Strategies
The objectives of this curriculum unit should be evident from the preceding discussion: it is my hope that any course in writing which uses detective fiction will situate the chosen text in such a context as to draw attention to the devices and structures common to it and to other texts of greater literary merit. Raymond Chandler and Homer, obviously, have little in common. Any attempt to equate the two works I have chosen, The Big Sleep and the Odyssey, beyond technical and structural matters, would be misguided. Aesthetically, spiritually, morally or otherwise in terms of gravity and significance, these works are ant & elephant. The genre of detective fiction is accurately referred to as "escapist." The there is the Odyssey, where what we escape to is of a sublime order, full of eternal questions and struggles. Chandler's world lends no more than a paragraph of sentimentality to the subject of death, the purported topic of his novel, according to the title. The Big Sleep and the Odyssey are as, say, Bob Dylan and Bach. Few would argue that Dylan has not had an impact, but against the timeless completeness of Bach? The value of comparison here, aside from the contrast, is what each may reveal about the artistic possibilities of a time and place, and the priorities of one practitioner within the space of his chosen genres. I must emphasize that I would be sure to include The Day of the Locusts or A Cool Million, by Nathaniel West; Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, by Stephen Crane; The Great Gatsby, by Fitzgerald; and Melville's The Confidence Man, in any course that would include Chandler. Sticking just to the detective genre would not, to me, serve learning as well as an historical context and discussion of topical issues, matters of the art cutting across genres.
Strategies for teaching in a traditional writing course vary from teacher to teacher, though I am inclined to stick to traditional guidelines, such as those staked out by Quintilian. That is, students should spend their time reading, both silently and aloud; looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary; writing critical responses to what they have read; memorizing certain passages for recital; writing imitations and parodies. Invention, the source of all things new, may play a part in these assignments, insofar as it is trained to meet the assignment half way. Mind dumps or other varieties of automatic, unfiltered outpourings are not discouraged, but must be restricted to certain times and places.
The main thrust of this course should be to bring the chaotic creativity of young writers to bear on organized assignments that force them to step out of their usual selves and write under restrictions. The critical responses should be impersonal looks at the devices and plots, at the formulas, and not wholly subjective, emotional responses stating whether so and so "liked" the work. This should not have to be stated, but the knack persists. Critical reasons for disliking a work must be articulated as objections based upon artistic grounds, not gut feelings generated by thoughtless attitudes. The idea is to make the "writers" in this course see the craft of writing much the way they might consider the craft of carpentry, or plumbing, or bicycle repair: if certain parts are neglected or poorly made they can bring the entire otherwise lovely machine to a halt.
The "confessional" mode has become so commonplace as to make the structures of genres and topoi seem like archeological wonders saved from the sands of oblivion. The argument is not necessarily what makes up this or that tradition, so much as it is what is this tradition made of, what are the tools employed, what are the signatures of that trade? The carpenter of today savours Chandler's description of the various woods in the "parquetry" of Eddie Mars' place: "the parquetry was made of a dozen kinds of hardwood, from Burma teak through half a dozen shades of oak and ruddy wood that looked like mahogany, and fading out to the hard pale wild lilac of the California hills, all laid in elaborate patterns, with the accuracy of a transit." The carpenter's admiration should be the kind the writer has for the work he is reading, when the work, both subtle and elaborate, is as well patterned. Perhaps as in the centuries that followed Quintilian literacy will continue to decline, and appreciation for the technical virtuosity of a literary work will vanish much as the dozen or so types of trees used in that parquetry, but one would have to be as sentimental as Raymond Chandler to wax any further about the inevitability.