Juri wrote:
>Well, you caught me in the act. Of course the
original pulp fiction is trashy
>and - of-courser! - violent, especially the shudder
pulps. But in Tarantino
>pulp seems also to include stuff like porn novels and
bad Hongkong B-movies.
Does he? I know they've influenced him, but has he actually
said they're pulp fiction? I generally think of pulp fiction
as a literary term, but I guess B films might
qualify...
>You're probably right, but the usage of the word
seems to have gotten out of
>hand. "The Caine Mutiny"? Why not "Gone With the
Wind"? The editors of "Pure
>Pulp" (Pronzini, Greenberg, Gorman) claim that
anything that is popular is
>pulp fiction. Do they mean that if Dostoyevsky is
popular, he is pulp fiction?
>(Well, he has this guy kill that guy with an
axe...)
I dunno. Is PURE PULP a new collection, or one I missed? What
do they actually say? Without hearing their actual argument,
and possible justifications, it's hard to really argue their
conclusions. Certainly, I agree that including THE CAINE
MUTINY is a stretch, but then, I already think Pronzini, at
least, is a little wonky when it comes to some of his
pronouncements. Remember, he also said hardboiled lit is
dead...
But I think something like PEYTON PLACE might qualify.
Remember that the pulps never consisted primarily of cheap,
trashy crime fiction -- they also consisted of cheap, trashy
tales of romance, science fiction, sports, westerns, fantasy,
horror and everything else. And just like the crime pulps,
most of it was crap. It might be fun, entertaining crap, but
most of it was still crap. Writers like Chandler and Hammett
were (are) very rare.
>I've never been able to say the real difference
between the pulps and the
>digests
No, but it was a digest, not a pulp. If the purists insist on
an actual, literal meaning of pulp fiction where only things
published in the pulps qualify, then anything published in
book form or in the digests or slicks wouldn't qualify.
I'd be more than happy to accept any of George's collection
that the purists don't consider "real" pulp fiction. Get to
work on it, guys. Convince the library they've accepted stuff
on false pretences, and re-route all the "bogus" pulp fiction
my way. I expect delivery by next week.
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
An A&E Mystery.com Site of the Week, but don't let that
discourage you.
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