Talking About Detective Fiction Quotes

“All Jane Austen novels have a common storyline: an attractive and virtuous young woman surmounts difficulties to achieve marriage to the man of her choice. This is the age-long convention of the romantic novel, but with Jane Austen, what we have is Mills & Boon written by a genius.”
― P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction

“..he began drinking heavily and lived in a way which a friend described as making sense "only if he had no expectations of being alive much beyond Thursday".”
― P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction

“Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story. That is the fundamental aspect without which it could not exist…. We are all like Scheherazade’s husband in that we want to know what happens next. That is universal and that is why the backbone of a novel has to be a story…. Qua story, it can have only one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next. These are the only two criticisms that can be made on the story that is a story. It is both the lowest and simplest of literary organisms. Yet it is the highest factor common to all the very complicated organisms known as novels. [E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel]”
― P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction