crimeculture
Alternate realities and the detective's search for the truth:
A comparison of the Sherlock Holmes stories and The Usual SuspectsAbigail Damms, Lancaster University
In examining a narrative, the first question the critic must ask is how far one can trust the veracity of the narrator. With crime fiction, especially detective fiction, there are multiple narratives; the genre’s ‘hermeneutic’ quality, sets up ‘two interpretative activities, the detective’s investigation and the reader’s attempts … at the same problem’.1 The reader is engaged in detecting the ‘alternative realities’ and untruths created by the author, the characters and sometimes even the detective themselves. From a fictional point of view, the detective surpasses the reader in intellect and analytical skill and therefore, is able to deconstruct the multiple realities with which he or she is presented, before the reader can accomplish the task.
Being a private detective, the character of Sherlock Holmes is at a greater advantage in his profession than either the official detective or the reader; he has the ability to infiltrate the alternative reality of the criminal underworld and gain access to information which would be denied to the police. However, it has been noted by recent critics of the crime genre that the private detective has increasing irrelevance in contemporary fiction, as more resources are available to the police force.2 For instance, the advances in forensic science, psychological profiling and technology, now enable the police to bridge those realities and infiltrate the criminal’s world. Nevertheless, there are cases where the logic and tenacity of Holmes may yield more results than the work of the police.
This is evident in the film The Usual Suspects, where the detective Dave Kujan fails to apprehend the criminal, Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint. Both Kujan and the audience fail to take into account Verbal’s history as a conman; he is ‘a cripple’, who seems ‘stupid’ and appears to have been manipulated by a stronger group of criminals. For Detective Kujan, the oversight is due to his vendetta against Dean Keaton, as such, the only parts of Kint’s story he questions are the parts about Keaton. Thus, Kujan overlooks the logical enquiries that yield Holmes so many results; he fails to establish Kint’s identity or question the veracity of the narrative as a whole.
Yet Holmes is not infallible; he fails, in a similar way to Kujan, in the story, A Scandal in Bohemia. Here, Holmes’ legendary powers of observation disappoint because he underestimates ‘the woman’, Irene Adler. Holmes often admonishes Watson with lines like ‘You see but you do not observe’, hence acknowledging two types of reality.3 But, this second, observed reality is illuminated by knowledge and in this case, Holmes fails to link his knowledge of Irene Adler as an actress, with his recognition of the ‘slim youth’ who greets him in the street. Irene Adler uses Holmes’ own methods against him, colluding with his alternative reality of disguise.4 The case teaches Holmes to take into account every personal detail and not to underestimate the intelligence of someone due to gender, or other outward appearance.
Yet, the emotions that cause Kujan to fail are never present in the Holmes stories, as Watson says, ‘emotions … were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind’.5 Thus, he can avoid the pitfalls of being emotionally involved with a case and is unconcerned that certain methods may upset someone. Thus, he is completely at ease with something like tricking his way into Irene Adler’s home.
This detached logic that allows Holmes to be successful in disguise and trickery, is reversed in The Usual Suspects to apply to the criminal. Indeed, Kint is so secure in the alternative reality he has constructed, that he can taunt Kujan unobserved: ‘To a cop, the explanation is never that complicated. It’s always simple’. He hints here at Kujan’s arrogance in believing the detective has mastery over the criminal world, but he also reveals the doubling of reality, contained within the notion of truth; as Holmes says, ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.
This truth is often both complicated and simple. Complicated because it seems improbable, either that a person would go to certain lengths to commit and conceal a crime, or because it is obscured by alternative realities of ‘surmise, conjecture and hypothesis’. Simple, because once those alternative realities, such as disguise, are removed by logic, the truth appears obvious.
The way Holmes deduces the truth behind disguise is to ‘simulate’ a reality based on known facts, to ‘put himself in somebody else’s place in order to unmask their actions’6 In The Man with the Twisted Lip Holmes puts this into practice. He has Mrs St Clair’s account of what she saw, but, although she is not knowingly constructing a fiction, her account is subjective, as she was not directly at the scene of the crime. Added to this false reality are the silences of the crippled beggar, Hugh Boone and his landlord, the Lascar. Yet, silences or absences in crime texts often infer that a person has something to hide rather than being a victim. Thus Holmes conjectures that there are alternatives to certain events in the story, such as what Mrs St Clair thought was ‘A call for help’ from her husband, may have been ‘a cry of surprise’.7 He also questions what a respectable man would be doing in an opium den and thus, Holmes ‘defictionalizes’ the scenario of a real crime.
The comparison of St Clair’s alias, Hugh Boone and Soze’s alias, Kint, is that their crippled status constructs two opposing realities. For the former, it adds credence to his criminality; for the latter, it adds credence to his innocence. Once these fictional aliases are unmasked, the reverse is revealed to be true.
This simulation of reality is discussed by critic Jean Baudrillard. He believes there is a distinction between feigning and simulating; to feign ‘leaves the reality principle intact’, whereas to simulate, ‘threatens the difference between “true” and “false”, between “real” and “imaginary.”’8 This distinction exposes multiple realities running simultaneously through a crime narrative. For instance, the genre usually relies upon its characters feigning reality; if characters are lying they know they are lying. However, the reader or audience, even the detective, may not realise this until the denouement of the story. Thus, for those who believe these lies reality becomes simulated, until it can be reconstructed by the detective, or the author; as such, ‘understanding is always … retrospective, belated, inadequate.’9
For the readers or the audience, this trick of simulation is part of the lure of crime fiction and therefore, the distinction returns to the process of detection, the process of constructing and deconstructing alternative realities, which is essentially a process of story telling. Thus, the detective becomes like the deconstructive critic and must follow Derrida’s assertion that, ‘there is nothing outside of the text,’10 supporting the idea that all the detective needs to do is deconstruct the existing narrative of the crime and the truth that is concealed will become apparent.
To observe the crime as one would a narrative utilises, what Derrida labels, a system of symbolic representation.11 There is allusion to this system of language and the detecting of narrative in The Dancing Men. The use of a cipher adds to the doubling of reality in the text, where both the criminal and the author construct a puzzle; ‘the coda of decoding’ the cryptogram is akin to the explanation at the denouement of ‘the classic detective story.’12 Indeed, the most interesting part of the conclusion to this mystery is not the story of Abe Slane’s connection with Elsie Cubitt, but the way Holmes decodes the cipher and what it means. Holmes could allude to the whole process of detection when he tells the incredulous Slane, ‘What one man can invent another can discover.’13
This process of discovering a crime from the limited inferences of language is pointed out to the reader in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the murderer refers the reader back to a point in the text where he omitted the truth of his crime, but technically did not lie: ‘“The letters were brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him …” All true, you see, But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first sentence! Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened in that blank ten minutes?’14
For the criminal, the alternative reality they construct is not always a fabrication, for Dr Sheppard it is a selective reality. Perhaps an extremely observant reader would pick up on such discrepancies in a narrative, the detective Poirot certainly does and reconstructs the true ‘reality’ from what is absent. But, like the audience’s trust in Kint, the majority of people assume the narrator is constructing a legitimate reality and that we are in their confidence completely.
The critic Ernest Larsen questions whether ‘unmasking the narrator as a conman at the very last moment’ amounts to ‘fraud’ against the audience,15 something of which Christie was accused, by breaking the rule that, ‘The detective himself must not commit the crime’.16 Yet, even in breaking the rules, the author acknowledges their existence as part of the crime genre. Also, it was Dorothy Sayers’ view that the criminal and detective relationship is repeated in the author and reader relationship; ‘the analogy insists upon the author’s being a type of the criminal’,17 so the reader expects to be misled.
Although, as regards The Usual Suspects, we are not without clues to Kint’s true identity; for instance, he is the only one left alive and uninjured at the scene of the crime, he is exposed as a conman at the start of the narrative, he is the odd man out amongst a group of physically strong, intelligent criminals and he’s called Verbal, adept at telling stories. Yet, it is this latter point that the critic Stanley Orr claims ‘authenticates’ his narrative, as in the ‘excessive production’ of seemingly irrelevant details, we observe the process ‘by which a reality is generated’.18
Also, the proliferation of names beginning with the letter ‘K’ draws attention to the doubling of characters within the film and how there is no clear distinction between justice and criminality, further obscuring the objective deductions of the audience. For example, Keaton is an ‘ex – cop’, turned criminal and Kujan’s personal vendetta often causes the latter to act unlawfully by physically intimidating and manipulating witnesses. This reveals the most obvious doubling in detective fiction, that of the criminal and detective.
Holmes’ expertise in detection are easily converted to those of the criminal, in the story Charles Augustus Milverton: ‘I mean to burgle Milverton’s house … I suppose that you will admit that the action is morally justifiable, though technically criminal’.19 Such a scenario perhaps reveals the fear accompanying associations with the detective, as we trust that the agent of justice will only restore order to our reality, not participate in the alternative reality of the criminal world.
The Usual Suspects deludes us with such a scenario, where the hatred of the law turning criminal, represented by Keaton, is used to exacerbate the horror in the myth of Keyser Soze, as Kujan links Keaton’s supposedly evil nature with the callous Soze. Yet, through such emotive flashbacks, the director and writer collude with the reality they create, to become the type of criminal that Sayers identified; ultimately we realise that ‘Verbal’s flashbacks … are told to prevent the solution of a crime’20 Thus, three quarters of the film is revealed as an alternative and possibly fabricated reality.
Understanding how these alternative realities are formed can only be achieved ‘in a reading back from the end’21 and since the detective can read back from the end point of the crime, they are more aware of the steps taken to reach that point. However, in The Usual Suspects we experience this moment of deconstruction alongside the detective, as we realise that Kint’s story has been fabricated, using objects around the office. In effect, he has literalised the structuralist theory of signs and signifiers to construct his fiction. When the audience and Kujan realise what has occurred, we are only more convinced of the myth that likens him to the expert trickster and ultimate criminal, the devil.
In his discussion of simulacra, Baudrillard questions ‘what becomes of the divinity when it reveals itself in icons; when it is multiplied in simulacra?’22 In The Usual Suspects this question could be altered, to ask what becomes of evil when it is hidden in simulacra, when it constructs its own multiple fictions.
For Kujan there is no answer; he cannot bring the closure that characters like Holmes brought to classic detective fiction, where the ‘two types of story’, of domestic order and the chaotic streets, could be united, exposing and eliminating transgression and corruption.23 In the world of The Usual Suspects that domestic scene has been completely erased by violence and there is no longer any sense of the detective as a god who will restore order.
1 Alastair Fowler, ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Dancing Men and Women’, pp.353-367, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.354.
2 Peter Messent, ‘From Private Eye to Police Procedural: The Logic of Contemporary Crime Fiction’, pp.1-21, Criminal Proceedings: The Contemporary American Crime Novel (London: Pluto Press, 1997), pp.11-12.
3 Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), pp.32-34
4 Gian Paolo Caprettini, ‘Sherlock Holmes: Ethics, Logic, and the Mask’, pp.328-334, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.330
5 Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, p.32
6 Caprettini, ‘Ethics, Logic, and the Mask’, p.331
7 Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, pp.112-132, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.126
8 Jean Baudrillard, ‘From The Precession of Simulacra’, pp.1732-1741, The Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p.1734.
9 Fowler, ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men and Women’, p.362.
10 Jaques Derrida, ‘Of Grammatology’, pp.1822-1830, The Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), footnote, p.1825.
11 Derrida, ‘Of Grammatology’, p.1822.
12 Fowler, ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men and Women’, p.356.
13 Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Dancing Men’, pp.249-271, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.269.
14 Agatha Christie, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, pp.5-204, Poirot: The Perfect Murders (London: HarperCollins, 2004),p.203.
15 Ernest Larsen, The Usual Suspects (London: British Film Institute, 2002), p.56.
16 Ronald Knox. ‘Ten Commandments of Detection’. The Rules of the Game. http://www.crimeculture.com/359/Rules.htm (6 April 2005)
17 John A. Hodgson, ‘The Recoil of “The Speckled Band”: Detective Story and Detective Discourse’, pp.335-352, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.341.
18 Larsen, The Usual Suspects, p.60.
19 Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘Charles Augustus Milverton’, pp.272-286, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.227.
20 Larsen, The Usual Suspects, p.83.
21 Peter Brooks, ‘Reading for the Plot’, pp.321-327 Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994), p.327.
22 Baudrillard, ‘From The Precession of Simulacra’, p.1735.
23 Martin Priestman, ‘The Detective Thriller’, pp.51-61, Crime Fiction: from Poe to the present (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers, 1998), p.54.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean ‘From The Precession of Simulacra’, pp.1732-1741, The Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001)
Brooks, Peter ‘Reading for the Plot’, pp.321-327 Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Caprettini, Gian Paolo ‘Sherlock Holmes: Ethics, Logic, and the Mask’, pp.328-334, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Christie, Agatha ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, pp.5-204, Poirot: The Perfect Murders (London: HarperCollins, 2004)
Conan Doyle, Arthur ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Conan Doyle, Arthur ‘Charles Augustus Milverton’, pp.272-286, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Dancing Men’, pp.249-271, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Conan Doyle, Arthur ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, pp.112-132, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Derrida, Jaques ‘Of Grammatology’, pp.1822-1830, The Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001)
Fowler, Alastair ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Dancing Men and Women’, pp.353-367, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Hodgson, John A. ‘The Recoil of “The Speckled Band”: Detective Story and Detective Discourse’, pp.335-352, Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays, Arthur Conan Doyle, ed. John A. Hodgson (Boston: Bedford Books of St Martins Press, 1994)
Knox, Ronald. ‘Ten Commandments of Detection’. The Rules of the Game. http://www.crimeculture.com/359/Rules.htm (6 April 2005)
Larsen, Ernest The Usual Suspects (London: British Film Institute, 2002)
Messent, Peter ‘From Private Eye to Police Procedural: The Logic of Contemporary Crime Fiction’, pp.1-21, Criminal Proceedings: The Contemporary American Crime Novel (London: Pluto Press, 1997)
Priestman, Martin ‘The Detective Thriller’, pp.51-61, Crime Fiction: from Poe to the present (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers, 1998)