[As the leaf-peeping begins in earnest (seriously, that’s a thing we do here in New England), a series on some iconic American images of the loss of
innocence that we so often associate with autumn. Add your thoughts on falls,
seasonal or symbolic, for a crowd-sourced post sure to be as popular as pumpkin
spice (if such a thing is possible)!]
On the multiple layers of revelations built into the best mystery fiction
(major SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t read Scott Turow’s novel or seen the
Harrison Ford film, and might at some
point).
I’ve blogged frequently enough about mystery fiction (and films) to illustrate
just how seriously I take the genre as art well worth our analytical time.
There are lots of reasons why, but a prominent one would have to be just how
much the genre, by its very nature, can teach us about society. That is, the
detective’s job, or at least a necessary corollary to his or her job, is to
learn about the world around him or her, whether specific (as in Agatha Christie’s
town of St. Mary Mead or Ross MacDonald’s California) or broad (as in the mysteries of human nature with which Sherlock Holmes seems so frequently to grapple). And while it’s not
impossible for those deductive revelations to include inspiring lessons (about
love or courage in the face of threats, for example), the genre’s nature
likewise means that most of the time the lessons entail literal falls from
innocence, recognitions of the guilt not only in those who commit crimes but
(much of the time) in the world as a whole.
I know of few mystery novels that better exemplify those multi-layered,
sobering revelations about the world than Scott Turow’s legal thriller Presumed Innocent (1987). Turow’s first-person narrator, prosecutor Rusty Sabich, stands
accused of killing the woman with whom he was having an extra-marital affair;
the evidence against Rusty is overwhelming, and although he is eventually
acquitted, the cause is simply another level of guilt: Rusty and his lawyer
discover that the case’s judge has been taking bribes, and use the information
as leverage to force an acquittal. Moreover, virtually every other character in
the novel is guilty of something significant as well; the cop who first
investigates the case, for example, is a longtime friend of Rusty’s and
illegally disposes of evidence in an (unsuccessful) attempt to shield Rusty
from suspicion. Rusty’s story and world are so choked with guilt, so driven by
it from start to finish, in fact, that the title begins to feel less like a
legal concept and more like a sardonic social commentary.
Moreover (double SPOILER ALERT for this paragraph!), the novel’s final
revelation adds two intimate and even more compelling falls from innocence to
the mix. In the closing pages, Rusty discovers evidence that makes clear that
the murderer was his wife, who had uncovered the affair, confronted and killed
the mistress, and then tried to frame Rusty for the crime instead (going so far
as to plant his semen at the scene of the crime). Even on its own terms, this
fall from innocence, connected as it is to the woman with whom he has spent his
life and has a family, is the novel’s most shocking and damning. But Rusty
chooses not to turn his wife in, and the reason is his recognition of the
story’s fundamental layer of guilt, its original sin, the fall from innocence
that started it all: his affair. Which is to say, the book’s ultimate
revelation is that its first-person narrator, its voice and perspective, and
(as in almost any first-person book) its most intimate connection to its
audience, is the most guilty party of all.
Last fall tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Images of fall, or The Fall, you’d share?
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