Are “Elevated” Mysteries Really Better?

Are “Elevated” Mysteries Really Better?

 

The term “elevated” is bandied about a lot.  One sees it used repeatedly on Gordon Ramsey cooking reality shows.  On those series, a contestant prepares a popular, common dish, and is told that it needs to be “elevated.”  By this, the term means that a hamburger or a taco might be “elevated” by using a more expensive and tricky to prepare cut of meat, or a rarer cheese, a specially made aioli or other sauce, and perhaps the design and look of the meal may be different and fancier than all of the standard versions of the foodstuff.  Sometimes the “elevated” dish looks fantastic, but after hearing about the unusual ingredients, one worries about the taste, and I often find myself thinking I’d prefer the regular, “unelevated” version.

 

Over the last few decades, there’s been a push to “elevate” the mystery genre.  The mystery has generally been seen as a “popular” and “lesser” branch of fiction, so how do writers seek to earn plaudits from critics when writing crime stories?  Often, the crime takes up little of the book, and much of the story is devoted to personal relationships, meandering introspection, and political diatribes.  Sometimes the crime is never solved, or there is no mystery at all to what happened, or justice is deliberately undone.  Sometimes there’s stylized literary prose, though it’s not always very impressive.  Indeed, the classic mystery is supposed to a fun, entertaining, diverting experience.  The “elevated” mystery is more often than not a depressing slog.

 

Ultimately, the so-called improvements to mystery novels often do nothing to make more pleasing in terms of aesthetics, readability, originality, or enjoyability.  They are pretensions for the sake of self-glorification, denigrating perfectly good, even great writing.  The “elevating” is simply putting others down in an attempt to build oneself up undeservedly.  Notably, critics and prize committees may fawn over the “elevated” works, but such creations rarely gain strong tractions with general readers.  

 

And so, I end with a question to readers: who really benefits from the so-called “elevation” of the mystery genre?

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.