Sweet Kate

Today I had one of those moments where everything about a particular thing becomes suddenly quite clear. I understood, in a burst of insight, why I have always violently disliked Sherlock Holmes. Further, it illuminates why I have never liked CSI: Las Vegas (herafter referred to as simply CSI) as a murder mystery. It even explains why I prefer the Father Brown and Lord Peter Whimsey (and the occasional Agatha Christie) to all of these.

There are two ways of going about solving a murder. Rather I should say, there are two possible mindsets in trying to solve a murder. Of course you must go about finding the evidence, and so on. But how you go about doing this is terribly important.

So, here is the bit from The Secret of Father Brown that explains the two mindsets, after which I shall explain the relevence to CSI and Sherlock Holmes.

( a bit long, but completely worth it, because it is Chesterton, after all )

This, I think, is quite a good explanation of the difference. I prefer the sort of story where the point is not just to follow a set of clues, until enough clues are amassed to tell who did it. I like to play Clue, but I don't like to read books where the detective is only, essentially, playing Clue. "Here we find that it was most certainly done with a candlestick, because of the traces of blood on it. And here we find that it must certainly have been done in the Library, because of the bloodstains on the carpet, from where he fell. And finally, we know that it must have been Colonel Mustard, because his alibi falls through for the following reason . . ."

To me, CSI is essentially a sort of Clue game. It involves finding all the proper evidence, and lining it up until it fits someone. There really isn't a concern for the people involved. We only peripherally care about the motive (perhaps to make a snarky remark about it). I don't like it. It makes people merely a set of responses. For the vast majority of episodes (at least most of the ones that I have seen), you don't care about the people that this is happening to. It doesn't have that depressing sense that all the Peter Whimsey books convey so well, where you suddenly realize that someone is a murderer. A person, who you liked, a little or a lot, is going to have to be held responsable for killing someone else. There is that emotional weight to the story that comes from dealing with people as people. I think it is necesary, or you end up with a show like CSI, which is perhaps intelectually satisfying, but not truly emotionally satisfying. You never feel sorry for the murderer, or the victim, except in an abstract way; you are sorry that it happened, instead of being sorry that it happened to them.

For similar reasons, I dislike Sherlock Holmes.

So, it all comes down to what the detective thinks of the people they are dealing with. On CSI, or with Sherlock Holmes, the people are merely necesary to the plot. They are observed for the purpose of discovering some peculiar trait (much the way you would observe caterpillars to see how they acted in a particular situation). There is no relationship. However, with Whimsey or Father Brown, the people are always treated as people, with hopes and desires, loves and hates. There is that relationship, whether you like them, or hate them, or think that they are stuck up or nice. Whimsey is torn apart when he finally finds out who is the murderer. Father Brown always comes to a point where he finds that he is able to understand the murderer. That, I think, is more valuable.

It comes down to, as Father Brown puts it, whether you are trying to see a man from outside, or a murder inside. And that is why I don't like CSI.