Ratiocination
In definition, the word ‘ratiocination’ means ‘the process of arriving at a logical deduction through logical reasoning’. In usage, as first utilized by Edgar Alan Poe’s character Auguste Dupin — Poe being the grandfather of the detective novel, a la The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which featured Dupin — it means ‘to deduce’ or ‘to detect’.
The character most of us know as this ‘logical’ type of detective is Sherlock Holmes. If Poe was the the grandfather of detective stories — a.k.a. mysteries — then Arthur Conan Doyle was the Big Daddy. Applying logic, Doyle’s Holmes was able to deduce – via removing the impossible – that whatever was remaining at the end of his logic train, no matter how improbable, was the truth.
Detecting the truth was further taken up by the mystery genre’s vaunted auntie, Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot’s efforts at ratiocination made up only a fraction of her overall catalog, but it was his little gray cells at work that started enchanting readers with Christie’s writing over 100 years ago with The Mysterious Affair At Styles.
And the tradition has continued onward.
Mysteries
As I’m sure you have deduced by now (provided you are gifted in the art of ratiocination 😉 ), I am a fan of mystery fiction. I find the history of the genre itself to be fascinating, with the approaches authors have taken over the course of more than 18 decades1 a delightful study in anthropology.
Throughout that time, there have been thinkers (like the above named detectives) and a few stinkers (the ‘tough guy’ mystery genre was much mourned; Hammett was not well loved by the fair play crowd, but he set a precedent that several authors2 followed with great success), recreation-seeking gentlemen (Lord Peter Wimsey, Philo Vance), plenty of policemen, and even more private eyes.
I have easily read hundreds of mysteries over the course of my lifetime. Counting short stories, it’s more like a thousand.
And I can easily say that I’ve enjoyed almost all of them.
There are a few, though, which stand out.
Top Titles
To get into the synopses of these stories would take more time than we have in this abecedarium event. And to span all the decades represented in the history of mystery would be a nearly-impossible task.
So I will stick to five seven novels (across two decades).
All fair play. All of which did something that had not been done before.
- Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers (1923)
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie (1926)
- The Poisoned Chocolates Case, by Anthony Berkeley (1929)
- The Dragon Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine (1934)
- The League of Frightened Men, by Rex Stout (1937)
- A Blunt Instrument, by Georgette Heyer (1938)
- The Case of the Constant Suicides, by John Dickson Carr (1941)
There are many more names that could go on that list. Several ‘firsts’ were first published during or shortly after WWII.3 Multiple authors are continuing to innovate (while their characters ratiocinate) today.
(Which is what will keep me reading mysteries tomorrow.)
(And the next day.)
(And the next decade.)
Are there any books you’ve read that were the first of their kind?
What titles would you recommend?
Letters Q R S T U
My topic of focus for the 2023 A-to-Z Blogging Challenge is READING.
To see all the posts in this series, click here. To read what other people are writing for this year’s Challenge, click the badge above.
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1Poe’s Rue Morgue story was published in 1841 and is considered by literary historians to be the first detective story. Prior to that time, mysteries appeared in stories, but it was not until Poe’s account of Dupin’s deduction in that particular tale that the mystery was solved within a story, specifically in a way that engages the reader as a partner in puzzling out the answer.
2Raymond Chandler was probably the most prosaic writer among these men and his famous detective Philip Marlowe survives to this day; Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer was undoubtedly the most famous in his day, but only due to the efforts of Max Allan Collins has he remained even remotely in the public eye.
3Margery Allingham bears mentioning here. And — much later in the second half of the 20th century — P.D. James.
Haven’t read any of your top list but I do like some modern detective novels. I haven’t seen you for a while so will go and find your other posts.
I am combining letters, as you can see from this post, because I am flying by the seat of my pants this time around!
I read modern publications as well — I just finished Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, which was newly released in the U.S. by an Australian author. 🙂
My father was an avid reader of mysteries – like Mikey Spillane – and I remember him giving them to me to read and tasking me to figure out “who done it” before the big reveal in the book. Jeez, I’ve read so many mystery books that I couldn’t remember them but I loved pitting my ability to deduce against the characters in the book but authors, the bums, love to do that slight of hand where as you read, you know who did it; everything points to them and… shit, the butler really did it? The wife didn’t kill her husband; her jealous sister did it because the husband rejected her way back in high school.
Or those rare books I’ve read, gotten to the end of it and asking, “Wait – who the hell really did it? Did you really just leave me hanging like that?”
My mom liked Agatha Christie’s books and I read a lot of them and, yeah, Hercule is Belgium, not French.
Mickey Spillane — I, the Jury changed the genre forever. He had a Chandler-esque way with words that made the violence in his books scream with beauty.
I’ve read a lot of mysteries, but mostly the older ones. There are only a few current series that I’ve really enjoyed, most notably probably Stephanie Barron, Deborah Crombie, and Iain Pears. (And even of those I think only Crombie is still adding more.)
Alphabet of Alphabets: Quadrupeds
I like Golden Age mysteries best — generally accepted as those published in the time period between WWI and WWII — so if that’s what you mean by “older,” I’m definitely on the same page.