Drunk on power

John Charles McQuaid was rarely drunk on power, but he was seldom sober. The Archbishop was used to getting things his own way, but on an October day in 1955 over twenty thousand people turned out to let Ireland’s most powerful cleric know he was over the limit.

This fantastic quote is taken from GUBU Nation by Damian Corless a collection of short essays detailing some of the more ‘grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented’ things to have happened in Ireland’s post-independence history. This particular essay concerns a visit to Ireland by Yugoslavia’s soccer team to play a friendly match. Slighted by the fact that he was not consulted about the match (as he had been three years earlier) and no fan of ‘foreign games’, Archbishop McQuaid mobilised his influence to try and get the match cancelled. First, the Department of Justice told the Football Association of Ireland that they would need to seek permission for the players to enter the country (the first time they’d ever had to do such a thing). Second, the Army band withdrew their services. Third, the FAI were bombarded with public criticism from the forces of Catholicism and its various agencies. One of these groups even wrote to all the Yugoslav players to tell them that they were not welcome. Feeling the pressure, the national broadcaster withdrew its radio coverage. The Yugoslav team arrived at Dublin airport to be met by protestors at godless communism (although no such protest met a Russian delegation that had arrived in Ireland a month previously). The day before the match the Irish trainer withdrew from the game under pressure. The game went ahead and Ireland lost 4-1. McQuaid’s power is legendary and it is said that he got to read and edit all legislation before it was seen by most of the cabinet, let alone the Dail (the Irish parliament). Drunk on power indeed.

The appeal of crime fiction?

I read two posts yesterday that made an argument as to why crime fiction appeals to so many readers as a genre. Over on Petrona the case was made that crime is social criticism par excellence, examining the full diversity of social relations and their dysfunctions (through character/action driven plots). Over on International Crime Authors Reality Check, Matt Beynon Rees makes a similar case that crime fiction provides an entertaining and informative dose of social realism, but extends the argument to suggest that in doing so it makes unpalatable places knowable and bearable by revealing their social complexities, histories and politics, and placing an order and rationality on them.

I agree with both analyses, but I also want to suggest that crime fiction also provides a mirror for readers to reflect on, think through and make sense of their own lives, rather than simply coming to understand the Other (other people, other situations, other places). In particular it opens up vistas in which to critically reflect on the diverse, complex and contingent workings of power and its resistance, and our own experiences of them. In crime novels, a consistent feature is that the various manifestations of power (inducement, manipulation, coercion, seduction, exploitation, domination, intimidation, violence) and resistance (non-consent, non-cooperation, negotiation, disobedience, protest) are examined in a plethora of contexts.

Now, if I was Margot over at Confessions of a Mystery Writer I would now launch into a series of well honed essays on each of these forms of power and resistance and provide loads of examples from the crime fiction canon. But alas, this is as far as my insights go for today, other than to say that Hans Fallada’s brilliant novel, Alone in Berlin, explores all of them (and my review provides some engagement with the contingent and relational mobilisation and effects of power in Nazi Germany).

In short, my two cents worth is that crime fiction appeals because it whilst it does provide social criticism and open up the world of the Other, it also allows us to critically reflect about ourselves and our place in the world, especially in relation to how power is mobilised and expressed.