---
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote:
>> While we like to think hardboiled is more
realistic
> than more cozy
> genres (highly debatable), I for one want myth
as
> much as reality in my
> PI novels. I do require a certain
verisimilitude,
> but that has as much,
> if not more, to do with internal consistency than
it
> has to do with
> external validity.
>
> Mark
I think this is exactly right. I was sideswiping something
like this when I briefly touched on Stanley Ellin's THE
EIGHTH CIRCLE here and mentioned that Ellin's "realism" now
seems pretty dated.
I don't think people are really looking for "realism",
anyway. While it's true that the busy little forensic details
of "CSI" and similar shows seem to be part of their appeal,
and while there's always been a small diehard group of fans
obsessed with authenticity in their police procedurals and
the like, in general I think people look to fiction to escape
their reality.
So if the PI's run is really up, I don't think it has
anything to do with him/her not being "realistic" anymore.
Never mind what "real" PIs do: at heart the fictional PI is
an incarnation of the traditional American hero --
individualistic to the point of isolation, deeply moralistic,
violent, stoic, a Romantic, etc. That figure will probably
stick around as long as there's an America.
Now, whether it'll be incarnated ever again as the
traditional "I get a hundred bucks plus expenses" and a
bottle in the bottom desk drawer is hard to say. My guess is
that he/she will probably be back again in a big way, but not
for awhile. My guess is that we're living through an
unsettled age and a PI needs to be in a settled time, since
his/her whole raison d etre is to confront the corruption
that undergirds the seeming stability. (This is the same
reason why spy fiction, my other major interest, has somewhat
receded as of late. It too is predicated on stability.)
Actually, as I type this, it strikes me that this is an age
for horror (and we do see a lot of horror efforts in pop
culture nowadays) and, strangely, the Western. If somebody
could reconceive the Western to speak to these times, they'd
probably make a killing.
doug
Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 18 Feb 2006 EST