ABSTRACT

it is clear that life is always in some way too fast for us, that it is a spectacle we can’t interpret or a dumbshow difficult to word. The detective novel allows us to catch up a little by involving us in the interpretation of a mystery that seems at first to have no direct bearing on our life. We soon realize, of course, that ‘mystery’ means that something is happening too fast to be spotted. We are made to experience a consciousness … always behind and running; vulnerable therefore, perhaps imposed on.