Reading Detective Stories in Bed

by J.B. Priestley

I find this delightful at home, and even more delightful when I’m away from home, a lost man. The fuss of the day is done with; you are snugly installed in bed, in a little lighted place of your own; and now to make the mind as cosy as the body. But why detective stories? Why not some good literature? Because, with a few happy exceptions – and there are far too few of them – good literature which challenges and excites the mind, will not do. In my view, it should be read away from the bedroom. But why not some dull solemn stuff, memoirs, faded works of travel…? Here I can speak only for myself. But if my bedbook is too dull then I begin to think about my own work and then sleep is banished for hours. No, the detective story is the thing, and its own peculiar virtues have not been sufficiently appreciated. We enthusiasts are not fascinated by violence or the crime element in these narratives. Often, like myself, we deplore the blood-and-bone atmosphere and wish the detective novelists were not so conventional about offering us murder all the time. (A superb detective story could be written – and I have half a mind to write it – about people who were not involved in any form of crime. About disappearance or double life, for example.) Please remember that most serious fiction now has ceased to appeal to our taste for narrative. The novelist may be a social critic, a philosopher, a poet, or a madman, but he is no longer primarily a story-teller. And there are times when we don’t want anybody’s social criticism or deep psychological insight or prose poetry or vision of the world; we want a narrative, an artfully contrived tale. But not any kind of tale, no fragrant romances and the like. What we want – or at least what I want, late at night; you can please yourself – is a tale that is in its own way a picture of life and yet has an entertaining puzzle element in it. And this the detective story offers me. It is of course highly conventional and stylized – think of all those final meetings in the library, or those little dinners in Soho paid for out of a Scotland Yard salary – but its limitations are part of its charm. It opposes to the vast mournful muddle of real world its own tidy problem and neat solution. As thoughtful citizens we are hemmed in now by gigantic problems that appear as insoluble as they are menacing, so how pleasant it is to take an hour or two off to consider only the problem of the body that locked itself in its study and then used the telephone. (“We know now that Sir Rufus must have died not later than 10 o’clock, and yet we know too that he apparently telephoned to Lady Bridget at 10.45 – eh, Travers? ”). This is easy and sensible compared with the problem of remaining a sane citizen in the middle of the twentieth century. After the newspaper headlines, it is refreshing to enter this well-ordered microcosm, like finding one’s way into a garden after wandering for days in a jungle. I like to approach sleep by way of these neat simplifications, most of them as soundly ethical as Socrates himself. It is true that I may burn my bedlight too long, just because I must know how the dead Sir Rufus managed to telephone; yet, one problem having been settled for me, I feel I sleep all the sounder for this hour or two of indulgence. And what a delight it is to switch off the day’s long chaos, stretch legs that have begun to ache a little, turn on the right side, and then once more find the eccentric private detective moodily playing his violin or tending his orchids, or discover again the grumpy inspector doodling in his offices and know that a still more astonishing puzzle is on its way to him and to me.

(From “The Priestley Companion: Extracts from

the Writings of J.B. Priestley Selected by Himself ”.)

Vocabulary

artful, adj cunning; clever in getting what one wants; deceitful

artfulness, n

artfully, adv

Opp.: artless, adj simple and natural, without any deceit or insincerity

e.g. artless grace/ an artless village girl.

artlessness, n

artlessly, adv

banish, v 1. send away as punishment

2. put away from, out of (the mind)

e.g. banish care

banishment, n

challenge, v 1. (to) invite (sb) to compete against one in a fight, match, etc.

e.g. I challenged him to a game of tennis. I challenge you to race me асross the lake.

2. question legality, rightness, etc. of; dispute

e.g. Traditional female roles are constantly being challenged by contemporary feminists.

3. test the abilities of (a person or thing); stimulate

e.g. I only like to study something if it really challenges me.

4. stop and demand official proof of the name and intentions of (sb)

e.g. The sentry challenged the stranger.

challenge, n 1. an invitation to compete in a fight, match, etc.

e.g. a challenge to a game of tennis.

2. a questioning of the rightness, legality, etc.of sth

3. (sth with) the quality of demanding competitive action, interest, or thought

e.g. I'm looking for a job with a bit more challenge.

4. a demand to stop and give proof of one's name, intentions, etc.

challenging, adj needing the full use of one's abilities and effort, difficult, but in an interesting way

e.g. a challenging problem/job.

contrive, v invent; design; find a way of doing or causing (sth)

e.g. contrive a means of escaping from prison.

contrived, adj

convention, n practice or custom based on general consent

e.g. It's silly to be a slave to convention.

conventional, adj 1. based on convention

e.g. conventional greetings

2. following what has been customary; traditional

conventionally, adv

deplore, v show, say, that one is filled with great aversion, sorrow or regret for

deplorable, adj that is, or should be, deplored

e.g. deplorable conduct

deplorably, adv

e.g. deplorably ignorant children

have half a mind to do sth be almost decided to do it

Cf.: have a (good) mind to do sth be strongly decided to do it

insight, n 1. understanding; power of understanding sth; instance of this

e.g. show insight into human character

2. (often sudden) glimpse of understanding

e.g. She had a good insight into what life would be like as his wife.

insoluble, adj (of problems, etc.) that cannot be solved or explained

involved, adj complicated in form, etc.

e.g. an involved sentence/ style

menace, n danger; threat

e.g. a menace to world peace

menace, v threaten

menacing, adj

moody, adj having moods that often change, esp. being bad-tempered

moodily, adv

narrate, v tell (a story); give an account of

e.g. narrate one's adventures

narration, n the telling of a story, etc.; story; account of events, etc.

narrative, n 1. story or tale; orderly account of events; (composition that consists of) story-telling

2. (used as an adj) in the form of, concerned with, story-telling

e.g. narrative literature (=stories and novels/poems)

narrator, n person who narrates

puzzle, n 1. question or problem difficult to understand or answer

2. (sg only) state of feeling confused, thinking hard about a problem, e.g. bе in a puzzle about his refusal

puzzle, v confuse, worry (about a solution to a problem)

puzzle over sth, think much

puzzle sth out, (try to) find an answer or solution by thinking hard

puzzlement, n state of being puzzled

puzzler, n a difficult problem

simplify, v make simple; make easy to do or understand

e.g. a simplified reader/text

simplification, n act or process of making simple; instance of this; thing simplified

snug, adj 1. warm and comfortable

e.g. snug in bed

2. neat and tidy; rightly or conveniently placed or arranged

snugly, adv

solemn, adj 1.causing deep thought or respect; serious and important

2. serious-looking

e.g. a solemn face

solemnity, n

stylize, v represent or treat (art forms, etc.) in the peculiar, conventional style

stylized, adj

superb, adj magnificent; first class

e.g. a superb meal/result/swimmer

virtue, n 1.(any particular kind of) goodness or excellence

e.g. Patience is a virtue.

2. chastity, esp. of women

e.g. a woman of easy virtue (= one who is promiscuous)

3. ability to produce a definite result

e.g. Have you any faith in the virtue of herbs to heal sickness?

4. advantage

e.g. The great virtue of the Scheme is that it costs very little.

5. by/in virtue of, by reason of, because of

e.g. He claims a pension by virtue of his age.

virtuous, adj having, showing, virtue (1)

virtuously, adv

NOTES

ethic, n system of moral principles, rules of conduct

ethics, n 1. the science that deals with morals

e.g. I'm studying ethics in my philosophy course.

2.moral rules or principles of behaviour governing a person or group

ethical, adj 1.connected with ethics (2)

2. morally good or right

Opp.: unethical, adj

Scotland Yard 1. a short street in central London, formerly the site of the London police headquarters, which were removed in 1890 to the Thames embankment (New Scotland Yard)

2.the London police, esp. the branch engaged in crime detection Soho a district in London, including Soho Square; a predominantly foreign section since 1685; noted for its restaurants.