Well, of course Ellroy thinks of the 40s/50s as a golden age;
all of us do, to some extent, since hardboiled writing was
really flourishing then (a little earlier as well) and the
heroes of the genre were writing then. Now, I have my
problems with Ellroy at times, but in my more generous
moments I feel like his writing self-consciously
de-romanticizes the past. He doesn't allow you, from a
contemporary perspective, to see an American past whitewashed
of racial prejudice and conflict. Even his "heroes" are ugly
at times -- ugly to us, anyway, in their casual racism. I
actually think his mission in mining the past for more
fictional possibilities has a kinship w/ Mosley's, though
Mosley is more self-consciously critical in this regard
(personally, I LOVE Mosley's writing -- I can't even look at
most other contemporary writers). For all I know Ellroy's a
huge bigot. I don't care, really. He's a good enough writer
for me to allow for the possibility that his writing is not
politically/socially uncritical. I couldn't read him for the
longest time, not bec. of his use of "the 'N' word"
("nigger," I presume, a word I'd rather see in front of me
than have hidden behind some euphemism), but because the word
"fuck" was just everywhere and I thought that showed a really
unimaginative range in his dialogue. I got over it, though I
still think writers occasionally confuse being hardboiled w/
being profane.
mds
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