On Wed, 23 May 2001, George Upper wrote:
> Although there are certainly ficitonal precedents
to
> Terry Mack, there are no non-fictional precedents
of
> which I am aware.
I'm not sure I'm getting your point here. Why should there
be? What would it matter, if there had been non-fictional
precedents? Do you mean that all the fictional characters in
the history of literature are born out of non-fictional
precedents? Or a critic must seek the precedents from the
outside world? This sounds pretty weird to me.
I don't mean that literature exists in a vacuum that is
blocked away from the outside world, but I would say that the
textual precedents matter more. Like I said earlier, Daly
must've known pulp magazine heroes of the late 1910's and
early 1920's. He just mixed everything together, but didn't
really come up with anything new.
As to the question why he is still regarded as the first P.I.
writer, I can only say that's how literary history works.
There is a canon, a body of acknowledged works, and there is
nothing beyond it. Daly, however hated or disliked he is, is
a part of the canon. Gordon Young, about whom I wrte, isn't.
Someone should do a favour and break the canon. It hurts me
that a writer as bad as Daly gets all the fame.
Juri
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