Reclam's Crime Encyclopedia

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The Reclams Krimi-Lexikon is a one-volume dictionary published by Philipp Reclam jun. in Stuttgart on crime novels and their authors, which was founded in its original form as Reclams Kriminalromanführer in 1978 by Armin Arnold and Josef Schmidt, and published in the present form by Klaus-Peter Walter in 2002 .

Concept and content

The lexicon begins where its predecessor left off in 1978 and thus dispenses with those representations that can now largely be assumed as general knowledge. Therefore, a detailed sketch of the prehistory and early history of the detective novel, such as Heinrich von Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas or Fyodor Michailowitsch Dostoyevsky's Guilt and Atonement , is omitted , but it still contains basic classics such as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin stories, i.e. The Murders in the Rue Morgue ( Murder in the Rue Morgue , 1841), the mystery of Marie Rogêt ( the mystery of Marie Rogêt , 1842-43) and the purloined letter ( the purloined letter , 1845).

The publisher also dispensed with so-called prolific writers , who at best still have historical significance, such as Balduin Groller or Luise Westkirch . In addition to Poe, the other genre classics of the 19th and 20th centuries were also taken into account, such as Arthur Conan Doyle , Agatha Christie , John Buchan , Patricia Highsmith , John le Carré , Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö , Friedrich Dürrenmatt , Friedrich Glauser and Israel Zangwill . It is noticeable that one is guided by the German-language reception and that foreign-language classics, whose work has only been partially translated into German, such as Ernest Bramah , who was even more popular and successful in places as a contemporary of Doyle, were not taken into account. Even more understandable is the renouncement of literary works from publishers with printing subsidies, booklet and loan book series as well as novelizations, i.e. so-called film books , and almost without exception children's crime stories .

Walter put it as the intention of the lexicon: “ Reclam's crime-thriller-lexicon wants to help break a breach in a literary jungle that the individual can hardly keep an eye on, and convey information about contemporary crime literature not only from classic crime countries or areas Commonwealth and USA , but also newer ones like Latin America , like Israel , Turkey , Albania and Africa with z. Sometimes very peculiar manifestations. The crime thriller is understood as a world literature in the sense that the whole world has a share in it. Because of the close symbiosis of literature with cinema or television, filmed literature was given special consideration. "

The work contains more than 450 work articles by 401 authors, usually with introductory comments, which make the respective classification into the overall work of the author or the genre. Even if the biographical explanations are quite limited, some outstanding authors have more fundamental representations or even evaluations. In some series like Veit Heinichen in Trieste investigating Commissario Proteo Laurentii or Georges Simenon Maigret a tape has to serve as an example, in Heinichen it is Give everyone their own death (2001) and in the Belgian crime classic Maigret and the Treidler der "Providence" (1931 ), whereby a real selection for or against some classics is not given. In the case of multi-volume series, a distinction was made between closed series of works, which were treated as trilogies, or even decalogies, and series, whereby it was not explained why all the Kommissar Beck novels were performed and only a single Kommissar Maigret novel. In addition to literature references, the volume is made accessible through a register of persons and works.

Documentation of the change in crime literature

In the foreword, Walter primarily emphasizes the change in the genre that has clearly taken place since 1978: while at that time the detective novel was still clearly dominated by publications from the Anglo-American region, which for their part could hardly deny their origins from the 19th century, Today, interesting crime novels come from all countries and meanwhile there is a predominance of translations from the Scandinavian area in the German-speaking area. Sub- groupings such as women's crime , regional crime, Gebrestenkrimi or even animal crime (cats, sheep, insects) were not yet developed and the technological development also influenced the choice of topics by their authors.

layout

The preface is preceded by a quote from Raymond Chandler : “ If you show me a man or a woman who can't stand crime novels, then I will show them a fool; a clever fool perhaps - but nonetheless a fool. ”The lexicon volume is dedicated to the memory of Gernot Völker (1930–2002). The cover design used a photo with Alain Delon from the French feature film Le Samourai ( The Ice Cold Angel ) from 1967 .

expenditure

  • Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-150-10509-9 , 485 pp.

review

Lutz Krützfeldt noted for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung that he could not do without Reclam's crime fiction lexicon , as it deals with the titles and their authors and takes greater account of the non-English language area. Incidentally, he distributed a lot of criticism of this work, which tellingly, focuses on crime novels after the 1970s. He found the definition of the genre to be too diffuse, since it generally includes all literature that focuses on a crime, which inevitably includes all thrillers, strangely enough, in contradiction to itself, omitting the court thrillers. Krützfeldt saw this as a poor sense of the literary form. So he looked in vain for the editor's aesthetic criteria, who in the foreword merely named the “original idea” of the topic for the selection of the works. The Swiss reviewer could hardly understand which exclusion criterion some works had fallen victim to. In addition, the work articles would usually be simple and abbreviated contents that would hardly reveal anything to the viewer about the meaning and aesthetics of the crime thriller.

Sabine teHeesen praised the work, but at the same time gave a kind of spoiler alarm: “The plot is often completely reproduced and the perpetrator is mostly exposed! When looking for new reading material you should therefore proceed with the necessary caution or have a bad memory. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Further contributions come from Annette Gillich , Almut Oetjen , Franz Rottensteiner , Gisela Lehmer-Kerkloh , Gabriele Rappmann , Gudrun Schmelz , Hannes Fricke , Jost Hindersmann , Klaus W Pietreck , Michael Drewniok , Mirko F. Schmidt and Thomas Przybilka .
  2. ↑ Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 350 f.
  3. ↑ a b c d Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 7 ff.
  4. ↑ Allen J. Hubin: Crime Fiction: 1749–1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography . Garland Publishing, New York / London 1984, ISBN 0-824-09219-8 .
  5. ↑ Here, too, Walter tries his hand at anglicist word creations. See en: wiktionary .
  6. ↑ According to Walter, these articles would only have been made possible through many years of review work and the publication of the lexicon for crime literature (loose-leaf collection of the Corian publishing house, since 1993).
  7. ↑ For example, on Joy Fielding : “In Fieldings thrillers popular with a female audience, a heroine who is naive to the point of pain usually gets involved in a plot by her husband. Their secretive inclinations prevented a quick solution of the drama for three to four hundred pages. ”Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 132.
  8. ↑ Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 202.
  9. ↑ Klaus-Peter Walter (Ed.): Reclams Krimi-Lexikon . Authors and works. Philipp Reclam Jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 391 f.
  10. ↑ However, 175 authors come from the Anglo-American region, which largely puts this statement into perspective.
  11. ^ Franziska Gerlach: The boom in regional crime novels . On: online presence of the Goethe-Institut . 2011. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  12. ↑ Tina Klinker: The German regional thriller . - www.media-mania.de. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  13. ↑ This word creation (affliction, Gebresten, Middle High German for deficiency, Duden-online ) seems to be used solely by Walter for novels about physically disabled investigators. He himself mentions as an example: Akif Pirinçci : The trunk. Goldmann, Munich 1992.
  14. ↑ Rita Mae Brown : It's a shame you're not dead. A case for Mrs. Murphy. ( Wish you wer here. 1990) Translation by Margarete Längfeld, Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1991; Akif Pirinçci : Felidae Goldmann, Munich 1989.
  15. ^ Leonie Swann : Glennkill . Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-30129-7 , and Garou (novel) . Goldmann, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-442-31224-5 , could not take Walter into account because the editorial deadline was 2001.
  16. ↑ Paul Shipton : The bug an insect thriller. ( Bug Muldoon. 1995) Translation by Andreas Steinhöfel , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997.
  17. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung . June 17, 2003.
  18. ↑ Reclam's Crime Dictionary . Review summary in: Perlentaucher . Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  19. ↑ Sabine teHeesen: Reclam's Crime Encyclopedia. In: literaturkritik.de - No. 4, April 2003, accessed on April 21, 2012.