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Mayhem and Murder : Narative and Moral Issues in the Detective Story / Heta Pyrhönen.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Toronto Studies in Semiotics and CommunicationPublisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [1999]Copyright date: ©1999Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780802044891
  • 9781442677128
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 809.3/872/014
LOC classification:
  • PN3448.D4
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Summary: The detective story centres on unravelling two questions: whodunit? and who is guilty? In Murder and Mayhem, Heta Pyrhönen examines how these questions organize and pattern the genre's formal and thematic structures. Beginning with a semiotic reading of the detective as both code-breaker and sign-reader, Pyrhönen's theoretical analysis then situates the reader and the detective in parallel worlds - both use the detective genre's typical motifs in solving the crime, but do not employ the same narrative interpretations to do so. This difference is examined with the help of the familiar game analogy: while the fictional world of the criminal functions as the detective's antagonist, readers see both the detective and the criminal as the fictional masks behind which their own adversary, the author, is hiding. The reading of detective stories as complex interpretative games reveals how the genre engages the reader's formal imagination and moral judgment.Discussing a range of detective stories from works by Conan Doyle and Chesterton to Borges and Rendell, and drawing on the work of major critics - including Dennis Porter, Umberto Eco, John T. Irwin, and Slavoj Žižek - Pyrhönen offers a unique, sophisticated, and engagingly lucid analysis of a complex genre.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781442677128

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The detective story centres on unravelling two questions: whodunit? and who is guilty? In Murder and Mayhem, Heta Pyrhönen examines how these questions organize and pattern the genre's formal and thematic structures. Beginning with a semiotic reading of the detective as both code-breaker and sign-reader, Pyrhönen's theoretical analysis then situates the reader and the detective in parallel worlds - both use the detective genre's typical motifs in solving the crime, but do not employ the same narrative interpretations to do so. This difference is examined with the help of the familiar game analogy: while the fictional world of the criminal functions as the detective's antagonist, readers see both the detective and the criminal as the fictional masks behind which their own adversary, the author, is hiding. The reading of detective stories as complex interpretative games reveals how the genre engages the reader's formal imagination and moral judgment.Discussing a range of detective stories from works by Conan Doyle and Chesterton to Borges and Rendell, and drawing on the work of major critics - including Dennis Porter, Umberto Eco, John T. Irwin, and Slavoj Žižek - Pyrhönen offers a unique, sophisticated, and engagingly lucid analysis of a complex genre.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Nov 2023)