French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Dechêne, Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Antoine Dechêne
Detective Fiction and the Problem of Knowledge
Palgrave Macmillan, "Crime Files" series, 2018.
EAN13 : 9783319944685.
This book establishes the genealogy of a subgenre of crime fiction that Antoine Dechêne terms the metacognitive mystery tale. It outlines a corpus of texts featuring "unreadable" mysteries which, beneath the deceptively monolithic appearance of subverting traditional detective story conventions, offer a multiplicity of motifs—such as the overwhelming presence of chance, the unfulfilled quest for knowledge, and the urban flâneur lost in a labyrinthine text—that generate a vast array of epistemological and ontological uncertainties. Analysing the works of a wide range of authors, including Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Henry James, this book is essential reading for scholars of detective fiction.
Antoine Dechêne holds a PhD from the University of Liège, Belgium. His research focuses on all aspects of the metaphysical detective story in the United States and France. Along with Michel Delville, he is the co-editor of the first volume dedicated to the genre in French: Le Thriller métaphysique d'Edgar Allan Poe à nos jours (2016).
This study investigates the evolution of the metaphysical and metacognitive mystery tale, a narrative tradition where the traditional pursuit of truth breaks down. By examining works that resist neat resolutions, the author highlights how structural complexity and thematic motifs such as the urban labyrinth challenge established generic conventions. Writers in this lineage often replace logical deduction with ontological uncertainty, turning the investigation of a crime into an open-ended exploration of human perception and textual interpretation across American and European literature.
Rooted in contemporary narratology and genre theory, the book will interest scholars of detective fiction, comparative literature, and postmodern narrative forms. It provides a robust analytical framework for understanding how classic tropes of crime writing are reconfigured to address deeper epistemological anxieties. Researchers focusing on the intersection of philosophy and popular genres, as well as those studying the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe and his successors, will find this a valuable resource for mapping the boundaries of modern fictional inquiry.