The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story

Criticism, Fall, 1994 by Scott Peeples

Much of the material in The Mystery to a Solution originally appeared in article form, which helps to explain its unpredictable, digressive structure; and yet, that circuitous, "labyrinthine" organization reflects the method of Poe's and Borges's detective stories and the process of detection (and perhaps the process of reading) itself. Irwin plays detective for forty-six chapters, speculating about writers' intentions to the point of trying to reconstruct their decision-making processes, essentially replicating the mind-reading game Dupin plays with Poe's narrator in "The Purloined Letter." In this respect, Irwin's analyses are highly presumptuous--and extremely interesting. He traces linguistic and historical "clews" so that apparent coincidences produce provocative new readings. As a result, his book reads like a detective story: one wonders where a given argument will lead and tries (like the reader of a mystery) to solve the puzzle before the writer/detective explains it.

One conclusion most readers will certainly reach before Irwin acknowledges it in the last chapter is that in the course of his analysis he has "borrowed a dynamic from Borges" (451). I would even argue that Irwin both pays tribute to and doubles Borges in the same way Borges pays tribute to and doubles Poe. Accordingly, readers who grow impatient with Borges's obscure references to ancient lore, his detached, academic style, and the sense that he may be playing off our own lack of expertise to pull the wool over our eyes will probably grow impatient with Irwin for the same reasons. But those who find Borges's use of mathematics, puzzles, allusions, and myths fascinating and who admire his ambitious interpretations and seemingly countless "what if" scenarios will find Irwin's work compelling as well. Like Poe and Borges, Irwin makes a strong case for the primacy of intellect, largely by exhibiting his own curiosity and analytical skill. As his title suggests, though, Irwin opens up the texts he considers rather than declaring any cases closed, and for that reason The Mystery to a Solution should inspire still more re-readings of six analytic detective stories and a great many more works as well.

Scott Peeples College of Charleston