推理小說是深受台灣讀者喜愛的類型小說。本文以紮根理論法探索讀者在推理閱讀感受到的閱讀樂趣與文本魅力,並分析其閱讀選擇取向及影響選擇的因素。基於21位推理愛好者的深度訪談, 本文區辨出七種推理閱讀的樂趣(即解謎的成就感、真相大白的驚喜感、窺探未知的好奇感、看見正義的救贖感、增廣見聞的充實感、因同理而產生的認同感,與對社會議題與善惡價值的省思)。推理小說的魅力會具體表現在情節結構、人物、時空背景,與人生觀四個面向。推理愛好者會透過派別、作家、系列,與劇情等四種取向來尋找可能符合期待的文本,且其選擇尚會受到六個因素影響(即專家導讀、對出版社的信賴感、獎項、改編為影視作品、翻譯表現,與對實體書的第一印象)。
The mystery fiction is a popular pleasure reading genre in Taiwan. This article describes a grounded theory study that explored the reading pleasures and selection behavior of mystery fans. Based on the in-depth interview with 21 engaged mystery readers, this study identified seven types of reading pleasures, i.e., a sense of achievement from puzzle solving, feelings of amazement from the revelation of truths, satisfaction of curiosity for the unknown, a sense of compensation from seeing justice, senses of empathy and sympathy from identifying with the story characters, and the reflection of the social issues and values raised in the stories. The charms of mystery fiction may be systematically described by following four of Hudson’s (1910) conceptualization of fiction elements: i.e. the plot, characters, time and place, and the author’s view of life prevailed in the stories. In regards to readers’ selection behavior, this study identified four selection approaches commonly used by the experienced readers to discover works that possibly meet their expectations, i.e., the subgenre-oriented, author-oriented, series-oriented, and story-oriented approaches. In addition, six factors may influence readers’ selection of works, i.e., availability of expert comments, trust and confidence in the publishers, book award information, adaptation into movies or television, quality of translation, and first impression of the physical books.
推理小說;推理讀者;閱讀選擇;愉悅閱讀
Mystery fiction; Mystery readers; Reading selection; Pleasure reading