RARA-AVIS: Jim Thompson

To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Jim Thompson
From: etienne@singnet.com.sg (Etienne Borgers)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 13:09:00 +0800 (SST)
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One of the participants, BaxDeal@aol.com , wrote:

>Likewise Jim Thompson has undergone a critical resurgence owing in no small
>part to Hollywood's rediscovery of him.  He's done some good work, but a lot
>of hack stuff.  For my money, he's similar to, but not nearly as good as
>James M. Cain.  DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE were both
>written in the same year and stand as templates for the modern noir tale.
> 

I think it will be more fair to all, including Jim Thompson, to just
recognize the fact that he is a writer you do not like...
There is no point to oppose him against James Cain, the latter being
certainly one of the great Noir writers as well. Thompson is as valuable in
that genre, but he is of another breed with another kind of cynicism in his
novels, when compared to Cain. 
Maybe is it Thompson's cruel black humor (something totally absent in James
Cain's work) that makes it difficult to accept on your side?
Thompson is amongst the greatest American writers of the genre, even if we
can point out some of his novels that were not on par.

Do we really have to list here his masterpieces and top novels?

E.Borgers

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