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RARA-AVIS: World War 1
> Regarding WWI and the origins of the term hard-boiled (those tough
> drill instructors), hasn't the case been made that the war helped
> close out the close out the Golden Age of detective fiction (gradually,
> since Golden Age novels are still being written)?
No, WW1 helped to CREATE the Golden Age of Detectivbe Fiction.
Christie, Berkeley, bailey, and others appeared shortly after the
war, with Carr, Queen, and others a bit later. You may be thinking
of World War II, which is often considered (not entirely correctly)
to have ended the Golden Age.
I argue in JOHN DICKSON CARR: THE MAN WHO EXPLAINED MIRACLES that the
British (and some Americans like Carr and Queen) reacted to the loss
of certainty, "the lights going out all over Europe," by creating in
their novels a world stability. Murder disturbs that world, which
is then re-established (and validated) by the solution to the crime.
The new craze for crossword puzzles, board games, elaborate card
games, mah-jongg and so on comes from the same impulse.
The hardboiled private eye of Daly and Hammett was a more American
response. Without the same stable world to look back upon, and with
prohibition placing many cities in the hands of gangsters, the
response was to describe the world as full of mean streets, as
chaotic, with the PI having his own ethics and codes of behavior.
And often being not much better than the crooks he is attacking.
Yes, Carroll John Daly is probably the true progenitor of the
hardboiled PI. You can find one of his stories (the first, I think)
in Bill Nolan's THE BLACK MASK BOYS and another in Bill Pronzini's
THE ARBOR HOUSE TREASURY OF DEETCTIVE AND MYSTERY STORIES FROM THE
GREAT PULPS. Two collections of his stories were issued in trade
paperback by Mysterious Press: THE ADVENTURES SATAN HALL (1988) and
THE ADVENTURES OF RACE WILLIAMS (1989). Most of Daly's work is
filled with crude, vigilante-style bloodletting, but if you're
interested in the origin of the form, you should try him.
Incidentally, BLACK MASK readers seem to have preferred Daly over
Hammett, Chandler, Whitfield, Ballard, Norbert Davis, et al. Hard to
believe--but then WEIRD TALES readers preferred Seabury Quinn over
Lovecraft, Bradbury, Howard, C. A. Smith, Derleth, &c.
Doug
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