Crime is a story. Nature too.
Why nature deserves gripping stories
1. This summer, I belatedly discovered the Dublin Murder Squad novels of Tana French. As the writer Mark Spragg says, French’s “sentences are surprising and lyrical. Her characters complex and true and funny, never too good, nor too evil.” And I’m delighted to return to a form of fulfillment I’ve pursued since childhood.
I grew up on mysteries, especially Agatha Christie. I’ve gone through phases of Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, and Robert B. Parker. But as society has changed—or I have—these and most other crime novelists have left me dissatisfied. Recently, I’ve often been rereading my old copies of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald. Rereading has its pleasures, but with a mystery, sometimes, you sadly remember whodunit.
Why is French so good? Some reviewers focus on how she eschews the formulaic. However, when I think back, her books do have the solo knight-errant detective, the roomful of suspects, and the false denouements. She just hides the formula better. Others talk about her characters’ relationships, or the world-building of her version of Dublin, or the way she refuses to focus on a single character’s seemingly manufactured quirks.
To me, all this boils down to good storytelling. French avoids clichés and anything easy. She hews to a structure but covers it with a gorgeous façade. She works to create vivid characters and to hide the evidence of that work. It’s always about the storytelling.
2. Crime is always a story. It’s not a place, such as the vicious slums or the vacuous suburbs. Although it’s an idea (lawlessness), everyone appreciates the explanatory inadequacy of that idea. Everyone accepts that each crime is different because each individual is different. Indeed, everyone demands such difference. Crime stories dominate the airwaves because each episode can feel slightly unique. Because each character is.
Stories about crime can spool out in any number of directions. The genius-detective formula of the classic Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or Nero Wolfe can still work, if the puzzle is clever enough. But today’s readers and viewers tend to prefer increased stakes. As Joseph Wambaugh said: The modern police novel is not about how cops work on cases, but how cases work on cops.
In other words, it’s about storytelling. In the best stories, the quest changes the hero. The hero may enter the case (the story) with a quirky genius, but by the end that genius is shattered or expanded or transformed. The story has worked the hero.
3. When it comes to nature, it strikes me that people (including myself!) are really good at thinking about ideas. We think of nature as one or more scientific ideas: ecosystems, endangered species, bioaccumulation. Political ideas: preservation, wilderness, national parks, anti-pollution laws. Economic ideas: resource-based extraction, eco-tourism, carbon taxes. Spiritual ideas: interconnection, sublimity, the Garden of Eden.
Sometimes these ideas clash. We’re very good at digging into the intellectual implications. For example, “Compare and contrast the philosophies of conservation and preservation” is a great essay assignment. (Indeed, one that I once completed! But was it nature?)
We’re also really good at thinking about nature as a place. Nature is Greater Yellowstone, because that’s the location of the world’s largest remaining relatively-intact temperate ecosystem. (This phrase was used so often, especially in the 1990s, that I’m tempted to add a trademark symbol.™) Nature is the Grand Canyon, because that’s the location of mind-blowing geology. Nature is the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, because that’s where roads and permanent structures and other human interferences have been banned. Nature is that corner of my backyard that I’m too lazy to mow, because once I manipulate it, it belongs to me rather than nature.
Sometimes these too can clash. Ecosystems and geology can happen in the neighborhood. National parks can need mowing. We’re good at digging into the implications. “How should we change national park management in the face of climate change” is a great NPR talk-radio assignment. (Indeed, one that I once participated in! But was it nature?)
We’re not so good at conceiving nature as a story.
4. That’s why, most weeks in this space, I aspire to tell a natural story. To start with a character who has a problem: the equivalent of a dead body. To end with some form of resolution to that problem: the equivalent of the detective revealing the murderer. Most of these problems have been a lot more subtle than murder, but nevertheless I’ve tried to avoid formulas and clichés. I’ve hewed to a structure and covered it with a façade. Some stories have worked better than others, but I feel like I’m learning along the way.
Stories happen in places. Stories incorporate ideas, or serve as vehicles for explanations of ideas. But when you’re telling a story, the storytelling is most important. The characters, their challenges, the stakes, and the resolution. After all, nobody reads police operations manuals for fun.
I’ve been doing this because it’s what I believe, what I know, what I enjoy. Also because I think people’s interactions with the natural world offer just as many opportunities for good storytelling as their interactions with criminal acts. And because I believe these interactions with the natural world deserve a higher profile in our society.
Crime stories are ubiquitous. Why couldn’t nature stories be too? My answer: they will, if we tell them as stories, such that each nature is different the way each individual is.
Discussion:
Does this piece violate my standards? In other words, is it an argument rather than a story? Or did I establish a hero, set him on a quest, and provide a form of resolution? Discuss amongst yourselves.
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Good read. You told a story, or stories, with this. Perhaps a story can be an argument, or vice-versa.
Love Tana French! Glad you discovered her.