Mark Sullivan (AnonymeInc@webtv.net)
Thu, 9 Dec 1999 15:54:08 -0500 (EST)
I've got to agree with Neil, here. I, too, want a genre that
evolves, keeps up with the times. The hardboiled attitude or
outlook is measured against the mainstream culture of its
time. As that culture changes, the hardboiled attitude must
also change or become, in Neil's apt description, a nostalgia
trip. At that point, it becomes a conservative polemic, a
call for a return to the time when this particular brand of
hardboiled attitude fit.
Now reading the classics, there is a tie between the culture
at large and the hardboiled reaction. I'm not old enough to
have read Chandler, Hammett, Goodis, etc., during their time,
but have enjoyed them all.
And there is a place for nostalgia. As I said earlier, I like
a lot of the Walkers and they're all nostalgic in this way.
Speaking of nostalgia, in Never Street, Walker mentions being
42. This was first published in 1997, making Walker the same
age I am. Now I appreciate Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole,
but they are not "my music," but it tends to be depicted as
Walker's without comment in this novel. This is another
screen of nostalgia draped over the book's nostalgic
core.
Sure, nostalgia can be fun, but I have come to prefer
something new -- the Fresh Blood crew, Jack O'Connell, Joe
Lansdale, Ken Bruen, etc.
Mark
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