Doug sed:
> The problem here is that qualifier, "somewhat." I
might not say
> DeLillo is
> hard-boiled, but I might say he is somewhat
hard-boiled. His prose is
> sometimes too stylized to qualify for erstwhile
avian James Doherty's
> insistence on colloquial language. DeLillo's Running
Dog, if not
> toying with
> classic hard-boiled, is at least fooling with
political
> thrillers.
As much as I enjoy DeLillo's work, I just don't see neomg
hard-boiled at all. That he might use devices that all
writers have used at one point or another doesn't put him
even close, IMHO. If we are talking about paranoia as somehow
putting him close to some of the political thrillers, you
have Pynchon whose work is likewise not hardboiled.
None of the PoMo guys have ever done any hardboiled, with the
exception of early Burroughs. I'm hoping that Robert Coover,
who has already done a series genre-benders, might someday
tackle hard-boiled.
> Your post raises an intriguing problem about
influence and definition.
> Japanese (postmodern?) novelist Murakami was
interested in
> hard-boiled enough
> so that the word "hard-boiled" appears in the title
of one novel
> (at least as
> it is translated in the U.S.).
Just started reading this, so far it's like Alphaville and
Philip K. Dick. Id also be interested in hearing more about
him.
Tribe
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Apr 2000 EDT