Chris M wrote:
Looking forward to the discussion this month.
Let us know some of your favorite criticism books have
been? I am under read on this subject when it pertains to
hardboiled and noir, but one of my favorites was DIFFICULT
LIVES by James Sallis.
And how has all the criticism you've absorbed
influenced your thoughts on new books as you read them? More
questions to follow, I'm sure.
******************
Chris,
Glad you are enthusiastic about it. I am too! I liked
Sallis's Difficult Lives, too. I've only read one fiction
book of his (Longlegged Fly?), but I like Thompson, Goodis,
and Himes, the three authors he discusses in Difficult Lives.
If I recall correctly, he was a guest author here for a
month.
Here are a few of the books I've enjoyed. Some of them I
strongly disagreed with, but I enjoyed reading them because
they forced me to form some kind a viable counter-argument.
The top four are solid criticism. Gruber and Goulart's books
are not technically criticism. Pulp Jungle is a personal
memoir of the pulp magazine era between the world wars, while
Goulart's Dime Detective Agency is a more distanced but also
more detailed description of the pulp period.
The last three move back into criticism.
Tough Guy Writers, Madden Noir Fiction, Duncan Hardboiled
America, O'Brien Difficult Lives, Sallis Pulp Jungle, Gruber
Dime Detectives, Goulart Detective Agency, Walton and Jones
Saint With a Gun, Ruehlmann Pulp Culture, Haut
And here are three essays (actually Willeford's was a
thesis), the last two fairly famous ones, about hardboiled
and noir.
Writing and Other Blood Sports, Willeford Boys in the Back
Room, Wilson The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler
This is not an exhaustive list, but it's a good one to start
from.
This might sound funny, but I think a good way to start out
shopping for books on hardboiled criticism is to choose them
by the number of pages. Pick the short ones. Criticisms are
often a great way to get new ideas on books to read. Oh! I
recommend picture books too. Haha! Lee Server's Over My Dead
Body is wonderful. Great pictures (even though some are
chopped a bit), very short but great text also.
As far as how it has effected my reading experience, one of
things I was afraid of when I started reading criticism and
theory was that instead of enjoying the fiction I read, I'd
become miserable analyzing them. Just the opposite. It opens
up a little extra vista that adds to the fun I've always had
reading.
miker
__________________________________________________ Do You
Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Sep 2006 EDT