Re: RARA-AVIS: can noir writers advocate social reform?

From: Patrick King ( abrasax93@yahoo.com)
Date: 25 Nov 2006


Hi Jim, Well, the most obvious political allegory of The Killer Inside Me, is that the protagonist is an elected official. He's a complete hypocrit who pretends to be a law enforcement advocate but in fact uses law enforcement as a mask for his true intensions which are entirely self gratifying. I think all of Thompson's work is very political. He explores the options open to the poor and powerless in the United States and that's the emphasis of every one of his books. On the other hand virtually none of them are atmospherically similar. Some take place in west coast cities; others in western or mid-western towns.

Patrick King
--- Michael Robison < miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Patrick King wrote:
>
> You miss argueably the most important: Jim Thompson.
> By all accounts Thompson definitely had a political
> agenda. Note especially A Hell of a Woman, The
> Grifters and The Killer Inside Me.
>
> ***********
> I see nothing significantly political about The
> Killer
> Inside Me. And his little allegory of capitalism in
> The Getaway is compromised by the fact that there
> are
> no other options for the characters.
>
> miker
>
>
>
>
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