Thou shalt not be mistaken…
From what I’ve written in some of the blog post before, one may assume I am a (more or less) sophisticated reader thanks to my academic ventures (*cough*) in the field of comparative literature. Well, sometimes I am. Depending on my mood, my ADHD, the lunar phase, and the position of Jupiter to the last third of my cat’s lowest karma zone, some lucky days I am capable of hiding my face behind the covers of something of worth to the academic and/or intellectual community (mind you, I spared us all the name-dropping of distinguished authors, mainly because I couldn’t think of anyone else besides Susan Sontag right now).
The coziest of cozy mysteries
But those days are numbered, especially when there’s a lot of stuff going on. So when my ADHD fuzzybrain is running my daily life, work is overwhelming, and I can’t even spell “dissertation,” let alone work on it, I resort to reading rather ‘light’ fiction, as one might describe it. Nice little whodunits, for example, preferably from the franchise of Murder, She Wrote or set in the 1920ies and 1930ies in the UK (probably because this reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse’s works). These books are called ‘cozy mysteries’, as I found out just recently, and the name does add to the atmosphere of it all.
You see, the most shocking thing about me reading these books is that I used to hate mysteries and the like. Never in a million years would I have thought that I ever start reading whodunits. We had to read Patricia Highsmit’s The talented Mr. Ripley and another mystery novel by a local author in high school and I hated it. I read The Judge and his Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt and it bored the hell out of me, even though I like Dürrenmatt. I absolutely and truly hated the stuff, I found it boring, uninspired, and a waste of time (especially Tom Ripley). I thought I never again would read any sort of crime or mystery novel.
Well, I was wrong.
Bless my Jess … and others.
Enter the cozy mystery. With Jessica Fletcher, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple, and other oh so lovely and competent (usually female in my case) main characters, it’s always nice, charming, and chatty. They make you feel all cozy and comfortable and at the same time solve a murder that is in no way gory or grisly. After all, this is not CSI or Criminal Minds, this is Murder, She Wrote and Miss Marple on the loose.
Of course, witnessing a murder or finding a body has its effects on our beloved protagonists, but it’s not like you can’t go on with your life just because you regularly happen to stumble upon murder victims.
I took a long, leisurely shower, enjoyed the toast and coffee I’d ordered through room service, and dressed in a camel’s-hair skirt, white button-down blouse, heather sweater, and brown tweed sport jacket and made sure I wore sensible walking shoes.
Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain Gin and Daggers
Off they go, head first into the adventure of finding whoever disturbed their tranquility, to bring them down and restore peace and order. And right they are, at least in their setting.
Eventually, everything falls into place and in the end, all is fine even though one, or at times even two people had to die. But that’s okay because nobody actually cared about them in the first place, our heroine found the killer and everyone can feel safe again. Usually written in an entertaining and sometimes slightly humorous voice, I do understand why these books are called ‘cozies’.
The most dangerour town in the US: Cabot Cove, Maine
I watched Murder, She Wrote with my grandparents when I was a child and I loved that show. Jessica was such an inspiration: a woman who was living her life to the fullest, learning new things and being a pillar of her community even in her later years. Be it New York, Boston, or Cabot Cove; people were dropping dead right, front, and center, but fear not because our feisty pensioner and author was there to save the day (and any one of her friends accused of murder).
When I found the books I was understandably thrilled to find some additional material on my favorite amateur sleuth — which may explain this newfound literary love of mine. But how it would go from J.B. Fletcher to Daisy Dalrymple, Maisie Dobbs, and others, I can’t really explain. Maybe the crime novels I’ve read before where just the wrong kind of whodunnits — after all, Highsmith’s and Dürrenmatt’s works are highly regarded amongst literary critics for there depth and meanings. However, it’s no fun — and maybe that’s all I want from my mysteries
Reasons to escape to coziness
Distract me, entertain me, make me laugh, all the while keeping it cozy and light-hearted. That’s what I love about cozy mysteries. It’s the total opposite to any sort of war literature I ever worked on or read in the course of my academic work. It’s a far cry from the more ‘sophisticated’ literature one might expect a literature graduate to read (and write about). Which can be fun as well, just a different sort of ‘fun.’
Following familar patterns, regularly encountering the same characters over the course of several books, it feels like meeting family and friends without any sort of nasty reality creeping in. Trusting in the good of the cozy mystery, readers know that obstacle pose no real problem and possible detours will eventually lead to a happy ending for our main characters. Maybe there’s a bit of romance on the horizon or some sort of personal growth. Whatever it is, it will only enhance the coziness of the world our characters inhabit. Which makes these books a perfect escape from any overwhelming, dreary, or otherwise challenging time in one’s life. It also makes them highly entertaining and fun to read — even at the best of times 🙂
While the world is busy and everyone is oh so important, I will sit tucked away and slurping tea while reading You bet your Life. See you soon!