Philosophers and Ploughmen, Each Must Know His Part*

We often think of fictional sleuths (real ones too, actually) as people of action. They go to crime scenes, they sift through and look for evidence, they catch the “bad guy” and so on. And a good crime novel has that kind of action in it. But some crime fictional sleuths are also philosophers. They think about the larger questions of human existence. That makes sense, too. After all, detectives look for reasons that people commit crime; that can certainly take one into the realm of philosophy. So to an extent, you could say that all sleuths are philosophers. But some sleuths are more interested in those larger questions than other sleuths are.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot sometimes looks to those larger questions as he investigates. For instance, in Evil Under the Sun, he takes a holiday at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay. One of his follow guests is the Reverend Stephen Lane. One day the two get into an interesting discussion on the existence of Evil in the world. Poirot mentions murder can happen anywhere, even in a peaceful, idyllic setting such as Leathercombe Bay. Lane then says:

 

“‘I was glad to hear you say that. Nowadays, no one believes in evil….Evil, people say, is done by those who…are more to be pitied than blamed. But M. Poirot, evil is real!’…
‘I understand your meaning. Up to a point I agree with you. Evil does walk the earth and can be recognized as such.’” 

 

Whatever you believe about good and evil it’s an interesting philosophical discussion. Things get much less hypothetical when another hotel guest Arlena Stuart Marshall is strangled. Her husband is the obvious first suspect, but when it is shown that he’s innocent, Poirot works with the local police to find out who murdered her and why.

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Insepctor Espinosa is also a philosopher. He certainly takes his share of action, but he’s very reflective as well. For instance, in The Silence of the Rain, he and his team are investigating the robbery and murder of wealthy Richard Carvalho, who’s been shot while sitting in his car. There’s a significant amount of money missing, so robbery seems to be the prime motive. But it’s not as simple as that, as Espinosa learns when Carvalho’s secretary disappears. Espinosa and his team have to untangle a complicated web of corruption, kidnapping and greed to find out the truth about Carvalho’s death. Here is one of Espinosa’s thoughts about fitting in as a cop:

 

“Espinosa’s style learned more toward hunting good books than hunting criminals. But whenever he had to go into action or carry out an investigation, his efficiency surprised his colleagues. The difference was that once he was done he reverted immediately to his usual reserve, back to being a stranger. He was well aware what he was like; it didn’t matter where he was. Maybe that was why he’d never left the police force: he wouldn’t have felt any more at home in another profession. He wasn’t a stranger just to his colleagues but to everything – he inhabited a different space and time.”

 

Espinosa reflections may mean he spends his share of time just thinking, but they don’t mean he doesn’t catch criminals.

The same is true of Arnaldur Indriðason’s Inspector Erlendur. In his own way he’s a philosopher, too. For instance, in Jar City, he and his team are investigating the murder of a seemingly inoffensive old man Holberg, whose body is found in his apartment. As the team begins to search for answers, it slowly becomes clear that Holberg isn’t as inoffensive as everyone has always thought. He’s got a dark history of accusations of rape, although nothing was ever proven and Holberg never went to prison. Bit by bit, Erlendur and his team unravel Holberg’s past and find out who wanted to kill him and why. Meanwhile, Erlendur has personal issues of his own to deal with when his daughter Eva Lind comes back into his life after an absence. Here’s one of Erlendur’s thoughts about families:

 

“He thought about mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and mothers and sons and fathers and daughters and children that were born and no-one wanted and children who died in that little community, Iceland, where everyone seemed related and connected in some way.”

 

While it’s true that the return of Eva Lind doesn’t solve the case, it’s interesting in this novel how Erlendur’s reflections and philosophy play roles in the way he investigates.

Another philosopher is Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri Paiboun, the septuagenarian chief medical officer in Laos. At the time in which this series takes place, the 1970’s, the Khmer Rouge has taken over in Cambodia and the military has taken over in Laos. Dr. Siri doesn’t want to become chief medical officer, but he’s “volunteered” into the job, so he does the best he can. In The Coroner’s Lunch, Dr. Siri investigates the death of Mrs. Nitnoy, the wife of a prominent government official, who is poisoned during a banquet luncheon. This case is of course fraught with all sorts of political ramifications, but Dr. Siri isn’t interested in politics. He wants to find out the truth behind the death. And so he does. Here’s Dr. Siri’s view of communism:

 

“If the truth were to be told, he was a heathen of a communist. He’d come to believe two conflicting ideas with equal conviction: that communism was the only way man could be truly content; and that man, given his selfish ways, could never practice communism with any success. The natural product of these two views was that man could never be content.”
 

Dr. Siri has thoughtful views on other larger issues too and his philosophical way of thinking adds to these novels.

And then there’s Peter Høeg’s Smilla Jaspersen, whom we meet in Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow. She’s a half Inuit/half Danish Greenlander who now lives in Copenhagen. When her young neighbour Isaiah, also a Greenlander, falls from the roof of the building in which they live, it’s put down to a terrible accident. But Jaspersen suspects otherwise as soon as she sees the patterns in the snow on the roof. She’s grown up with snow and Ice and they tell her things. Once she begins to suspect that Isaiah might have been killed, she goes to extraordinary lengths to find out why and by whom. And she succeeds in the sense that she finds out who the murderer is and what the motive is. Jaspersen is a philosopher, and integrated throughout this novel are her views on life, on international relations, on men and women and lots more. Here is her view on love:

 

“Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of forty-five percent fear of not being accepted, and forty-five percent hope that this time the fear will be put to shame and a modest ten percent frail awareness of the possibility of love.”

 

No matter what your views on life and love, it’s interesting to learn how Jaspersen views the world and thinks about it.

That’s also true of Mma. Precious Ramotswe, who “stars” in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. She’s got a very philosophical turn of mind and although she certainly takes action, she also spends quite a lot of time reflecting on the larger questions, too. For instance, in Morality For Beautiful Girls, she gets a visit from an important Government Man, who believes that his sister-in-law is trying to poison his brother. He wants Mma. Ramotswe to find out the truth and stop his sister-in-law. Mma. Ramotswe agrees to at least visit. While she is there, she finds out the surprising truth, and shares it with her client. Throughout their interactions, the Government Man has been arrogant and officious, even insolent. Mma. Ramotswe doesn’t like it and won’t stand for being bullied. But she has also learned the truth about the Government Man and his family. She decides to give him the answers to his questions in allegory form. Here is what she says about his bullying (once she’s put him in his place, of course):

 

“He [the Government Man] was very rude to her [Mma. Ramotswe], because he had developed habits of rudeness and because he always got his own way. But she realised that under the skin of a bully there is always a person who is frightened and unhappy. And this lady thought that she would speak to that frightened and unhappy person.” 

 

And so she does.

 

Sleuths who are also philosophers can get us thinking about all sorts of different things that we might not have thought of otherwise. Which are your favourites?
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Rush’s Closer to the Heart.