P.D. James, whose latest book is The Private Patient, answered readers questions via e-mail this week. She was somewhat overwhelmed by the number of questions and said she wished she could deal with them at greater length. She also said she sends everyone who has written "her thanks and her warm good wishes." Here are her responses:
Marilyn Anne Challis, Halifax How do you overcome writer's block? What stimulates your wonderful imagination? I am an admirer of your writing and a mystery buff — you rank up there with Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.
P.D. James I am fortunate not to have experienced writers' block in the sense that I am unable to find the words, but I sometimes have to wait a long time before I have a really powerful idea which is necessary before I begin a new book. So far I have been fortunate and the ideas have eventually come along.
Harry from Waterloo, Ont. Dear Ms. James, Your novels frequently deal with complex moral, even theological issues within the framework of the conventional mystery story. Do you find this constraining or are these elements actually confluent in some way?
P.D. James Fundamental and complex moral and theological issues have always interested me and I like them to interest some, but of course not all, of my characters. I think that dealing with these deeper matters adds richness and variety to the conventional mystery.
Zeddo from Canada Dear Ms. James, I enjoyed The Private Patient as I have all of your previous novels. I do have a question regarding your comment that the reader expects "a solution which the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel..." Although I have heard many mystery novelists say this, I find very few contemporary mysteries in which this would be possible. This is an observation, not a complaint; I'd hate to have figured out the solution before the end of a mystery — what point would there be in continuing to read it?
Still, I can't help wondering why mystery writers continue to say this, when it seems to me that what they're actually doing is planting ambiguous actions which they will later knit together to form a plausible explanation for the identification of the criminal. Since ambiguous actions could be explained by many different resolutions, this seems quite different from providing clues which, if perceived by the reader and correctly assembled, would allow the reader to solve the mystery. I'd be interested in your view of the clues in The Private Patient with which the reader should be able to arrive at the solution before the conclusion of the novel.
P.D. James I agree that few contemporary mysteries concentrate on logical deduction from physical clues. This was much more popular in the so-called Golden Age of Agatha Christie. Today we concentrate more on clues arising from character. In The Private Patient, Dalgliesh discovers such clues when he visits the victim's house and has access to her papers. Even so, I doubt whether he would have been able to make an arrest if the killer hadn't acted so spectacularly at the end of the book. But what does remain important is fair play. The reader who concentrates on solving the mystery should never be left feeling that some vital information was available to the detective and not to him. We should never need to ask, "How on earth was I expected to know that?" But I think that today, for many readers, solving the crime is less important than being engaged in an enthralling and well-written novel.
Peggy English from Canada Dear Ms, James, Looking forward to reading The Private Patient. I'm looking beyond as well to when your book will be on the small screen. My question is: Will Roy Marsden play Adam Dalgleish? He is Adam Dalgleish. What are your thoughts of his characterization of your main character compared to Martin Shaw, who also portrayed him? Mr. Shaw is a great actor, I'm sure, but he was not, in my opinion, Adam Dalgleish.
I was an Agatha Christie fan for many years, then came across your books several years ago. Different as apples and oranges, but now I'm as much a P.D. James fan as an Agatha Christie one. I love the detail in your books and the great surprise in the Christie books. Looking forward to your next story.
