Detectives in changed times, new assignments

Had it not been for his unique style of story telling that made him outstanding, Edgar Allan Poe would have remained a B-grade thriller writer. An author obsessed with the darker and morbid aspects of human mind was not expected to produce works of literary value. But Poe was born to emerge as a major author. By nature he was fond of the gloomy. He loved to delve into the deeper recess of human psyche.
Thanks to this penchant for exploring the subterranean, Allan Poe eventually came out as the forerunner of a genre hitherto unexplored in literature. His emotionally charged, sombre poetry also helped him find a permanent place in world literature.
The nineteenth century American writer has been credited with being in love with things preternatural and mysterious. This trait, in fact, belongs to all great Romantics in the arts. Being a pioneer of the American Romantic Movement of the time, Allan Poe turned to the shaded and darker areas of life. The twilight zone appealed to him more than did the sunny, transparent and mundane expanses of life. Due to man's latent love for mystery and obliqueness, both the artist and the connoisseur hardly fail to set out for a voyage to the unknown. The eeriness and the weird are thus two sought-after experiences in literature, as in painting.
 In spite of the overwhelming dominance of adventure-thrillers, science fictions and love stories in the world of popular literature, detective novels have always been enjoying a large readership. There is a catch, though. Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Konan Doyle et al belong to the classical and semi-classical genres respectively. Barring a handful of brilliant authors around the world, few have focused on detectives and their investigative skills as a theme for their books.  Perhaps, the tradition of pure detective novels and stories began to peter out with the death of Agatha Christie in the UK in 1976. Belgian author George Simenon and his detective Jules Maigret tried to keep the tradition up for readers till the late eighties. The author died in 1989.
   The post-Second World War era saw remarkable changes in the story-telling of these novels, as well as in plots. But the whole landscape of crime thrillers witnessed a radical change during the Cold War. A new school of 'detective novels' emerged. The yesteryear sleuths in overcoats and felt hats walking along roads by night were replaced by smart and courageous young spies. Most of them were assigned missions for gathering information about an enemy country, or ambushing a project in a foreign territory.
 As had been the vogue, these spy thrillers, written mostly in the UK and the USA, focused on the two Cold War era blocs, one led by the USA, the other by the defunct Soviet Union. The novels also dealt with complicated plots involving double-agents and enigmatic seductresses. The assignments ranged from busting enemy missile sites to international smugglers' dens to engaging in pitched battles with splinter guerrilla forces.  Thus Ian Fleming's hero James Bond turns out to be a marvellous embodiment of derring-do, innovativeness and imagination and, of course, romance.
 Following in the steps of Ian Fleming, dozens of espionage-based thriller writers appeared on the scene. But when it comes to style & content and varieties in plots, few could surpass Fleming. With his fourteen novels, the British author occupies the place of one of the most successful and best-selling thriller writers of the modern times. Like his books, the films based on Ian Fleming's crime thrillers had proved a roaring success. The films are popularly known as James Bond or 007 series.
In the 21st century, thrill-loving readers devour crime fictions which are a potpourri of breathtaking action, suspense and carnal love. The same applies to the films made on them. Those produced in Hollywood falling under this category have an added element: sci-fi gimmicks. On the other hand, in order to make these films attractive the producers choose uncommon locations --- especially inaccessible forests. Gone are the days of plain stories of classical detective novels.
In most of the conventional detective novels and stories, the plot centres round a single crime, a murder, a daring theft or an abduction. The detective assigned to solving the case engages in an investigation, a labyrinthine process, in which suspects are many. The task involves lots of courage, because frequent hazards and close shave are a part of the job. The traditional detective fictions conclude in a common denouement. After a long period of physical and mental exercise, the private sleuth identifies the criminals. The detectives narrate to the readers how they have solved the mystery.
Edgar Allan Poe, the pioneer of crime and mystery stories, was essentially a literary genius. The pervading air of enigma and poetic obfuscation went naturally with him. A number of his stories border on the horror. Owing to the father of detective novels being a consummate poet and short story writer, the genre had won increasing readership as it progressed. In the twentieth century, the readers of mystery-dominated detective novels found a number of talented authors in this area of popular literature. They were different from Allan Poe because they did not lay much emphasis on literary excellence; but they were master story tellers. They knew the art of how to build suspense. The last century's world of detective novels was dominated by Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, George Simenon and a few others. All of them belonged to the school of Arthur Konan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of detective Sherlock Holmes.
A debate has long been raging as to whether detective novels deserve to be placed in the genre of mainstream literature. It has dogged both the writers and readers. Owing to this controversy, many a writer felt embarrassed even in the recent past to claim to be a true author. This discomfort has largely disappeared. A few authors from the mainstream literature in the twentieth century wrote some of the finest crime fictions of the modern times. They include Graham Greene, Umberto Eco and Claude Chabrol --- who was also a member of the French New Wave cinema in the late fifties and sixties.
Detective and crime fictions enjoy a distinctive place in Bengali popular literature. In spite of his majestic seriousness, Rabindranath Tagore demonstrated his occasional weaknesses for the inexplicable and the unknown. Although he did not write pure detective stories, the poet and prose writer seemed to have drawn immense creative pleasure from writing his mystery-laden works. In the post-Tagore era, a number of novelists produced crime fictions. They included Dinendra Kumar Ray, Panchkari Dey, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, the creator of detective Byomkesh, and a few others. In the later period, Premendra Mitra, Hemendra Kumar Roy, film maker and author Satyajit Ray, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay et al enriched the Bangla genre of crime fictions considerably. Popular sentimental-fiction writer Niharranjan Gupta has written a number of detective novels. His private detective Kiriti Roy was once a popular name among Bengalee young readers.
Bangladesh can lay claim to uniqueness with its own corpus of thrillers. Unlike in Kolkata, Dhaka presented to readers the first Bengalee secret agent in the series called Masud Rana, back in the early sixties. The young readers of the country have been viewing the secret agent, Masud Rana, as a highly captivating hero over the last five decades. Kazi Anwar Hossain, writer of the series, is now regarded as one of the most popular writers in Bangladesh.   
The marginal status notwithstanding, literatures in the world couldn't keep the onrush of crime thrillers at bay. Readers longed for them. Authors also felt relieved of their routine burden of writing by making occasional forays into crime fictions. As long as the romantic and inquisitive mind of the modern man remains alive, the detectives, now secret agents, will be around; because crime has not vanished. And also ever alive will be our eagerness to see the triumph of truth over falsehood.             
shihabskr@ymail.com