Re: RARA-AVIS: dickless dicks in pomo world

James Rogers (jetan@ionet.net)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:22:20 -0500 (CDT) At 05:10 PM 6/12/98 -0400, Duane Spurlock wrote:
><<Can our society trust the lone white male prowling the night,
>steeped as he is in his lone wolf Code of Honor?>>
>
>In some ways, the PI acts as the sin-eater -- a person in a community who
>usually lives apart from the rest of the community in self-exile because he
>is metaphorically unclean: he carries the sin of the other community
>members. Similarly, the PI roots out the sin, the rot in his community
>(which can change, since he is a mobile character) and is ostracized by
>those he encounters in that community -- the people involved in his
>investigation and the legal authorities, who usually disdain freelance
>interlopers into their jurisdiction.
>
>PI as PI or PI as sin-eater, the PI is a lone wolf, just as Frederick
>suggests. However, as he also mentions, the lone-wolf image nowadays has
>its negative side: the outsider who tries to break into the community by
>lashing out violently at that community. This, I think, would make a
>dynamite premise for a PI novel (which doesn't mean someone hasn't already
>done it -- some of Vacchs' work may fit the bill, in fact). -- Duane
>
>
All of his reminds me of Hemingway's comment that there was
only one real American story, that being _Huckleberry Finn_. Certainly
hard-boiled stuff, with it's continuing complaint at being suffocated by a
corrupt and hypocritical world has a lot of the "lite out for the territory"
feel to it. The PI writers may not agree as to whon the oppressors are, but
I don't detect any doubt that there are opressors. As Chandler expressed it,
the tough PIs put a value on personal integrity over the integrity of the
community. As someone said, the cozy writers generally restore order to the
community. the hardboiled gang usually are openly hostile to the community
and bring disorder by blowing up all the little lies the community has grown
used to living with (_Red Harvest_ being one of about a hundred good
examples). In the modern takes on the them, the PI sometimes fails and truth
does not out as in the movie Chinatown and some of Ellroy
The American myth of this rugged individualist, ususally a
migraqnt of one form or another has always had it's share of darker heroes;
Lafitte, Jesse James, Pretty Boy Floyd and Al Capone. Fictionalized
treatments of these gangster types and psychos have a small place in the
hardboiled firmament, as in _Little Caesar_ and in quite a bit of Thompson's
stuff.
As for the idea of the outsider trying to forcibly enter the
community, I would say that that is the real story of the ethnic mobs of the
Twentieth Century. The theme was certainly dealt with explicitly in
Hammett's _Glass Key_, as well as in non-hardboiled books like _The
Godfather_ and _The Great Gatsby_. Probably the most stark example in
so-called real life would be Joseph Kennedy (hop from bootlegger and fast
buck artist to presidency in one generation.
Apologies for this wordy and rambling reply.

James
James Michael Rogers
jetan@ionet.net

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