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The Religion of Mystery Literature

The Religion Of Mystery Literature
By Derek Newman-Stille

Like many people, I have a distinct love of mystery stories. I like the act of figuring out who did the crime. I like following the clues. I like believing that I can solve crimes before the investigators do.

One thing that always frustrates me is the finality of a mystery tale, especially when it is on television. There is generally little ambiguity left, little debate about guilt or innocence. So often mysteries (especially when they are tied to a police procedural show) are about reifying the idea that police always catch their criminal and that they are always right. This moral absolutism has always bothered me, as has the lack of questions about guilt or innocence.

One of the ways that mysteries tie up moral ambiguities is through the confession. What is odd is that actual murderers, thieves and other criminals rarely admit to their crimes unless they have worked out a deal with the prosecution for a reduced sentence because they admit to the crime.

Yet, the vast majority of mystery narratives (especially on television) have the killer confess to their crimes and admit guilt. Frequently, mystery narratives on television don’t even bother to wrap up the story, ending right at the point of confession. This highlights the importance of the confession narrative to mystery narratives by considering this the penultimate moment and the ending of the story.

So why are confessions so important to mystery narratives?

I made a connection when watching the television series Father Brown, a tale about a priest who solves crimes in his spare time. As I was watching, I noticed that Father Brown always sought to get a confession from the criminal, linking the confession of crimes to the confessions of the confessional. It occurred to me that this speaks beyond Father Brown and that there was a tint of Judeo-Christian moralizing in many mystery narratives.

Like religions, mystery narratives frequently portray a simple moral system: good/bad. Like religion, mystery narratives provide us with an image of punishment for crime/sin. Like religion, mystery narratives tend to focus on the confession as a key moment in the guilty person’s life.

I started to wonder – have we been primed to like aspects of mystery narratives because of centuries of Judeo-Christian influence on idea of crime? Do we write our mystery narratives along these lines because of the weight of Judeo-Christian ideologies in our society?

Since Judeo-Christian texts are treated as so important in our society, we often replicate aspects of those religious texts as ways of understanding the world even if we don’t prescribe to those religious beliefs. The tremendous impact of Judeo-Christian texts on other texts in our society mean that they often filter through into texts that are not related to religion.

So what is it that we like about mystery tales? What speaks to us about them? Is it the fact that they provide a tidy, easy moralism? Is it the fact that they present us with a world where crime is stopped? Is it the fact that criminals are punished? Or is it the power of the confession that gives us a sense that people can admit guilt and be rehabilitated or redeemed?

Although there are more complex mystery narratives out there and I have read them, there is something about simple mystery stories that appeals to me like Father Brown, Murder She Wrote, and Sherlock Holmes.

* As a disclaimer, I am writing about this narrative connection to Judeo-Christian beliefs as someone who is not part of those belief systems,

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Stealing Resources From Indigenous People

Stealing Resources From Indigenous People

A review of The Champions: Northern Lights (Marvel Comics, 2018)

By Derek Newman-Stille

Although an American comic created by Marvel Comics, The Champions: Northern Lights is set in Nunavut and features some distinctly Canadian elements.

Firstly, the superhero team Champions comes into contact with Alpha Flight, another Marvel Comics creation – a superhero team set in Canada and created by Canadian John Byrne. It is extremely exciting seeing Alpha Flight continuing to appear in Marvel Comics since they haven’t had a series of their own in many years. The current Alpha Flight appears to be under the control of American Captain Marvel and features figures like Puck, Snowbird, Talisman, and Sasquatch.

Beyond just the Alpha flight connection, the comic features ideas of The North, setting the story in the winter and connecting the story to critical questions about global warming and the Arctic thaw, engaging questions about Canada’s relationship to the North and the idea of Canadian paternalism of Northern landscapes. The comic raises questions about the relationship between English and Inuktitut language, and explores the invasion of Inuit lands by a white man who believes he is doing the right thing and who steals resources from the landscape. As often happens, indigenous protestors mobilize to protect the landscape from continual colonial oppression and exploitation and from illegal resource extraction and attempts to assert white authority over indigenous land.

Champions raises critical issues for current Canadian issues around the attempts by the Canadian government to build a pipeline through unceded indigenous land. Currently, Wet’suwet’en protestors are seeking to protect their land from the Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline that is being built through their territory and once again, a white, male, colonialist power is seeking to invade indigenous land for a nonrenewable resource.

In the Champions: Northern Lights comic, the colonialist, white person invading indigenous land calls himself The Master, highlighting ideas of power hegemonies and the exploitation of indigenous people. Moreover, the nonrenewable resource that he seeks to exploit in this case is the literal “Soul of the North”, a goddess named Sila. Indigenous protestors in the comic call out The Master, telling him: “face your crimes, corruptor!”.

Champions: Northern Lights brings up key critical questions about power structures, indigenous rights, exploitation of resources, and conflict over the landscape

To find out more about The Champions, go to https://www.marvel.com/comics/series/22552/champions_2016_-_2019

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A Gingerbread House Waiting For An Old Lady

A Gingerbread House Waiting For An Old Lady

A review of Kate Heartfield’s “Path Of White Stones” in Over The Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins (Exile, 2018)

By Derek Newman-Stille

We like to assume that we own our houses – that we select them and buy them and that they become ours… but don’t we also become theirs? Aren’t we swallowed whole by our houses and digested over the years, becoming what they make of us? 

Kate Heartfield’s “Path Of White Stones” asks how our houses shape us. Borrowing from tales of old women and their houses like Hansel and Gretel and Baba Yaga, Kate looks at the way that sometimes our ginger bread houses aren’t traps for others, but, rather, they trap us. 

Kate explores ageing and “adult living” communities and the way that these communities isolate ageing adults, promising them a get away from the business of everyday living… but illustrates the way that these communities facilitate a separation from the rest of the world and allow bigotries to arise. “Path Of White Stones” asks what happens when people are cut off from the rest of the community and segregated and how this shapes their ideas of selfhood and Otherness. 

Kate examines ageing femininity and questions the tropes of the “old woman”, creating a protagonist who is aware of the stereotypes and resistant to simple narratives of selfhood. She uses her tale of ageing, home, and community to invite critical questions about how we understand ways of living while ageing. 

To find out more about Kate Heartfield, visit https://heartfieldfiction.com

To discover more about Over The Rainbow, go to https://overtherainbowfairytale.wordpress.com and to get your own copy, visit Exile’s website at https://www.exileeditions.com/shop/over-the-rainbow-folk-and-fairy-tales-from-the-margins/

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In The Shadows of Giants

In The Shadows Of Giants

A review of Liz Westbrook-Trenholm’s “White Rose, Red Thorns” in Over The Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins (Exile, 2018).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Liz Westbrook-Trenholm intertwines multiple fairy tales in her story “White Rose, Red Thorns” while giving complexity to the characters involved. She tells a tale of a giant’s tiny human caretaker and a young thief named Jack who looks far too much like her former lover, Snow, though with male features instead of female. 

The giant’s caretaker finds herself trapped between the cruel world of giants in the clouds and the cruel world of humanity below, at home in neither space and always having to hide who she is. Westbrook-Trenholm reminds readers that older women often have to hide their power in order to not be considered threatening for having it, and the giant’s caretaker has to use cunning to make herself seem weaker and more insignificant than she is. 

Westbrook-Trenholm tells a tale of loss, mourning, and hiding, but also reveals the hope that can come from letting go of secrets and embracing who you are. “White Rose, Red Thorns” is a beautiful mix of fairy tales, combined in a way that exposes the magical thread that runs through them. 

To discover more about Over The Rainbow, go to https://overtherainbowfairytale.wordpress.com and to get your own copy, visit Exile’s website at https://www.exileeditions.com/shop/over-the-rainbow-folk-and-fairy-tales-from-the-margins/

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Woke Beauty

Woke Beauty

A review of Nicole Lavigne’s “Fairest Find” in “Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins” (Exile, 2018).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Nicole Lavigne tells a tale of a prince who measured his life by the fairy tales he was  told as children and finds himself confused when he encounters the complexities of life outside of story books. “Fairest Find” is a meta narrative commenting on traditional fairy tales and the problematic ways that they simplify the world.

Lavigne plays with the Sleeping Beauty tale, transforming the passive princess awaiting true love’s kiss into a powerful woman unwilling to let others decide her destiny for her. Lavigne invites readers to question the de-voicing of women in fairy tales, pointing to the need to tell tales that raise questions about consent and choice, tales that critique patriarchy and parental power. “Fairest Find” is about empowered women taking control of the tales that are told about them and instead telling their own tales, rich with their own complexity.

To find out more about Over The Rainbow, go to https://overtherainbowfairytale.wordpress.com and to buy your own copy, go to Exile’s website at https://www.exileeditions.com/shop/over-the-rainbow-folk-and-fairy-tales-from-the-margins/

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Planted

Planted
A review of Richard Keelan’s “The Waltzing Tree” in Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins” (Exile, 2018).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Richard Keelan’s “The Waltzing Tree” is a suburban fairy tale about loneliness and transformation. It is a tale about overcoming the distance that traditional modes of masculinity place between our bodies and the fear of vulnerability that is part of those notions of masculinity. “The Waltzing Tree” explores complex intimacies and the resistance people often feel to types of intimacy that aren’t considered traditional.

Keelan tells a tale about care-giving and care-receiving between a man and a transformed tree, opening up uncertainties and complexities in their interactions and understandings of each other. Both share the property that the man has moved to – he because he has bought the land and the tree because their roots were planted in that ground long before the man moved to this space. This proximity allows them to both struggle with ideas of home and what it means for them to share this space and to cope with others infringing on their privacy. 

The man, Johnathan, is only able to let his tight control of his masculinity and senses of propriety slip because the tree, David, still identifies as a tree and represents a complex gender identity. Johnathan fears what contact with David may mean, even while he is trying to rescue them. 

To discover more about Over The Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales From The Margins, visit https://overtherainbowfairytale.wordpress.com

And visit Exile Editions’ website at https://www.exileeditions.com/shop/over-the-rainbow-folk-and-fairy-tales-from-the-margins/

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Retail is Hell

Retail is Hell

A review of Elizabeth Twist’s “Prodigious” in Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus (World Weaver Press, 2014)

By Derek Newman-Stille

Retail is Hell… and it gets way more hellish around the holidays. The blaring of jolly music is only beat out by the screaming of customers who want what they want right away and the sound of cash registers. Elizabeth Twist has set her tale “Prodigious” in a toy store around Christmas time to tell the story of Krampus… a figure from Austrian Yule traditions whose whole job is to punish children who are naughty so that Saint Nicholas can reward the ones who are good. Krampus is portrayed as a demon with a long tongue, horns, and fur, holding a set of twigs that he uses to lash bad children with. In some tales he throws those naughty children into a bag and bring them down to hell.

He is the figure that I’m sure a lot of retail workers wish would be around to deal with naughty customers and Elizabeth Twist plays with this idea, having store employees play Krampus each year for the holiday party as a break from the artificiality of the canned Christmas music and ho ho hos of fake Santa Claus figures. Who wouldn’t want to play Krampus after having to deal with the Christmas rush every working day.

Twist’s “Prodigious” plays with traditional holiday narratives, subverting them into a retail revenge tale with occult undertones and even a love story because a Christmas demon may want some snuggles.

To find out more about Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus, visit https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p66/Krampusnacht_%28ebook%29.html