1 00:00:02,370 --> 00:00:17,339 The. Many of your friends, Phyllis, 2 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:28,590 were delighted to know that another book from you is on the publisher's shelves and it's called Talking About Detective Fiction. 3 00:00:29,610 --> 00:00:34,650 How did it all come about? Well, it began as long ago as 2006, 4 00:00:34,980 --> 00:00:43,280 when I had a letter from the then librarian of the Bodleian after a request to the publishing department to write a book in aid of the library. 5 00:00:43,290 --> 00:00:46,559 And I decided that it would be a great pleasure to do it, 6 00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:51,690 not only because of my huge admiration for the library, but I wasn't ready to start another novel. 7 00:00:52,260 --> 00:00:57,390 And you know how it is. We writers are never happy unless they're either plotting, planning or writing. 8 00:00:57,780 --> 00:01:03,809 The royalties on talking about detective fiction or going to the body. 9 00:01:03,810 --> 00:01:08,639 And I wonder why you must have some affection for the dear old place. 10 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:13,260 Is that right? Anyone who has any contact with Oxford knows about the Bodleian. 11 00:01:13,590 --> 00:01:16,190 It has one of the greatest libraries of the world. 12 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:22,050 And of course, it's not only for scholars, it's for everyone who is interested in books and wants information. 13 00:01:22,110 --> 00:01:25,590 Some people have heard of Cambridge, haven't they, as well as Oxford? 14 00:01:25,620 --> 00:01:33,690 Some people. And I just wonder. There are far more crime writers that we associate with Oxford, 15 00:01:33,810 --> 00:01:40,410 who you shouldn't be surprised about this because you have made Oxford the most murderous city in the whole of the United Kingdom. 16 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:48,990 How many body bags of you produced? Well, I think most claim to fame, Ferris is that single handedly I have made Oxford, as you said, the crime, 17 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:57,630 the murder capital of the United Kingdom, and the present count, where that final count for most was 91 corpses. 18 00:01:57,750 --> 00:02:06,930 I didn't count them myself, but somebody sent me 71 corpses and I kept a little card by the television set, plus three or plus two. 19 00:02:06,930 --> 00:02:09,930 Adam DAVIES can't possibly compete with that. 20 00:02:11,250 --> 00:02:23,729 The central theme of this book, Phyllis, I think, is the development of what we always used to call and how you use detective stories. 21 00:02:23,730 --> 00:02:29,850 And these days we drifted towards a sort of a different nomenclature with the crime novel. 22 00:02:30,090 --> 00:02:33,420 Can you explain a little more, more fully then than that? 23 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:40,800 Well, if we go back to the so-called Golden Age, the plot was absolutely dominant. 24 00:02:41,490 --> 00:02:46,320 The story was dominant. It had to be a puzzle and it had to be an ingenious puzzle. 25 00:02:46,530 --> 00:02:50,490 And people had to be killed in very clever, ingenious ways. 26 00:02:50,760 --> 00:03:00,930 And things have changed in another way, really to remember, they were so keen on having maps and charts and the sort of plan of the manor, 27 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:07,920 a matchstick figure on the stairs with a corpse, and the characters had to serve the plot. 28 00:03:08,430 --> 00:03:11,040 The characters tended to be stereotypes, really. 29 00:03:11,220 --> 00:03:17,730 They particularly are really and are Agatha Christie when you get the same sort of characters over and over again. 30 00:03:18,330 --> 00:03:28,559 But now I think the detective story has moved much closer to the mainstream novel and I think is a very important development that the story, 31 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:33,959 of course, is still vitally important. The mystery is important. 32 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:36,240 So it has to be credible in the old days. 33 00:03:36,420 --> 00:03:43,140 Very often, I mean, with Agatha Christie, you love the book and at the end you realise it could never possibly happen like that. 34 00:03:43,380 --> 00:03:53,280 Part of the attraction of mayhem, the mysteries, is that they are not only entertaining, but they take people into an entirely different world. 35 00:03:53,760 --> 00:04:01,890 Very often with a modern crime novel, you're taken into the same old violent world that you read about in the newspaper and see on the television. 36 00:04:02,190 --> 00:04:09,900 Whereas if we go back into this comfortable village where Miss Marple lives, for example, it's peaceful, you know, 37 00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:15,750 as the vicar might find a body on the study floor, but it doesn't much interfere with the Sunday sermon. 38 00:04:15,990 --> 00:04:20,940 And it's all solved by Euros, Grace Owls or Miss Marple with her knitting. 39 00:04:21,870 --> 00:04:26,940 And then the little village is absolutely transformed peacefully again until the next murder happens. 40 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:33,210 And that is rather reassuring to read. Order is restored at the end. 41 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:41,160 Yes, yes, I agree. So the detective story is immensely satisfying to write because it's so difficult to do well. 42 00:04:42,570 --> 00:04:46,710 The ones I've written that are not strictly detective stories would be much easier to write. 43 00:04:47,460 --> 00:04:52,320 And somebody said, You've got to produce a novel in a month or else terrible things will happen to you. 44 00:04:52,470 --> 00:04:56,940 Or I could produce a novel and so could you. But it wouldn't be a detective story. 45 00:04:56,940 --> 00:05:03,570 Couldn't do it in a month. Have you got any routine and discipline about why you write, how you write, and what room you write? 46 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:12,690 Well, I do. I don't much care what room I write in as long as I have a comfortable chair, a large table. 47 00:05:13,090 --> 00:05:19,719 To hold all my research material and the good old thesaurus and dictionary and so on and the good light. 48 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:24,970 And is Father Pleasant? If I can make coffee very close to the kitchen is rather a good place. 49 00:05:24,970 --> 00:05:28,390 Really. For years I've had exactly the same method of writing a book. 50 00:05:28,570 --> 00:05:32,860 I like writing by hand. Some of my friends, I think Ruth Rendell, really? 51 00:05:33,070 --> 00:05:36,390 Ruth actually writes on her computer. 52 00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:43,209 But you do feel perhaps that that this direct contact between pen and paper rather helps and hinders you? 53 00:05:43,210 --> 00:05:52,300 Is that is that right? Oh, absolutely. I like to I like to somehow feel the words coming down my arm on to the page. 54 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:59,650 I like that feeling. And I think what one has to do in a crime is to hold a creative tension, 55 00:05:59,650 --> 00:06:08,260 to integrate the different parts of the book, the setting, the characterisation, the plot and the scene. 56 00:06:08,500 --> 00:06:14,500 All of those have to join together and really produce a wonderful whole. 57 00:06:14,530 --> 00:06:19,480 In general, you seem to be able to convey this sense of understanding, 58 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:23,710 both from the point of view of the victim and from the point of view of the murderer. 59 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:28,450 Well, I think it's helped by the fact that I write by changing the viewpoint. 60 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:38,200 So when I'm seeing things from the point of view of Dalgliesh or one of his subordinates or suspect or even the murderer, that's more difficult. 61 00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:42,129 I'm entering into that person's mind. I am that person. 62 00:06:42,130 --> 00:06:46,570 When I'm writing about that person, I'm feeling as that person feels. 63 00:06:47,170 --> 00:06:50,590 And of course, this leads people to say, I'm surprised you believe this stuff. 64 00:06:50,590 --> 00:06:55,660 And the other don't you find with your writing, they muddle up the writer with the character. 65 00:06:55,790 --> 00:07:00,730 But the whole thing about being a writer is that you're able to sympathise with all these views and convey them. 66 00:07:00,970 --> 00:07:05,890 Without that, I think you become a cruel writer or a writer without humanity. 67 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:11,590 And writers, in fact, can be brilliant, technically, and write brilliantly. 68 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:15,520 And sometimes at the end, one feels this book has no humanity in it. 69 00:07:23,490 --> 00:07:31,530 The horror genre seems to be extraordinarily fascinating to the vast majority of people. 70 00:07:31,860 --> 00:07:37,260 I think it probably is the most popular form of popular writing. 71 00:07:37,740 --> 00:07:43,360 And whenever one goes into bookshops bookshop where it is crime or detective writing shelves of childhood shelves. 72 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:53,400 I think, first of all, people do love a story and with a detective story, you get a story, you get a plot, you get a beginning, a middle and an end. 73 00:07:53,580 --> 00:07:57,390 Something happens and it's usually something pretty exciting. 74 00:07:58,260 --> 00:08:00,990 Then I think there's the puzzle. People love a puzzle. 75 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:08,129 I don't think this is the most important aspect really, Colin, because if it were, we would never reread that detective story. 76 00:08:08,130 --> 00:08:12,240 And I love rereading my favourites, although I know whodunit. 77 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:17,130 But they do love a puzzle and it has to be a fair puzzle. 78 00:08:17,670 --> 00:08:18,329 But of course, 79 00:08:18,330 --> 00:08:26,970 I think it's it is a book which is reassuring psychologically and excellent to go into all these deep Freudian ideas that people put forward. 80 00:08:27,420 --> 00:08:35,430 But it is reassuring. It is a very moral point of view because it says that even the most unpopular person, 81 00:08:35,550 --> 00:08:41,580 even an evil person, has a right to live his or her life to the last natural moment. 82 00:08:42,030 --> 00:08:48,930 That murder is never justified. That murder is the unique crime and that when it happens in any civilised society, 83 00:08:49,230 --> 00:08:54,120 the whole of the resources of the police force will be directed to try to discover who did it. 84 00:08:54,390 --> 00:09:00,930 So that is comforting. I think I'm always a bit disappointed when it's not a murder that they're doing. 85 00:09:00,940 --> 00:09:08,640 I mean, if somebody steals a tin of salmon from the supermarket, it's difficult to sustain interest for 450 pages, isn't it? 86 00:09:08,790 --> 00:09:13,830 But it's exactly so. And I say in the book that people are much more interested, you know, 87 00:09:14,130 --> 00:09:22,590 in who killed and brutally killed and Augusta than who who stole her diamond necklace when she was on holiday Bournemouth. 88 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:30,299 And it's all together there. Is that the fact that it is murder and murder is fascinating because from time immemorial, 89 00:09:30,300 --> 00:09:35,000 I mean, when we look at old literature going back, of course, the oldest literature is drama. 90 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:36,750 Drama is much older than the novel. 91 00:09:36,990 --> 00:09:44,610 But going back to old drama and as far as writing is concerned, the Bible beyond murder has always fascinated human beings. 92 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:52,529 The reason why people should step over that invisible line which separates the murderer from the rest of us, 93 00:09:52,530 --> 00:09:54,659 I mean, it remains perennially interesting, 94 00:09:54,660 --> 00:10:07,890 I think, but it certainly is the it's a form of popular writing, which is particularly successful and particularly popular in difficult times. 95 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:12,240 Times of unrest, times of war, times of depression. 96 00:10:12,690 --> 00:10:20,640 When it is possible for people to feel that no matter how much money you part of the problem, how many social workers you part of the problem. 97 00:10:20,970 --> 00:10:26,730 Something like a bright young people's crime in inner cities seems beyond our ability to solve. 98 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:34,920 So here you have a form of writing where there is a problem of the heart, and by the end of the book, that problem is going to be solved. 99 00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:44,070 Not by good luck, not by human intervention, but by a human being, by human intelligence and human perseverance and human courage. 100 00:10:44,340 --> 00:10:49,919 And that's very that's very satisfying. And I think that's probably at the root of it is quite extraordinary. 101 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:54,690 How many very, very clever and emotive people love detective fiction. 102 00:10:55,170 --> 00:10:58,890 It surprises me, really, that they do and they continue to. 103 00:10:59,100 --> 00:11:11,040 And I think, you know, that if we were sort of left stranded in some foreign city because three flights have been cancelled and 104 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:15,750 we have to wait next day for a flight and then we're in this strange hotel and life is very boring. 105 00:11:16,290 --> 00:11:24,540 And if we found in on the bedside table two books, one, the winner of a prestigious prize and the other of Agatha Christie. 106 00:11:25,050 --> 00:11:28,620 I think I know which one most travellers would reach out for. 107 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:34,229 We've been talking fresh about mostly UK writers in every everywhere. 108 00:11:34,230 --> 00:11:40,980 We mustn't forget that other countries have an enormous amount of literature, especially, 109 00:11:40,980 --> 00:11:45,180 I think recently we've seen it in some of the Scandinavian countries, haven't we? 110 00:11:45,690 --> 00:11:51,179 Well, I think it's interesting that there are nearly always Protestant countries. 111 00:11:51,180 --> 00:11:53,250 People have made this point, which is interesting. 112 00:11:53,490 --> 00:12:00,480 And of course I have a whole chapter on the detective writer in America, the sort of so-called hard boiled school. 113 00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:07,650 Someone said that some Roman Catholic countries have a confession and the reading, the crime writer. 114 00:12:07,930 --> 00:12:13,299 Crime fiction is a way of getting rid of guilt, and they can go to confession and get rid of it. 115 00:12:13,300 --> 00:12:19,500 If we have to read crime fiction, it's perhaps a little sort of far fetched, but it is curious. 116 00:12:20,390 --> 00:12:29,950 Romans used to say Khomeini's, quote, send ten times as many men as there are opinions about why you do things. 117 00:12:30,380 --> 00:12:33,890 Your classes. No doubt that's what it means. 118 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:42,170 I've not mentioned the wonderful cartoons which feature I think in every chapter in this book. 119 00:12:42,890 --> 00:12:47,510 I think Particularly Marvellous is the one about The Hound of the Baskervilles. 120 00:12:47,870 --> 00:12:58,160 I think that is the funniest every best wish to talking about the detective both to you fellows and also, of course, to the Bodleian. 121 00:12:58,490 --> 00:12:58,940 Thank you.