Found in, of all places, the SAT prep packet of one of my students at work
On Detective Stories:
The magical satisfaction they provide (which makes them escape literature, not works of art) is the illusion of being dissociated from the murderer.
…
If one thinks of a work of art which deals with murder, Crime and Punishment for example, its effect on the reader is to compel an identification with the murderer which he would prefer not to recognize. The identification of fantasy is always an attempt to avoid one’s own suffering: the identification of art is compelled sharing in the suffering of another.
…
The fantasy, then, which the detective story addict indulges is the fantasy of being restored to the Garden of Eden, to a state of innocence, where he may know love as love and not as the law. The driving force behind this daydream is the feelign of guilt, the cause of which is unknown to the dreamer. The fantasy of escape is the same, whether one explains the guilt in Christian, Freudian, or any other terms. One’s way of trying to face the reality, on the other hand, will, of course, depend very much on one’s creed.
—W. H. A.
