As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.
I can analyse the trajectory of my popularity and find out why the peak was a peak and the valley was a valley - grapple with it that way - but I prefer not to analyse it that much.
Raymond Chandler once wrote that Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the people who really committed it.

