I'm about half way through Leo Malet's first, 120 Rue de
Gare, from 1943. I'm really enjoying it, but I have a few
questions:
The little bio in the front of the Pan translation wrote: "In
1943, inspired by the American writers Raymond Chandler and
Dashiell Hammett, he created Nestor Burma, . . ." How well
distributed were Hammett and Chandler in France? Sure,
Hammett came out earlier, but Chandler's first novel, The Big
Sleep, came out in 1939. Did it really get translated and
distributed in France at the beginning of the war? The book
talks a lot about rationing. Wasn't paper rationed, too? Did
the pulps with Chandler's earlier stories make it to
France?
There is also a gap in Malet's bio between 1940 and 1943. Was
he, perhaps, a POW as his hero is at the beginning of this
book?
Finally, is there really a rue Alfred-Jarry in Lyon? Or is it
just a former surrealist's nod to the author of the Ubu plays
(one of which was much later adopted as the name of the great
punk band Pere Ubu)? I mean a major plot point revolves
around the bibliography of another surrealist favorite, the
Marquis de Sade.
Mark
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