>Actually, part of the reason you don't see much
foreign crime fiction
>is that, when it comes to crime fiction, supposedly
Americans don't
>like reading about other cultures, unless it's some
twee, mythical,
>cosy England, or it's written by an
American.
Oh, I dunno.
Although I usually agree with what my frozen northern friend
has to say, I think I'd have to demur on this kind of blanket
statement.
How about Rankin? Bartholomew Gill? The Morse books? Or even
part-time beaverite Peter Robinson.
None are HB, except, marginally, Rankin and -- even more
marginally -- some very early Gill, but all are Euroscribes
who write pretty good CF, and are regularly published -- and
vigorously promoted (well,considering) -- in the U Essa of
A.
I think Kev's assumption that concern for what the readers
want in the Uessa has any bearing upon what gets published.is
a little naive. Since when did taste have anything to do with
the Fall lists? Certainly when it comes to HB writers,
readers of Eurowriting are not looking for HB. For two
reasons -- First, there is no real, sustained tradition of
Eurohardboiled, Second, those practitioners that do exist are
pretty limpdicked imitations of the real deal.
Hardboiled, like jazz, is something uniquely American. I am
no Jingoist, but facts is facts. Nobody has ever done it
better, and nobody ever will. From the purest technical
standpoint, hardboiled is skeletonized language. We
(Americans) can get away with it, because our linguistic
history is one of abbreviation. It is natural to us. We are
criminally casual with the language. It has resulted both in
the most vibrant, organic form of speech on the face of the
planet, and in a sort of fuck-the English-teacher-and-you-too
contempt for the language itself unparalleled, probably,
since the Sumerians first started poking at clay tablets with
bird bones.
Such casualness is not natural to Europeans.
Rankin, a writer I admire with only the very slightest
reservations, is the exemplar of what the Euroscribblers are
fast proving themselves best (maybe even better than us, Ed
McBain excepted) at -- the police procedural. The form allows
a little tougher talk than in, say, WHO CLOUTED (in Europe,
DISCOMFITED) THE VICAR by Antimacassar Roseyscent, while
permitting a generally more fulsome use of the English
tongue. HB it ain't, but it ain't
"there's an unpleasantness bleeding into the library rug,"
either.
Aha! The difference!
The practitioners of EuroCF, the good ones -- Rankin,
Patricia Hall, Robinson, Margaret York, Minette Walters --
who are successful at their trade have no problems finding a
publisher over here. For one reason. They're pretty fucking
good. Not HB, but they can't be expected to be. AND THEIR
AUDIENCE DOESN'T EXPECT IT!
They're Euros.
HB's an American thing. They wouldn't understand. And, most
likely, neither would their readers.
No big thing. PB
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