RARA-AVIS: Auster and Lethem and Onward

Ryan Benedetti (rhino@cybercen.net)
Wed, 26 Nov 97 16:27:14 -0700 On 11/25 William Denton wrote:

>This sounds interesting. When does it suggest this started? When
>post-modernism started would be the answer, I guess, but who knows
>when that was. What are some of the first examples if offers as
>evidence?

I'll try to stir up my addled memory as well as a reference to the book,
if I can find it. As I remember it, the author of _The Doomed
Detective_ traces noir detective fiction back to the feulliton,
the "sleuth-tracks-villian" installments in French newspapers
that were popular just before the turn of the century, I believe.
He spends a chapter talking about the traces and following them forward
and then gets into discussions on particular novels
by Calvino, Pynchon, Eco, and Robbes-Grillet?
Most of those authors were publishing in the seventies,
though post-modernists claim that no artistic work can fully be
contained by the literary era or movement it was written in.
We can even apply post-modernism to Milton and Homer.
Everything is possible, nothing is real: yadda, yadda, yadda.
Again, don't take my word on all of these, I'm dragging them
out the fog of my reading memory. I'll try to get you
the actual reference for the book, though.
It was pretty interesting. As a side note, the big Duke critic
and post-modern/late capitalism theorist, Frederic Jameson,
wrote an essay about Hammett and Chandler and their subversive
post-modern, pulp politics. I'll find the reference to that too.

>Borges? What Borges story fits this?

Charyn selected "Death and the Compass" for the anthology.
It is an excellent noir crime story, though again, it is
more post-modern in its style.

>Stephen King may praise
>Thompson - and I'm glad, if some of his fans try out Thompson - but I
>don't think he's a very good writer, so whatever he may be doing, I
>won't find out.

I agree. King is a hack. His attempt at hard-boiled fiction,
"Umney's Last Case," was an insult to the genre.
If he had studied Thompson more
closely maybe he could have created some truly scary stuff.
Ah, but he would've had to sacrifice the cash. I wasn't trying to
suggest that King was interesting or pushing the form like
Auster, Lethem, and Gibson, I just found it interesting that
King was aware of him. I also want to emphasize that
Auster, Lethem, and Gibson extend the boundaries of the form
whereas someone like Thompson extends the depth of the form.
I myself came across Thompson late. About nine years ago,
in _The Black Lizard Anthology_
I found his story "This World And Then The Fireworks."
I didn't pick him up again until last week,
when I tore through _A Swell Looking Babe_.
I must say I have found him one of the best I've read;
though, until I came to this group,
I came across few who even knew of him.
Because I live in a tiny town on the Hi-Line of Montana,
the closest good bookstore is about 110 miles away
from me, but on my next trip, I'm going to sink some
bucks into Thompson's books. The oversized Vintage paperbacks
are certainly worth the ten or twelve bucks,
and I usually cringe at paying more than three bucks
for a used paperback. I saw last year or so
that someone published his biography.
I'm sure it's been discussed out there already (in fact,
wasn't it mentioned recently?).
If you don't mind repeating a previous thread,
what do you all think of it?

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