Re: RARA-AVIS: dickless dicks in pomo world
Mario Taboada (matrxtech@sprintmail.com)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:23:11 +0000
I think Fred Zackel's approach to the P.I. as a mythological
figure has
much to be said for it - which does not mean that the Marxist
approach
suggested by the original poster is worthless. The figure of
the
self-reliant, lonely hero following his intuition and acting
in
unexpected, sometimes "magical" ways (Marlowe being the
paramount
example) is closer to the folk tale and the legend than it is
to the
naturalistic story. However, I do not believe that a "pure"
theory of
genres like that developed by Northrop Frye can ever capture
the flavor
of the hardboiled story except in a superficial way. At the
skeletal
level we have a type of romance, but the forces that drive the
hero are
unpredictable and often very strange, which is what makes so
many
hardboiled works evergreen and rereadable. The presence of the
city and
its ways is also quite an important factor, although there are
some
great hardboiled stories set in small towns.
I believe that the hardboiled and even the mystery in general
has been
much misunderstood by critics, - even a brilliant critic,
reader, and
writer like Todorov wrote nonsense on the topic. Great
mysteries have
always been about interesting characters; the mechanics of
the puzzle
were recognized from early on as somewhat suspect (and
overused!)
artifacts.
Regards,
Mario Taboada
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