At 05:46 PM 17/08/2007, you wrote:
>Are you serious or just yanking my chain?
>
>JIM DOHERTY
As for yanking your chain, well yeah, I do kind of get a kick
out of observing how the human imagination, and practically
everything else come to think of it, defies the human
compulsion for categorization.
If we're talking crime writing, I'm just opening the door to
speculation on the nature of crime, which I think spying
does. The question has risen on the list before about where
modern noir and hardboil might be headed. Consideration of
this question might lead to some ideas about this. I suspect
there may be a number of books we might not think of
traditionally as crime-writing but would fit into the
category if we consider the actual nature of
crime-writing.
I note that most responses have provided examples of spying
at home, which is of course a crime. When other countries spy
in our country it is a crime, though occasionally special
conditions exist. We have laws regarding this sort of thing.
But what about our country spying in other countries? What
about depictions of behaviour you and I might consider
criminal, set in parts of the world where the rule of law
does not exist? Is this crime-writing?
Just as a lot of books described as Mysteries do not use the
device of mystery (many police procedurals begin by revealing
the criminal's identity- the motivating question being how
they are caught) and there may be mysteries outside the genre
(who is the protagonist's secret lover.) Do we have a
category of crime novels that do not, technically, involve a
crime, and if so, why are they in the genre while other books
that do not involve a crime are not? Convention can be
re-considered. That's the purpose of many conventions.
You reply with numbers, mostly. My question would be, what
crime is committed in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold?
(Seriously, it's been a long time since I read it.)
Regarding numbers, any statement that begins with "everyone
knows" means that something untrue quickly follows.
Everyone knows that, Kerry
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evil men do lives after them http://www.murderoutthere.com
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