1827 skrev Thomas de Quincey sin essä ”Murder considered as one of the fine arts”. I mitt, alltmer ifrågasättande och djupa, researcharbete för min pågående detektivroman träffade jag nyligen på den. Den är förstås inte att läsa och tolka rätt upp och ner. Men ändå. Varför inte. När man tvivlar på om det är rumsrent av skriva om mord. Så här säger personen i de Quinceys essä:
”When a murder is in the Paulo-post-futurum tense – not done, not even being done, but only going to be done – and the rumor of it comes to our ears, by all means let us treat it morally. But suppose it is over and done, and that you can say of it … it is finished … suppose the poor murdered man to be out of his pain and the rascal that did it off like a shot nobody knows whither; suppose, lastly, that we have done our best, by putting put our legs, to trip up the fellow in his flight, but all to no purpose … why, then, I say, what’s the use of any more virtue? Enough has been given to morality, now ccomes the turn of Taste and the Fine Arts. A sad thing it was, no doubt very sad; but we can’t med it. Therefore let us make the best off a bad matter; and as it is impossible to hammer anything out of it for moral purpose, let us treat it aesthetically, and see if it will turn to account in that way. Such is the logic of a sensible man, and what follows? We dry up our tears, and have the satisfaction, perhaps, to discover that a transaction, which, morally considered, was shocking, and without a leg to stand upon, when tried by principles of Taste, tirns out to be a very meritourious performance. Thus all the World is pleased, the old proverb is justified, that it is an ill wind which blows nobody good.”
So far so good – men – när jag läser detta får jag ju istället lust att skriva … essä!
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