"DID HE FALL OR WAS HE PUSHED?":

Savoring Old Murders, Spinning Tales of New Ones: P. D. James, 83, has lost none of her zest for writing intricate detective stories and for contemplating the act of murder. (MEL GUSSOW, 1/10/04, NY Times)

When asked how she came to write mysteries, P. D. James has a ready answer. As a child she wondered about Humpty Dumpty: "Did he fall or was he pushed?" [...]

The main reason for writing detective fiction, she said, is "to bring order out of chaos," and secondarily to bring "justice out of injustice." "It's not real justice," she said. "At least you solve the problem. I think that's the virtue of the modern detective story, if it's well written. With Dear Old Agatha, the peace of that mythical little village is totally restored once the murder is solved. But with my novels, everybody who comes in touch with that very contaminating crime is changed. You don't get things back to what they were."

One distinction of "The Murder Room" is that Dalgliesh, a melancholic widower, becomes romantically involved with Emma Lavenham, a lecturer at Cambridge University. At the end of the book, he sends her a love letter proposing marriage. Up to then, she said, with Dalgliesh there has been "a holding back of being committed to another human being."

She cited "something C. P. Snow said in one of his novels: there is great dignity in being an observer of life but if you do it long enough you lose yourself."

What about Humpty?

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 11, 2004 7:45 AM