LANGUAGE AND STYLE CONVENTIONS OF THE DETECTIVE THRILLER

• The story is often told by the detective in the first person.
• The language is simple and colloquial - the tough language of the streets.
• The story contains 'red herrings' to distract the reader from the trail of the real killer.
• There are usually not many long, descriptive passages - the story consists mainly of dialogue and action.

STYLE IN HARRY LAVENDER

Harry Lavender is written in the first person narrative, i.e. the story is told fromt the point of view of a character in the story. When we read a line like, 'I woke up feeling like death' we know that it is Claudia Valentine who is speaking, not Day. The advantage of this style of writing in a detective story is that the reader is following the thoughts and actions of the detective narrator and has to work out the clues as she discovers them. We identify closely with the detective.

The chapters written in italics are extracts from Mark Bannister's book about Harry Lavender and they are also written in the first person. These chapters are monologues and the voice is meant to be that of Harry Lavender. This creates a very layered book because there is a 'novel within a novel'. The other effect of this technique is that we get to know Harry Lavender's history and come to understand some of the harsh influences that have made him the evil man he has  become. This is yet another way in which Day challenges the style of a typical detective thriller. By placing us in the mind of Harry Lavender through the italicised first-person accounts of his life, Day humanises Lavender and makes us feel some sympathy or at least gain some understanding of what shaped this man. This quality is what makes feminist crime fiction unique - there is a sensitising, humanising element which is different from the cold, impersonal world of conventional male crime novels.

 

THE DETECTIVE THRILLER AS A PUZZLE

One of the reasons that detective thrillers have always been popular is that readers enjoy trying to solve the puzzle of discovering the person who committed the crime. This is why they have been called 'whodunnits' because the reader's task is to work out 'who done' the murder. Early crime fiction developed a style which presented the reader with clues, evidence and a range of suspects. The reader, like the detective hero, set out to find the villain.

In this story, Claudia becomes involved in a puzzle which at various stages becomes, in fact, a computer game. In her search for the missing manuscript, Claudia, with Otto's expert help, has to try to work out the secret password to break into Harry's computer program. Like an actual computer game, there are clues, cheeky graphics on the screen and key words needed to win. Not until the end of the story does Claudia realise that she, too, is part of a game that Harry has been playing with her. He has been using her to find the manuscript and Brian Collier informs her that it has 'been Harry's game all along' (p.168).

The references to crossword puzzles and the word games that Day plays in this novel are related to this idea that a crime novel is essentially a puzzle.

 

RED HERRINGS

To make the story more of a challenge for the reader, it is traditional for crime writers to include characters, evidence and incidents which lead the reader away from the trail of the real killer. These are called 'red herrings'. Sometimes this means that a character will emerge in the story who has a motive for committing the crime and he/she becomes a decoy or distraction for the reader. Evidence and clues may be found which suggest that another suspect is guilty of the crime. One by one these 'red herrings' that another suspect is guilty of the crime. One by one these 'red herrings' are discounted and we eventually work out the identity of the real killer.

To some extent, Claudia's entire investigation becomes a red herring. She set out to find Mark's killer but this turns into a search for the only remaining copy of his manuscript. All along, as she later realises, she is doing Harry's dirty work, searching for his book while he waits in hiding for her to find it. At the end of the case she says: 'I was the bunny who had to find the manuscript' (p.165). Brian Collier sums up her involvement when he remarks: 'all this time you were working for Lavender too' (p.166). So you could say that Claudia was following a red-herring for the whole operation.

In this novel there are only a few red herrings because the reader has worked out fairly early in the story who killed Mark. The little notes from Harry Lavender are an obvious clue to this. The puzzle in this novel is not so much to work out the identity of the killer but to join Claudia in her quest to find the missing manuscript. One other red herring that does arise is Claudia's suspicion that Steve may be involved in the murder because he is one of only a handful of experts with the knowledge of pacemakers (p.113). This red herring, we later realise, is just a product of her over-suspicious mind.

Sally also supplies Claudia with a few red herrings because she wants to stop Claudia from investigating her involvement in the murder. Sally's story about two men coming over to search the apartment (p.114) is one such red herring. Claudia realises that is a false lead when she confronts Sally in the sauna, saying: 'No nasty men came with guns...You just wanted me off your back' (p.151). The effect of Sally's lies is to keep the reader in suspense, wondering if Sally might be innocent after all.

 

THE 'MALE GAZE' / THE 'FEMALE GAZE'

The term 'male gaze' refers to the way in which people, particularly women, are described from a male point of view in fiction or artwork created by men. The way male artists 'look at' women is limited by the very fact that they are men. Sometimes this may limit their descriptions of women. They may tend to give their women characters stereotyped 'female' behaviours or occupations. Because the detective thriller has been dominated by male writers and characters, it has been traditionally written from the 'male gaze'. Day highlights this in her novel because it is obviously written from a female perspective; it is very clearly a 'female' gaze that is the vantage point of her narrator Claudia Valentine.

This is particularly apparent in the descriptions of men such as Steve Angell. P.25, Day's sexy description of Angell is written with the ogling quality that is probably more usually associated with men 'eyeing off' women. Again, Day is exploiting the conventions of male writing, not only to show up the limitations of those conventions but also to employ their strengths for her own purposes. In this case the purpose is to please her female readers in the same way that male writers indulge their male readers with sexy descriptions of women in their fiction.

 

POST-MODERN ASPECTS

The term 'post-modern' refers to a style of art and literature which has developed since the 1970s. Interesting to note that some of the techniques that Day uses are typical of this trend in literature. In post-modernism, artists and writers often borrow important images or expressions from the past or from other sources to use in their work. Something in your own experience which may help you understand this is the common tendency in popular music like 'rap' or 'techno' to borrow melodies, lyrics or guitar riffs from older songs or other sources to create a new sound. Novels can be considered post-modern if they not only tell a story but also make comments about the process of writing or if the author steps out of storytelling to remind the reader that what they are reading is not real.

Day uses this style when she has Claudia say things that reflect on the novel itself. Sometimes Claudia makes comments about crime fiction in general or says things which refer to the way she is telling the story. This sense that the story is commenting on itself is typical of post-modernism. Consider the following aspects of the novel:

Statements about the detective thriller or about the way the book is written.

• 'not like in the movies' (p.25). In this statement, Day is challenging the reader's expectations of the detective novel, warning us not to presume too much about this story.
• 'Not as well as Lauren Bacall' (p.77). Bacall was an actor who starred in many Hollywood detective films as the 'love interest'. By comparing Claudia to Bacall, Day is borrowing a 'type' of woman from well-known movies to give the readers the sort of character they expect in this genre. It says to the reader: 'You know the type'.
• 'like two actors reading from different scripts' (p.102). Day here is commenting on the quality of the dialogue she has given to Claudia and Sally to explain why it sounds so forced.
• 'dark alley just right for a mugging' (p.118). Day seems to save herself a detailed description by leaving it to the reader's imaginations to picture the alley. Like the 'Bacall' reference above, it implies: 'You know the sort of place'.
• 'a cliched rolling pin behind the cliched door (p.129). It's as if she knows that she has used a cliche, but uses it anway. Day seems to be commenting on her own style here.
• 'I could never understand how Philip Marlowe and those guys...got shot, beaten up, and sometimes laid, without ever going to bed' (p.131). Here Day is challenging the typical detective hero who seems to be superhuman, whereas Claudia is a more realistic character because she needs to sleep.
• 'The cheap thriller violence' (p.135). This is criticism of the amount of violence in detective fiction and almost an apology for resorting to using a little in this novel herself.

Borrowings from other writing forms (newspapers, letters)

Another aspect of Day's writing which is post-modern in style is her inclusion of material such as extracts from the newspaper and letters:

• Guy Valentine's article (p.87) about Harry Lavender's criminal influence is not just mentioned, but printed entirely in a different type of style.
• Nancy Grosz's letter to Mark Bannister (p.146) is printed in a different type style and signed by hand.
• Claudia's doodling of a crossword puzzle (p.20) is included for visual impact. It is a visual representation of the process that Claudia is going through, reminding the reader that the point of all crime fiction is the solving of a puzzle.
• These dictionary-style word definitions (p.141-144) are also a visualisation of Claudia's thinking. Her mind is following leads and looking for connections all the time and these word games show that process on paper.
• The text of the taped interview between Claudia and Marilyn (p.12-19) is included. It is an economical way of relaying this information without the reader sitting through a long conversation.

 

ALLUSIONS

A writer makes an allusion when he/she quotes from or mentions another book or artwork. Sometimes this means that a writer will simply quote a line from a poem or a famous story to help the reader understand what he/she is trying to say. Sometimes an entire storyline is based on an older, well-known tale (eg. many modern love stories are based on Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet').

Allusion is another common characteristic of post-modern fiction because writers of the post-modern period believe that much of art is actually borrowed from or at least reflects others art. Harry Lavender actually expresses this idea when he is describing his control over the city. He says that 'we cannot help but create in our own image. All artefacts are mirrors (p.132). This is a useful quotation because it not only describes how post-modern writers tell a story but also reflects on how that story itself has been written. It also describes how Marele Day reflects other writing when she makes allusions such as the following:

'At the going down of the city's son and in the mourning they will remember' (p.15).

This is an allusion to a famous poem called 'The Ode' which is recited at ceremonies commemorating Anzac Day. The original version reads: 'At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember...' Harry's use of it here shows how arrogant he is: he describes his death as having the same significance as a day of national mourning like Anzac Day. On Anzac Day, people wear a sprig of rosemary which is a symbol for remembrance. Similarly, Harry pictures that people will wear a sprig of lavender out of respect for his life.

'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven' (p.49).

Day is quoting here from a poem by William Wordsworth which is about the joys of being young. This allusion is an expression of Claudia's envy of Robbie's youthful enthusiasm.

'I will go gently into that dark night, not rage against the dying of the light' (p.134).

Again Day has taken a poem but altered it to suit Harry's twisted purpose. This extract is an allusion to a Dylan Thomas poem, the original words being: 'Do not go gentle into that good night...Rage, rage against the dying of the light'. In the poem, Thomas is encouraging his father not to die quietly, but to fight death. Harry's version of the poem shows that he has the opposite attitude: he will give himself up to death because he know that his evil influence will live on after he has gone.

'The esplanade metamorphosed into a Kafka novel' (p.50).

Kafka was an author who wrote bleak novels in which some of his characters were given animal characteristics to show how inhuman they were. The allusion here is used to show how Claudia, with her mounting fear, is becoming paranoid. She is losing her grip on reality and ordinary people are changing into denagerous creatures, as they do in Kafka's novels.

'Her far horizons, her jewelled sea, her beauty and her terror...' (p.168)

This quotation is an allusion to the poem 'My Country' by Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar. The poem describes her love of the 'beauty and terror' of Australia and it is an appropriate end to Day's story because her original intention in writing this novel was to describe Sydney. Day does this by exposing both the 'beauty' of Sydney's many highlights as well as the 'terror' of the seedy side of Sydney's street life. Like Day, Mackellar's poem also gives the country of femal identity ('her beauty').

These allusions to literature are unusual in crime fiction so, by including, them Day is yet again challenging the normal expectations we have of this genre. All the features of style mentioned add variety and realism to the storytelling.

 

LANGUAGE IN HARRY LAVENDER

Detective fiction is a very popular genre partly because the sort of language used can be appreciated by a wide range of readers. The dialogues between the characters are written in down-to-earth, colloquial language. The language usually involves the use of slang which is a more extreme form of colloquial language, including swearing and the langugage of the street.

Day again challenges the traditional crime thriller and breaks away in story, characters and her choice of language.

 

PUNS AND WORD GAMES

In this novel, Claudia often plays with words. She takes a word and writes about the things she associates with it. She thinks of words which sound like the original word. She writes down work origins and definitions. In this sort of word play she often uses puns. A pun is the humorous use of words which are similar in sound but different in meaning. Take 'male' and 'mail', for example. Consider: two women are talking and one says, 'Has the mail arrived yet?', and the other replies, 'No, but when he does, I hope he's good looking!'

There are many examples of Day's use of puns and word games in this novel. Sometimes these puns are just for entertainment, to add to humour to the story and appeal to Claudia's character. Day, however, does not only use these puns and puzzles just for humour, but to show that the detective novel itself is like a huge word game or puzzle. A detective solving a crime involves the same mental processes as a reader solving a crossword puzzle. In some ways Day is sending up detective fiction by including these word games because she is reminding readers that everything they read in a detective novel is a contrived puzzle.

Claudia herself comments on word play when she is reading magazines in the doctor's waiting room. She explains that she like cryptic crosswords because they 'made your mind jump sideways', they were full of 'lovely puns' and they 'revealed the mind that created them' (p.19-20). It is no accident that these three features all apply to Day's own style in this novel.

 

PUNS

• 'Terminal illness' (p. 6, 17) is a pun because Mark died at his computer 'terminal' and his heart illness was also 'terminal'.
• 'Hair of the dog...long-haired type' (p.11) means that Claudia can be a heavy drinker. The wit in the expression gives Claudia's character a humorous quality.
• 'Mineral stillness' (p.31) is an echo of 'terminal illness' and is used to describe the coldness of Mark's high-tech flat.
• 'Too embryonic to have a miscarriage of justice' (p.64): 'miscarriage of justice' is a common legal term to describe something that goes wrong in court; the inclusion of 'embryonic' extends the pregnancy image cleverly and again shows Claudia to be witty.
• Playing with 'score' and 'smack' in the conversation between the Maori and Claudia (p.68): shows street-talk.
• 'Din of inequity' (p.110): 'a den of iniquity' is a common expression to describe a place of wicked or criminal activity. Day changes it to 'din' (meaning noise) of 'inequity' (meaning not equal) to describe the pub as a loud place where people of all classes meet.
• 'Everything stank of Lavender' (p.110): this image is repeated a number of times. His name is appropriate because, like the strong scent of lavender, Harry's influence spreads.

WORD GAMES

When Claudia and Otto are trying to break into Harry's computer system, Claudia plays around with some of the words suggested by the computer. When she presses the ALT key on the keyboard, she toys with the different meanings of alter and altar (p.141). Similarly, the cursor on the screen makes her think of the various words associated with this: curse, cursorial, cursive (p.143-144). The computer mouse that she uses to work the program makes her think that Harry is treating her like a captive mouse running around in his maze (p.144). By showing us this it allows the reader to see the processes of Claudia's mind.

 

EXTENDED METAPHORS

A metaphor is a comparison which speaks of one thing as if it were another. 'The busy house was a beehive of activity'. An extended meatphor is used when the writer continues to use images associated with the original metaphor for a paragraph or longer, eg: 'The busy house was a beehive of activity. Kids were buzzing up and down the stairway and the parents were droning away in the kitchen trying to make six lunches'.

In 'Harry Lavender' uses extended metaphors to describe Harry's criminal network. She compares his kingdom to a huge computer network.

Another image which is extended throughout the novel is the comparison of Harry to cancer. Harry is like a cancer because his criminal activities eat away at the body of the city.The symbol of Cancer is the zodiac is a crab and the lavender-coloured crabs on Harry's computer program (p.143) create an image which associates Harry with cancer.