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    The Red House Mystery

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    John Christmann
    The document summarizes John Christmann's reading journal entries on various detective fiction novels: 1) It discusses his classmates' reactions to different novels by authors like Poe, Doyle, Green, Christie, Hammett, and Chandler. 2) Most found Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to be an improvement over Poe's dry prose and dull plots. 3) Hammett's Red Harvest and Chandler's The Big Sleep were praised for their more believable detectives and grittier depictions of crime compared to British novels.

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    The Red House Mystery

    Uploaded by

    John Christmann
    49 views3 pages
    The document summarizes John Christmann's reading journal entries on various detective fiction novels: 1) It discusses his classmates' reactions to different novels by authors like Poe, Doyle, Green, Christie, Hammett, and Chandler. 2) Most found Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to be an improvement over Poe's dry prose and dull plots. 3) Hammett's Red Harvest and Chandler's The Big Sleep were praised for their more believable detectives and grittier depictions of crime compared to British novels.

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    The document summarizes John Christmann's reading journal entries on various detective fiction novels: 1) It discusses his classmates' reactions to different novels by authors like Poe, Doyle, Green, Christie, Hammett, and Chandler. 2) Most found Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to be an improvement over Poe's dry prose and dull plots. 3) Hammett's Red Harvest and Chandler's The Big Sleep were praised for their more believable detectives and grittier depictions of crime compared to British novels.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    49 views3 pages

    The Red House Mystery

    Uploaded by

    John Christmann
    The document summarizes John Christmann's reading journal entries on various detective fiction novels: 1) It discusses his classmates' reactions to different novels by authors like Poe, Doyle, Green, Christie, Hammett, and Chandler. 2) Most found Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to be an improvement over Poe's dry prose and dull plots. 3) Hammett's Red Harvest and Chandler's The Big Sleep were praised for their more believable detectives and grittier depictions of crime compared to British novels.

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    John Christmann 3/3/2014 Reading Journal 1

    The Red House Mystery: This novel seemed to follow the standard model of British detective fiction. After a discussion with my classmates, it seems as though most people thought it was Caylee. The author seemed to spoon-feed the clues to us, as seems to be standard for most British detective novels. Caylee displayed odd behavior from the beginning, and everybody noticed that the way that the author set up the narrative gave away the identity of the perpetrator from the beginning. The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter: These stories were probably the driest of all the stories weve read. Overall, nobody seemed to enjoy reading these stories, as the prose was difficult and almost impenetrable. The main character was difficult to sympathize with, and the stories themselves were rather dull. However, people did note that it was an important step towards the genre we are currently reading. Since Poe was and is so important, most of us were able to get over the dry prose and dull plot to see how this story outlined the sorts of steps future authors would take. The Adventure of the Speckled Band and A Study in Scarlet: Doyles stories were a refreshing change from Poe. Doyle is the gold standard with respect to British detective fiction, and is always fun to read. It was generally agreed that Doyle was an

    improvement to Poe, and the dynamic between the main characters was not nearly as dry or boring as Poes stories. Overall, Doyles stories were a good, solid example of what quality British detective fiction ought to be. The Second Bullet and An Intangible Clue: These two stories were a bit different from Doyles. Most people seemed to enjoy them but not as much as Doyles, an opinion I share. However, Greens stories are also good examples of quality detective fiction, just not as good as Doyles. These two stories exhibited the general features of British detective fiction, as was noted by most everybody. A Murder is Announced: Christies book was pretty popular amongst everybody, but I frankly was not a fan. Miss Marple was a totally unbelievable character, and the entire concept of violent crime is hopelessly whitewashed. It was generally noticed that these sorts of detective novels are sanitized versions of true crime stories, which downplay the awfulness of violent crime. Miss Marple is not the sort of person who would investigate these sorts of crimes, and not because she is a woman, but because she is an old woman who is clearly part of high society. She does not fit the mold of a detective, which is better displayed in American detective fiction. Red Harvest: This story was a refreshing change to all of the British stuff. Almost everybody seemed to agree that the plot was more believable, and it didnt whitewash the horrors of violent crime. Op was a more believable detective, and overall was easier to sympathize with. The storyline featured

    more grit than any of the British novels did, as was shown by the depictions of the murders in Hammetts novel unlike the British novels. The Big Sleep: This story was quite similar to Hammetts, but had a few differences. I noticed that it was less violent, which was pointed out in subsequent discussion. The story had more violence more often than its British counterparts, but compared to Hammetts, it was significantly less gritty. However, it still exemplified the qualities of a good American detective novel, like Hammetts did.

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