--- Juri Nummelin <
jurnum@utu.fi> wrote:
> 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.
My point was simply in response to an earlier post. Actually,
I was arguing that there were no non-fictional precedents,
not that there should have been.
He just
> mixed everything
> together, but didn't really come up with
anything
> new.
That's like saying the inventor of bread didn't really invent
anything. He or she just put flour and water and eggs and
salt (or whatever the original ingredients were) together in
a new way.
> 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.
Here I definitely have to disagree. Daly as part of the
canon? What canon is that? He wrote 17 books and literally
hundreds of short stories. Three of those books and three of
the stories have even been reprinted. That's a canonical
writer? Heck, Hammett and Chandler barely make it into "the"
canon. Daly's about as far out of it as you can be.
He is NOT regarded as the first PI writer. He is regarded as
the first HB PI writer, and generally as the first HB writer.
As has been pointed out, the latter designation depends on a
definition of HB, which is nebulous at best. (Whenever asked
for a definition, I always say "I know it when I see it,
except for those times when I don't.") I agree 100% that
there were earlier PI characters, and that some of those
characters exhibit a one or more traits of what we think of
today as HB; but I cannot think of an earlier HB PI than
Terry Mack.
G.
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