Art and Entertainment

A friend sent me a copy of the commencement speech given by Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, at Stanford University this June. Gioia's basic point had to do with the distinction between entertainment and art--and, of course, the importance of art. Claiming that almost everything in our national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, Gioia said entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure--humor, thrills, emotional titllation, or even the "odd delight of being vicariously terrified." Saying that art challenges us to grow and learn, Gioia suggested entertainment exploits and manipulates who we are.
Somehow it made me think of mysteries--doesn't everything these days? But I'm reading Harlan Coben's Promise Me, a real page turner. I'm glad every time I get a chance to go back to it, and I'm grateful it's a thick book that I won't finish too quickly. But even before I read Gioia's distinction, I was aware that Coben's book is a surface read. It's full of violence and improbable characters--a sports and entertainment agents who's also an investigator and darn good at fighting, a rich boy turned master of ALL the martial arts after years of study, a pair of mob-connected twins whose methods of torture are too gruesome to repeat. And there's coincidence at every turn. But not a lot of character development.
Some may wonder at making the case that mystery can be art, but in masterful hands it can. Some of the best English mysteries are art, from Sherlock Holmes, to Agatha Christie and P. D. James, and so are some from the American masters, from Edgar Allan Poe tp Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett and right on up to those of today--Deborah Crombie, Tony Hillerman, Loren Estleman. They write of complex believable characters who act out of deep and complex motivation rather than on instinct from single-cause motives such as jealousy, revenge, and so on. They don't shock with gratuitous violence nor titillate with unbelievable plots. The mysteries could happen in real life, to you and me, and that makes them compelling.
So where do I fit in to this art of writing mysteries? A bit above the titillating entertainment, I hope, but nowhere near the masters. I sometimes worry that my story is surface, that my characters have no depth, though I've worked hard to mold them as believable individuals, not stereotypes. And maybe that's part of art--it makes you keep trying to be better.
That makes me think of mystery writer Rick Riordan who now has a children's series that is the latest fantasy rage (next to Harry Potter): Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Riordan is also the author of the Tres Navarre mystery series--he's written eight books, I think, plans another two and then says essentially that Navarre's story will be told. He's walking away from the series, while he's still enthusiastic about it and before it gets stale. Maybe that's a bit of art--knowing when to quit.
Too philosophical--I'm going to go finish that Harlan Coben novel. And my hat's off to him for the success he's built, step by careful step.