I agree with Mario and Doug that Colin's summary of the
amoral PI probably applies far more to Spade than Marlowe. If
getting paid alone were an indication of lack of morality,
remember, priests and ministers get paid (and child molester
stereotypes of crime fiction, aside, I'm willing to believe
most probably strive to be as moral as a frail human sinner
can be).
However, Doug brings up an interesting question about whether
or not hardboiled is as "fake" as any other genre. I'm with
him in thinking it is. Otherwise, why would it have to be
remade so regularly?
In the beginning, Hammett gave murder back to those who did
it for a reason. This break was with the cozy. However, there
have been numerous breaks within hardboiled, as each new
generation claims the genre's mainstream has become just as
bourgeois as the cozy, all about returning order to society.
So Spillane brings new levels of sex and violence. Later
Ellroy brings new levels of violence and amorality to the
hero. And on and on. Ultimately, though, they are simply
coming up with new conventions of realism to replace the old.
The core remains much the same. The breaks seem to always be
on the same axes of sex and violence and seem to have more to
do with its presentation than with its real place in the real
world.
We are reading a fictional genre, not true crime (not
claiming that the literature of true crime is not a genre of
its own).
Mark
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