Bittersweet Mystery of Life

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I have always loved murder mystery novels, particularly those from the so-called golden age of detective fiction. Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham. Agatha Christie, of course. Pure escapism! Whisked away to some extravagant destination—an Edwardian-era architectural folly on a remote and atmospherically windswept stretch of Dorset coastline, perhaps, or a mysteriously seedy hotel in the shadow of the pyramids or the alps.

A body, it seems, has been found hanging from a banister, or poisoned by hemlock or black mamba venom, or with a neat bullet hole through the temple, or displaying wounds that could only have been caused by a hatpin or a Venetian dagger. A retired judge, a faded actress, a vicious food critic, a wealthy dowager with a penchant for blackmail: someone has met their maker by the hand of a clever and shadowy villain.

Of course, the crime must seem unsolvable. The roads have been closed by a sudden snowfall. The room is bolted from the inside. Means, motive and opportunity are stubbornly elusive. The cast of suspects is shadowy and colourful. Perhaps there is a dashing American film star, or a dissolute French sculptor, or a disgraced psychiatrist, or an eccentric Edwardian-era colonel (retired) who breeds exotic beetles or collects black market orchids or mummified tiger penises.

Possibly the detective has been dispatched by the Metropolitan police force to solve the crime, or possibly she has been fortuitously invited to the ill-fated gathering. She may be either brilliant or methodical, even-tempered or beset by demons of her own; whatever the case may be, she will solve the crime. Painful secrets will be brought to light, nobody’s life will remain unchanged. But at the end of the day, the truth will be revealed and some form of justice, however inadequate or bittersweet, will have been served.

It’s a delightful formula, in all its infinite variations. So much more satisfying and agreeable than the so-called real world – slippery, elusive, endlessly labyrinthine – in which nothing much of anything ever seems to get resolved. Like nesting dolls, lies hide inside more lies. Mysteries lead to more mysteries, before they dissolve into confusion. Conundrums and secrets; bewilderments and riddles. Sometimes it seems even our own identities and motivations remain eternally obscure.

Maybe the solution is to accept that there is no solution. Anyway, the resolutions to the mysteries are never really the source of pleasure. Rather, it’s the grandeur of the scenes, the intricacies of the plotting, the parade of twists and surprises, the marvelous quirks of character, the gleam of the candlesticks, the howling of the wind beyond the French windows, the flickering flames of the hearth, in which the joy is to be found.

Perhaps the universe is ultimately irrational, unfathomable. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates as he considered the choice between exile and death. But does too much examination undermine the joy of living? Isn’t there something to be said for just sinking into a nice hot bath with a mug of hot chocolate and a dog-eared paperback copy of Death on the Nile? I dunno. It would take a far more astute mind than mine to decipher that puzzle.