Mario writes:
"With Easy Rawlins we have a new prototype, one that so far
has not been imitated (to my knowledge). He's not a P.I., so
the conventions don't apply to him, yet he has the freedom
and the need to do some sleuthing. He doesn't do it for money
but for reasons of survival. It's a good idea, a good slant
on the P.I. story. At the same time, it hardly shares any
ground with the "amateur sleuth" story. It's hardboiled
stuff."
Mario, I'm not as convinced that Easy Rawlins is as
groundbreaking a character as you are. It seems to me that
all of his investigations have fallen into one of two
time-honored categories: the unlicensed PI
(much like early Matt Scudder) or the accused man forced to
clear himself because no one else believes in his innocence.
And, of course, the Easy/Mouse, ego/id split follows Parker's
brilliant invention of having a psycho sidekick do the dirty
work so the hero remains, relatively, clean.
That said, I think that Mosley does offer something new by
defining Rawlins' outsider status by race. With white heroes,
being an outsider is a choice, whether the alienation is
defined as being an outlaw, a vigilante or the last honorable
man. Much of the genre revolves around the hero being offered
insider advantages, whichs/he refuses.
Rawlins has no such choices. His outsider status is worn on
the outside for all to see. So most of his investigations
involve his trying to get straight answers in places where
society's insiders are themselves outsiders. In the first
book, he is a white man's surrogate, supposed to find a woman
in places the white man cannot look. Unfortunately for the
white man, Rawlins is not as dumb as he is assumed to
be.
So I don't find Rawlins to be a new type of character.
Instead, I find that the different streets down which he
walks lead to the telling of different types of
stories.
Mark
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