Stepping out of deep lurkdom to reply to Thomas's response to
Joe Dante:
Guess I disagree with your strong support of Repairman Jack
as a hardboiled character -- he's always getting himself in
trouble trying to protect Gia, his SO, and her daughter. Some
of that stuff gets seriously mushy. But it begs the question
of whether or not libertarian philosophy qualifies as
hardboiled. Jack (and Wilson) are serious libertarians -- his
refusal to maintain a specific identity is just as much a
component of his libertarian antipathy toward government
control as it is of any good hardboiled bounty hunter.
IMHO, the best hardboiled book in the series was Legacies, in
which the supernatural factor was eliminated for all
practical purposes, letting Jack pursue a legitimate (i.e.,
non-crossover) hardboiled quest.
Don't misunderstand -- I'm a fan of the series. I just don't
think that Wilson has allowed Jack much growth and
originality since The Tomb. It appears to me that Wilson is
trying to merge the themes of his Adversary series (The Keep,
and five others) with those of the Repairman Jack series,
somewhat similarly to what Stephen King has been doing all
along (and succeeded brilliantly in Black House, his latest
collaboration with Peter Straub). I don't think it's working
very well. Good B-level crossover fiction, but not terribly
hardboiled.
And by the way, I agree with your comment re Wilson's
xenophobia -- it shows up big time in the latest novel,
Hosts.
Best regards,
... Reed
> le 12/03/02 3:25, Joe Dante ࠼A
HREF="mailto:joe_dante@flashmail.com?subject=Re:%20RARA-AVIS:%20F.%20Paul%20Wilson%20and%20Repairman%20Jack&replyto=3C8E2856.791AF41D@swbell.net">joe_dante@flashmail.com
a 飲it :
>
> > Then there's F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack
series ... not splatter, not
> > exactly horror, and not really SF ... but a
most definite hard-boiled
> > contender. And if you want a real hard-boiled
change of piece, you should
> > track down Wilson's short "Batman" story,
DEFINITIVE THERAPY, certainly
> > unique.
> >
> Definitely ! I have the chance to translate this
series in French, and I use
> as much of noir conventions that I can. I always
loved this character ‹
> there's something ambiguous to him ‹ is he Ye Great
American Hero or just a
> bigot ? ‹ that reminds me of Remo Williams "The
destroyer"
>
> I always liked F. Paul Wilson's novels, though he
has an ongoing problem :
> in his books, when a protagonist is a foreigner, you
can be sure he is the
> Bad Guy in one way or another ! :)
>
> T.
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