Weird. I think Crais really does women well (well, except for
Lucy).
They certainly ring true for me, particularly in his last few
books, where he's moved beyond the typical damsel in
distress-types typical of much of the genre. Sure, Samantha
Dolan in L.A. REQUIEM, and Carole and Beth in DEMOLITION
ANGEL, are flawed characters, as well, but they're not weak
stereotypes sitting around waiting to be rescued. No thanks,
they'll get it themselves.
They have hopes, they have flaws, they've had disappointments
and setbacks, but they also get up every day and do what they
have to do, and do it as well as they can, not because it's
some macho thing to do, but because it's what grown-ups do.
This actually puts them more in line with most of the people
I know and admire, male and female. Dolan in L.A. REQUIEM
seemed particularly well-drawn to me, yet temp. spider
said:
>Dolan's character
>didn't make much sense at all -- practically stalking
Cole, and
>choosing a guy she barely knew over the LAPD at every
turn
>despite a long career with the police.
Huh?
I see it a whole other way, and come up with the exact
opposite conclusion.
Dolan's distrust of the LAPD hierarchy might explain her
willingness to go to Elvis, who has a rep for integrity and
for being a rebel
(something she might identify with), and her attraction to
him, to me at least, doesn't seem that far-fetched. He's an
apparently good-looking guy, about her age, glib, funny,
occasionally charming,and he treats her as an equal. Plus,
he's not a part of the police force she seems constantly at
war with. And, Lord knows, an attraction to someone is rarely
based on logic alone, anyway. Like Woody Allen, I think it
was, said, "the heart wants what it wants." So, yeah, I buy
it.
Sure, she may get a little over-earnest about Elvis (though I
think stalking is a stretch), but given her past problems,
Samantha's loneliness and neediness seems believable to me.
And she's self-aware enough to realize she's being a bit of a
jackass, when she shows up at his place.
Yeah, she's not always admirable, but she rang true to me. We
all know good people who do dumb things. That's not so
unbelievable, is it?
But maybe we've got different standards for believability.
Temp spider also wrote:
>I haven't read Demolition Angel, but I'd be happily
surprised if
>Crais manages to make her a 3-dimensional human who
doesn't
>sound like a man who happens to have female secondary
sex
>characteristics.
I'm not sure where you're going with this. Does this mean
you're implying Dolan isn't credible because she sounds like
a man? Because she's a woman who's tough, tenacious and
defiant? Or because she drinks too much sometimes, and acts
like an asshole? I've never found any of those traits to be
exclusively or even necessarily predominantly male. (And
what's a secondary sex characteristic, exactly? Is it the sex
or the characteristic that's secondary?)
Sure, there are certain characteristics we generally
attribute to males or females, but that doesn't mean either
gender can't have them, or that one gender having some of the
traits generally attributed to the other automatically means
they're not "believable."
Kevin
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
New fiction from Anthony Neil Smith and Jochem Vandersteen, a
Reader's Survey and Talkin' 'Bout Shaft. Can you dig
it?
-- # 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 : 15 Jul 2000 EDT