I agree that some of the conventions of HB private eye
fiction I referred to are based on archetypes. The lone wolf
or knight fighting for justice predates the American frontier
but a powerful version did come out of US frontier fiction
beginning with Cooper and that had a great influence on the
birth of the HB private eye. After all, westerns and
adventure stories co-existed with crime stories in many of
the pulps including Black Mask.
And Marianne's comment on the accepted myth of private eyes
solving murders left and right reminds me that Chandler who
made the most quoted of the realism claims was himself a
failed businessman who had little or no association with
crime in the streets. Fired from his job, he read the pages
of Black Mask, absorbed what he needed and came up with
something different and special. But he had as much
association with street crime as Edgar Rice Burroughs had
with Africa when he created Tarzan (now there's archetypes
for you).
Hammett, who more than anyone got this thing going and did
have the real life background, did not make such a strong
claim for realism. The backgrounds are more realistic and
they certainly add to my enjoyment and appreciation. But the
private eye going down those mean streets is a romantic
notion we agree to accept.
The role of women in early HB fiction is, I don't think,
driven as much by archetypes as it is by the more immediate
cultural background at the time of the writing. And I think
some of it reflects or appeals to male fantasies more
superficial than the lure of the archetype.
These conventions change from decade to decade and can be
pretty funny in retrospect, as Maura demonstrated with her
delightful spoof. Conventions are also evident in a certain
type of woman-authored series that has come along in the last
twenty years. I have chaired several panels at the annual
Malice Domestic convention and in my preparatory reading I
was struck by how many of the female protagonists had police
officers as boyfriends. These boyfriends served the same
purpose as friendly Chief Gentry does to Mike Shayne or
Captain Pat Chambers to Mike Hammer. They help the plot along
by providing information that only a cop would know. This
doesn't bother me (although the authors were always sensitive
when I asked them about it). After all I never understood
what Gentry got out of his relationship with Shayne except a
lot of trouble and aggravation. I do know what the police
boyfriend is getting and that's a motivation based in
reality.
Richard Moore
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 18 Dec 2000 EST