Yellow is a genre of popular fiction born of success in the mid-nineteenth century and developed in the twentieth century. From the literature, the yellow has been extended to other media, first radio and the cinema, then to the comics and television.
The fundamental object of literature is the yellow crime, in addition to the investigation to discover the culprit. It is usually distinguished from other genres, like science fiction or historical fiction, but the boundaries between different genres and yellow are often very unstable. The main genre is itself divided into several sub-genres (which are also the boundaries are not always well defined), such as yellow classic, detective, noir, to the more specific legal and medical thrillers.
The term "yellow" (which in Italy is used only in this sense) is due to the series The Yellow Mondadori, designed by Lorenzo Montano and published by Arnoldo Mondadori in 1929: the cast yellow, the color of the cover has replaced that of police in Italy, stayed for another French-speaking countries (roman policier) and Anglo-Saxon (detective fiction).
History of yellow
It is likely that we can bring the birth of the yellow with the publication in 1841 of The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, which featured the character of Auguste Dupin , whose enormous powers of deduction allowed him to solve criminal cases not even go to the site of the crimes, only after reading newspaper reports. It is this character that somehow draws on Arthur Conan Doyle to create the much more famous Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of the novel A Study in Scarlet in 1887, contends that in The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins in 1867 the title of first detective novel ever published.
Since then the genre has always known better luck, especially at first and then public criticism. Many kinds that have inspired and detached from the yellow and numerous authors who have dedicated themselves and who have achieved world renown, by Agatha Christie, creator of the characters of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple (1890-1976) whose first novel, Poirot a Styles Court is a 1920 Georges Simenon (1903-1989), the creator of Inspector Maigret, by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), Rex Stout (1886-1975), father of Nero Wolfe; to arrive today and works of Andrea Camilleri and Charles Lucas to name but a few authors.
The yellow is not limited to books over the movies, there are also numerous examples in comics such as manga and anime Detective Conan, manga created by Aoyama Gosho-crime writer.
The yellow in its various meanings
There are many attributes of the novel, sometimes used synonymously, other to further characterize or even categorize it into sub-genres. Synonyms in other languages \u200b\u200bare kriminalroman German, Anglo-Saxon thriller or crime novel, noir or the polar of the French.
Below is a list of various subgenres of yellow, the premise that it is an arbitrary classification, and individual works can be put into more than one category in each category are given one or more authors as an example .
yellow or yellow classic deductive
Defined in English whodunit, that is who did it, who did it, the yellow deductive, also called yellow or classic enigma, is the oldest and most traditional type yellow: an investigator, often a private or amateur, investigates a murder and discovers the culprit based on more or less hidden clues and misleading. The stories take place in an isolated environment (for example, a country villa, a hotel, a train journey) and the suspects are part of a limited and well defined. In the classic yellow are of great importance is the system used by the murderer to do the crime, and the alibis and motives of the characters. A classic of this sub-genre is the so-called puzzle of a closed room, that is a mystery where the victim of a crime is found murdered in an "impossible", for example in an environment apparently sealed inside.
Hard boiled
hard boiled crime fiction is the American genre par excellence, where crime is fought by a private detective methods are no less violent or more correct than those used by the offender. From the beginning he was opposed for his sometimes ruthless realism, the English authors of the traditional yellow, with its Manichean distinction between good and bad. The major players in this genre are Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and James Hadley Chase.
Noir
often, especially recently, as distinct or even opposed to yellow, noir is the other side of the story of a crime, the view from the criminal or the part of those involved involuntarily. In the stories noir lacks the comforting and rationalizing the final solution of a mystery leading to capture of the culprit, characteristic of the classic yellow. In noir, a direct descendant of the hard-boiled American novels and short stories by Cornell Woolrich and James M. Cain, there are enigmatic stories, the focus is instead placed on the environment in which the stories take place on the psychology of criminals and characters.
Another definition used recently in Italy for this kind of social novel is yellow. Among the authors are Jean-Claude Izzo, Massimo Carlotto, Marcello Fois. To tell the truth the social novel has its roots in nineteenth-century tradition with well-defined purpose of the complaint and especially moralizing. It should be noted in Italy, the strong connotation of dirty stories, the tendency of Naples: Francesco Mastriani, Antonio Ranieri, and Salvatore Di Giacomo gave the novel a particular social imprint color black. At the center of the narrative the lives of losers, victims of abuse and violence. In Naples, Massimo Siviero, mastrianesca the tradition in a modern, managed to combine the technique of Investigation with the yellow and black storytelling environment, on a background a crime always winning. Its stated purpose is not to escape but to invade the reader.
Crime
A type of yellow in the solution of the case is assigned to the institutional work of the investigators, the police in its various national forms. Defined in English police procedural, in the detective novel is faithfully describes the normal operations (procedures) of police. Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), Georges Simenon, Michael Connelly are among the major authors.
Yellow psychological
In this kind of yellow, the author focuses so much on material evidence or description of a criminal environment, the figure of the protagonist, often negative hero, and the relationship between various characters. Patricia Highsmith is considered the queen of this genre. In general the structure of the psychological thriller is more prepared for the development of the survey introspective with repercussions on the syntactic form less dry and the use of incised and subordinate clauses.
Thriller
Also called yellow suspense or action (called, with English expression, = thriller thrilling or exciting, which brings shiver). Born in the period between the two world wars against the backdrop of cities hit by the violence of American gangster and mafia, it is closely related to the cinema, so that the writers who became leading members worked also writer of many films. Unlike the yellow puzzle, built around a crime already occurred or which usually occurs in the first pages and which one must find the culprit in a yellow suspense the reader directly assists in the preparation and execution of the crime, suffering a strong involvement emotionally in an atmosphere of growing tension.
Legal thriller
legal thriller that is yellow when the protagonists and solvers are the lawyers and court rooms, the mechanisms which are reproduced in detail. He often weaves the police procedural. Among its principal authors, there are Erle Stanley Gardner, Scott Turow, John Grisham.
Historically, some authors (Massimo Siviero) will trace the origin to the fifth century BC of Rhamnus Antiphon, Athenian orator not to be confused with the tragic poet. Today we would call the Perry Mason of the Athenians. Fragments remain of his works and prayers for murder, defensive drills with simulated processes. First made public his speeches courts. To remember for the current stringent accused of poisoning against a stepmother.
defended himself from the charge of intelligence with the enemy in the coup of the fifteenth century: he sought peace with Sparta. Despite the persuasive eloquence of his speech, he was sentenced to death.
Medical thriller
This category of yellow play the main role the coroner and forensic specialists who, according to the evidence collected by examination of the corpse and the scene of the crime, the guilty to justice. Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs are the most representative authors.
Action and Techno thriller
Main article: Action-thriller, and techno-thriller.
The two genres are often linked to one another, and different times are almost the same thing. The former is often seen as an extreme version of the classic adventure novels, characterized by a rate much Hollywood (Matthew Reilly). The second combines the action and plot twists to careful and precise explanations in science in various fields, from astronomy to medicine (Michael Crichton).
Yellow historical
Main article: Yellow town.
More than a genre, or subgenre, is a particular type of timing of a yellow, which generally is traditional. This will give the yellow medieval, one set in Rome of the classics, one Egyptian, one in which the detective on duty is a historical character, as Aristotle and Dante Alighieri. Among the authors Ellis Peters, Margaret Doody, the duo Monaldi & Sort (creators of the series whose main character is the Abbot Atto Melani) and the Italian Danila Comastri Montanari, creator of the series which is to investigate the Roman senator Publius Aurelius Statius. We should also mention Michael Gregory with his two novels (Critique of Criminal Reason and Days of Atonement) which take place in a gloomy Prussia devastated by the Napoleonic wars.
A particular variant of the historical mystery, now accepted in this definition because of the temporal distance of the historical context mentioned, is that the police set in the first half of the twentieth century. In this particular segment of the historical mystery, in recent years have been marked as the British writer Philip Kerr and Alan Furst, the Italian Carlo Lucarelli, the Italian-American Pastor Ben, who created it in the saga of Martin Bora, an officer-detective indirectly inspired by the German Wehrmacht figure of Claus von Stauffenberg who unsuccessfully attempt on the life of Hitler and the Polish Marek Krajewski with a series of novels set in Wrocław between the two wars.
Serial killer
Even in the case of a serial killer rather than a genre is a particular type of mystery novel application in various areas (police, medical thriller, psychological thriller, and even classic yellow: in the end Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie are the work of a serial killer because although atypical for this executioner rather than the identity of the victims more often than random, it has the serial executions). These are novels in which the criminal, for a reason, but because it is inexplicable or a psychopath or at least a very disturbed person, killed in series more victims, mostly using a modus operandi meticulously studied and repetitive. Among the authors who may be named Jeffery Deaver, and in Italy, Giorgio Faletti.
Yellow on television
The fascinating and mysterious world of yellow, could not expand its sphere home literature to influence other aspects of society: among these, there are television and radio. TV, in particular, has had a lot in revolutionizing the yellow over the past decades, creating new shapes, originals, which were mailed from a vast international audience. This is the show that have enjoyed success all over the world, strongly impregnated by the atmosphere of yellow and its features, but they have always helped to renew the genre and present it to a mass of people is certainly more significant than that reached by the books .
Among the most famous yellow series, include: *
Murder, She Wrote, TV series American became the leading actress Angela Lansbury, who plays the role of mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, and its peculiarities of elderly but agile, clever and funny writer-detective, in a real cult in the world, produced by the American CBS from 1984 to 1996, and still broadcast in Italy on Rai Uno.
The show is a stylistic mix of the most fascinating features of the classic yellow and exciting dynamics of the thriller with a touch that tastes pleasantly un'Agatha Christie in the American version, featured in countless awards. In Italy, the show, earning more than 6 million viewers in prime time, proved to be the kind seen Italian television in 2005.
* Inspector Derrick, another great success of the TV detective, who narrates the exploits of German Inspector Derrick, who also became a figure of great fame throughout the world, and that solves murders heterogeneous, broadcast on RAI in Italy One.
* Lieutenant Colombo, the American series of the 70s, which had much luck in Italy, now broadcast on Channel 4.
* Commissioner Rex, born in Austria in the '90s TV show: set in Vienna, following the dynamic and heroic "deeds" of Rex, a popular German Shepherd, which plays an important role in solving murders.
* CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, serial American born in 2000, which had record-breaking audiences throughout the world and also in Italy where it is transmitted over Italy as well as on a satellite channel, which puts the adventures of forensic teams American, just as popular with the "double" as CSI: Miami or the latest CSI: New York.
* Commissioner Montalbano, inspired by the famous novels and short stories by Andrea Camilleri who took part in the same television production, broadcast successfully on Rai Uno and recited by Luca Zingaretti, made the actor in the popular Italian the figure of Montalbano.
* Don Matteo with Terence Hill, in which the actor portrays the charismatic character of a priest-detective who works with a company of actors which include police in the chief marshal and captain Flavio Nino Frassica Insinna; broadcast on RaiUno, the series kept by good performance, listening, and Rai Fiction more famous abroad as well, since Don Matteo is also on foreign television.
* Detective Conan, popular anime and manga by Gosho Aoyama, on television since 2002.
* Commissioner De Luca, four television movie directed by Antonio Frazzi, starring the character was born from the pen of Charles and starring Alessandro Lucarelli Precious broadcast on RaiUno on 27 and 28 April and 4 and May 11, 2008.
