectin theirfictionon the traumatic
legacies of the Holocaust in Frenchculture.In contrastto the less
politicizedromanpolicier,whichpitsdetective-as representative of
social order-againstdeviantcriminal,thenoirexposescollusionsbe-
tweenthe criminalunderworld and a broadlycorruptestablishment.
In thecase ofthe "Holocaustnoir,"a generalskepticismvis-a-visthe
institutionsoflaw and orderservesthento exposeextensivegovern-
mentaland social complicityin crimesagainsthumanityon French
soil.
Not all contemporary writersofthenoircomeat politicshead-on,
however.David Plattencontrasts writerslikeDaeninckx,whoharness
thepessimistictoneofthenoirforpolemicalpoliticalattacks,witha
secondtrendthathe identifies as "noirfolknarrative."In thenovelsof
writers likeBenacquista,Pennac,Vargas,Pudon,andJonquet, socialdi-
atribesarereplacedbyarchetypal motifs.Andyet,arguesPlat-
folkloric
ten, these fictionscontinue to deliverpowerfulpoliticalmessages,as
theirfairy-tale qualities stake out ideologicalpositionsmoresubtly
and richlythanthosewithexplicitpoliticalagendas.Platten'sessay
thusprovidesa nextstepin a historyofengagednoirwritingthatbe-
gins with the social realismof the 1930s and 1940s and reachesits
zenithin the 1960sand 1970swiththendo-polar'sradicalopposition
to bourgeoisideologyandtheinterestsofthenation-state.
SusannaLee also takesup the questionofthenoir'srebelliousor
anti-establishment naturebyanalyzingfictionbyauthorslikeMichel
SteinerandDaniel Pennacin termsnotofabidingfolklore, butofa con-
temporaneous andconvergent musicgenre:punk.The newnoirshares
punk'snoisyideology,withitsrepresentations ofchaosas aestheticor
recreational,its focus on social disorderratherthan resolution,and its
4 YaleFrenchStudies
paradoxicalpairingofvitalrebellionand hardboiledennui.Lee's link
allows us to see noirliteratureas partofa new idiomforsocial com-
mentary, one thatcritiquesthroughmayhem,explosiveviolence,and
transgressive jubilation.
It shouldnotbe forgotten, though,thatthepolitically,socially,and
aesthetically subversive potentialofcrimeliterature beganwell before
our time.Even beforethe romannoirof the mid-twentieth century
tookonthemissionofexposingsocialinjustice,detectivefictioncalled
varioussocial institutions intoquestionwhilegaininga footholdas an
apparently normative populargenre.
DominiqueKalifacalls ourattentionto theliteraryand historical
representations ofcriminalinvestigationin thelatterhalfofthenine-
teenthcentury. Focusing on threedistincttypesofinvestigators-the
policedetective, privatedetective, thejournalist-Kalifaana-
the and
lyzestherespectiverolesoftheState,commercialism, and themedia
in constructing publicperceptionsofcrimeas a socialandpoliticalphe-
nomenon.In the increasingly media-driven democracyofthe fin-de-
siecle, the crime reporterattains
increasedrecognition, whileboththe
bureaucraticpolice detectiveand fee-taking maverickdetectivecon-
tinueto vie forintellectualand politicallegitimacyin thepubliceye.
ForNanetteFornabai,the Fantomasseriesofthe early1900s im-
plicitlychallengedthe sociopoliticallegitimacyof "la police scien-
tifique"and its methodsofcriminalidentification. Throughthepro-
tagonist'sshifting and unquantifiablenature, the Fant6masseries
critiques the reductive commodification imposedby Bertillon'ssys-
tem ofanthropometric measurement.Ratherthanreinforce an arbi-
trarily calculateddisciplinary ideology,detectivefictionheresubverts
it: indeed,well beforetheHolocaustnoirscritiquedNazi quantifica-
tionofJews(see Gorrara), Fant6masaffirmed humanindividuality as
irreducible to a mathematicalquotum.
Tom Gunningsimilarlyarguesthat Fant6mas'sabstractshape-
shifting radicallyresistsmodesofpolice control,notonlythroughits
literarythemes,butalso in its cinematicincarnations.Gunning'ses-
say tracesdetectivefictionsand filmsfromthe 1860sthroughWorld
WarI, pointingout tropesand techniquesthatcelebratecriminaleva-
sion,blurredidentifies, and ambiguousvision.The romanpolicier's
thematicsofsightandshadowcoincidewiththe"flicker"ofearlycin-
ema in a dialecticofvisionand obscurity, panopticalorder,and mod-
erninvisibility.
 ANDREA GOULET AND SUSANNA LEE 5
ForDavid Bell,theriseofthecrimenovelis closelytiedto another
moderntechnology: trains.The evolutionofthecrimenovelparallels
the growthof railroadnetworksin Europe and America,not just
chronologically, butthrough thearchetypal experienceofprecisionand
speed that characterizes modern traveland criminalperpetration/in-
vestigation. In GeorgesDarien'sLe voleur,crimeas well as justiceare,
typically,facilitatedby thepossibilityofrapidexchangesofinforma-
tionandquickmovementacrossborders. The exemplary moderncrim-
inal,suggestsBell, is not confinedto a particularcountry;through sto-
riesofcross-border getawaysand pursuit,earlydetectivefictiontaps
intotherailway'smultinationalist vocation,itsopeningofthenation-
state'sboundariesto the ungovernableprovincesof both speed and
crime.
As internationalism markedthegenesisofcrimefiction, italso con-
tinuestopermeatethegenretoday.In his essay,PierreVerdaguer cata-
logues therecent transnationalist tendencybyanglophone writers to
set theirfictionsin Frenchlocations.Blendingtwenty-first century
globalismandtraditionalist clich6s,these textsreveal perceptions ofa
Gallic Other,whetherthroughmodesofnostalgiaor self-projection,
criticismor praise.Althoughmostofthesetextsnecessarilyaddress
historicaland social concerns,Verdaguer also notesa traditionofapo-
litical whodunitsthatperpetuatethe notionof criminalevil as the
productofhumannature,irreducible toparticular socialorculturalcir-
cumstances.
Anotherinternationalist strain of crime fiction,frommodern
Africa, neither directly confrontsnorstudiouslyavoidssocial critique.
As PimHigginsonexplains,today'sfrancophone Africancrimenovels
continuethetradition ofnoirengagement, butwitha twist.Liketheir
predecessors, new noir writersin Africaarticulate oppositionto dom-
inantmetropoleideologies,but theirnovelsofurbanizationand im-
migrationdo notdirectlyaddressissues ofnationalidentityand colo-
nialism. Rather,they move beyond a Marxist class politics to a
twenty-first-century anarchicirony.Ndione'sLa vie en spirale,forex-
ample,paradoxicallyinvokesglobalpoliticaland economicconcerns
through intensefocuson thelocal dealingsofa drugged population.In
suchfictions, ideological investment emerges as a subtext,an embed-
dedcritiqueofmodernAfricathat,in a significant tonalshift,replaces
overtprotestwithironicplay.
Traditionally,psychoanalyticcriticismof crimefiction,with its
6 YaleFrenchStudies
emphasison abidingpsychicstructures, has been readas fundamen-
tally separatefromthe historical.The psychoanalyticreadingsin-
cludedhere,however,insiston thegenre'sengagement, be itconscious
orunconscious,withhistory, society,andpolitics.
ForRobertRushing,tropesoftraveland arrestin detectivefiction
reveal its essentialavoidance of what iiek has called the "real,"
whetherdefinedas sociopolitics,history,or individualdesire.From
JulesVernethroughAgathaChristie,detectivestoriesdeploytravel's
unsettling possibilities-itsdisruption offinancialand libidinalecon-
omies-while at thesametimeindulging thedesirefora restoration of
order, a return to home (bothepistemic and a
literal), defense of do-
mesticspace,and a suppressionofthereader'santisocialdesires.
AndreaGoulet'sessayproposesthatfin-de-siecle detectivefiction
exposes its own-and contemporary science's-processesofsublima-
tionbyunderscoring theinstinctualdrivesthatpropelinvestigative cu-
riosity.In textslike Claretie'sL'accusateur,the eruditedetectiveap-
parentlyembodiesreasonin contrastto theimpulsivesavageryofthe
criminalhe pursues;butthescopicandlibidinalinvestments thatsub-
tendhis avid curiosityreveala necessarylinkbetweenbook-lustand
blood-lust,detectiveand criminal,fictionand murder.Gouletfurther
suggeststhatsuchtropesin earlydetectivefictionbelongto a constel-
lation offin-de-siecle anxietiesabout irruptionand contagionas re-
vealed in the discoursesof criminalanthropology (Lombroso,Ber-
tillon),or microbial invasion (Pasteur),and of atavistic return(Tarde,
Freud).
PageDubois rereadstheOedipusmythinpostwarnovelsbyRobbe-
Grilletand Simenon,identifying a disavowalon thepartofauthor,de-
tective, and readerof "our" implicationin the circuitofmurderous
impulse.Findingin Simenon's1953Maigretetl'hommedu banca sup-
pressionofhistoricalmarkers,and in Robbe-Grillet's 2001 La reprise
obliqueandunsatisfying allusionstohistory, shefurther notesthatthe
policier functions as a comforting (thoughillusory) screen to keep us
fromconfronting theviolenceofwarsandgenocide.Crimefictionthus
attemptsto mask a publicviolencethatprovesirreducible, finally,to
theprivateeconomyofcrimeand resolutionthatdominatestheclas-
sic policier.
Whatthesearticleshave in common,then,is theidentification of
crimefictionas a cruciallocus ofpsychosocialdrama,as a forumfor
examiningethicaldilemmas,and as a shifting indexofcontemporary
politics-whether throughcovertcritique,returnedrepression,or en-
 ANDREA GOULET AND SUSANNA LEE 7
gagedirony.The genre'sformshowcasessuchfundamental oppositions
as trueand false,goodand evil,dead and alive,while also revelingin
thebreakdownofthesesame oppositionsandin theportrait ofa disor-
derthatresultsfromthatbreakdown.As thearticlesin thisissue at-
test,crimefictionlendsitselfadmirablyto numerousformsofinter-
disciplinarystudy. Our contributors'diverseperspectiveson the
genre'sinternationalism, political stakes,and formalpermutations
pave thewayforcontinuedstudiesin thisevolvingfield.Thereis fur-
therworktobe doneon womenwritersofFrenchcrimefiction, forin-
the
stance,though popularity of FredVargas andClaude Amoz suggests
thatthislacunawillnotstandforlong.Likewise,thecrimewriting and
political climate of francophoneregionsin Canada, Asia, and the
Caribbeanprovidefertilegroundforfurther analysis.It would also be
fascinating to consider
therelationship between crimefictionandcon-
temporary internationalpolitics.Forcrimefiction,we wouldpropose
in closing,is notjusta richfocusofinterdisciplinary literarystudy,it
is also a genreparticularly
well suitedto ourviolent,complex,and in-
creasingly surrealtwenty-first-centuryglobalpoliticalscene.