Maybe they're defining their own genre and the greater
disservice is to make them subservient to a masculine genre
simply to more easily place them within a definitive box.
Unless of course hard-boiled boils down to simply a private
detective/investigator or cop or criminal and that primary
core is all that is required for a work to be hard-boiled.
The biggest problem I've seen is when women don't strive to
be their own voice and instead try to feminize the genre (as
if that were the only possible option) ... all feminizing the
genre ends up doing in my experience is give us a chick Dick
with a dick (... men in dresses). I'd rather see a female
genre be established/evolve/grow/or whatever that takes the
setting and plot devices (or whatever that amounts to the
basic non-gender aspects of the genre) and then speak to it
with a female voice and a female perspective ... I think in
the end the overall canon would benefit far more for the
extra effort.
billha@ionet.net wrote:
> I'm certainly with Kevin (re Fables...) in his
reaction to the blurb I posted
> for Priscilla L. Walton and Manina Jones' _Detective
Agency: Women
> Rewriting the Hard-Boiled Tradition_ (U. Calif.
Press, 1999).
>
> I always hope the book recommended in such
theory-clotted language
> is better than the review...,but there is some logic
to guilt by association.
>
> One aspect of the review intrigues me. Quoting first
"...[women writers have
> reimagined the hard-boiled novel, challenging not
only the patriarchal culture
> that defines these fictional worlds" etc., with
particlar mention of Paretsky,
> Grafton, and Muller.
>
> Now, the particular authors mentioned have been
discussed and mostly dismissed
> in this forum. I see no need to debate their
de-/merits again. But couldn't it
> be argued that these three--adding Stabenow,
Cornwell, McCrumb perhaps--"open
> the door" to the world of hard-boiled for a lot of
new readers? We all read
> something lighter, pulpish, or less "pure" before we
came to the good stuff.
>
> Secondly, like 'em or not, haven't the women writers
(and the whole cultural
> outlook) somehow "changed the rules" of the genre?
Or at least changed the
> perspective on society? By the latter question, I
mean even if the novels we
> read continue the attitudes of certain decades
(30s-50s) toward race and gender,
> there is a difference (or maybe we're just
different). Sexism or racism in
> older novels by Spillane and newer novels by Ellroy
set in the same period just
> don't read the same way.
>
> It's lunchtime. I'll leave the thread dangling
there. It's wonderful to be
> through grading papers for another academic year,
and be able to dip into the
> pile of RA recommended books.
>
> Bill Hagen
>
billha@ionet.net
>
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-- volente Deo,
Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
"If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will." -Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Join the chin at: http://www.egroups.com/group/Hard-Boiled/
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