At the time I straddled the divide. I had read mystery novels voraciously ever since I was a child and still do. I especially love mysteries that double as historical novels, such as those featuring Brother Cadfael (written by Ellis Peters) and Gordianus the Finder (written by Steven Saylor). For years I wouldn’t miss Mystery! when it was running on PBS on Thursday nights. But I also loved science fiction, cutting my teeth on Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. I grew up watching Star Trek and similar shows. Often I loved science fiction more for its cheesiness, and it was a guilty pleasure, much like scarfing down a bag of potato chips. But since then my love for science fiction has waned a bit, mainly because of the unevenness of the genre. While there are many great works like Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, there are also hundreds of books where the writing is puerile and the thoughts more so. Although mysteries also vary in quality, even the most pedestrian cozy mystery usually has its redeeming characteristics. The same cannot be said of science fiction. Nonetheless, I still enjoy watching some science fiction movies, sometimes for its cinematic value (e.g., Blade Runner and Dark City) and sometimes because of its compelling tale or moral (e.g., Gattaca, Brazil, and Minority Report), although I now do substantially less reading in the genre. Thus, if I had to answer the question today, I would lean to the mystery side of the divide.
But why would this be a hot topic for classicists when neither genre existed in the ancient world? I have never heard anyone give an answer, but I think that the genre of pleasure reading indicates how a scholar approaches antiquity. In a mystery the central character is lifeless and cannot directly help in the investigation. Instead, the corpse is dissected and clues ferreted out from other sources in order to find the killer. Science fiction, however, portrays not only people who are well and alive, but also an entire living civilization that is perhaps as essential a character as any of the individuals who appear in the book. Thus, it would seem that mystery lovers would approach antiquity as a dead civilization, whose language must be parsed and whose social history carefully pieced together from various authors, while science fiction fans would seem more interested in recreating a living civilization. So far the advantage would seem to lie with the science fiction crowd. But mysteries often do a better job at portraying how people interact with each other, perhaps because the crime can be solved only when one has a full understanding of those dynamics. And, thus, mysteries may feature a death prominently but they ironically may also seem more alive than works of science fiction do. That is doubly true when the work of science fiction creates an alien world mainly to serve as a foil for present day society. Such worlds are as dull and lifeless as the thinly veiled screeds that they are.
Science fiction also tends to be either utopian or dystopian, while mysteries tend to reveal a much more nuanced world. St. Mary Mead may seem somewhat idyllic at first glance, but Agatha Christie is no Edward Bellamy; her Miss Jane Marple knows very well where all the bodies are buried. By the same token, even the hardboiled detectives seem less cynical about their worlds than do authors of dystopian science fiction. Moreover, while science fiction tends to focus on technology as either the problem or the solution, mysteries offer a broader explanation for humanity’s failings.
Both genres will doubtlessly be with us for many more years, and the excellent quality of some works in each genre will win the grudging respect of fans of the other. But it is useful, nonetheless, to consider what our favorite genre of books and movies tells others about us.
The picture in this post is in the public domain because the copyright has lapsed.
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