Unfortunately, because I'm on the digest, I usually have to
wait two days
to reply to replies to me, so sometimes I seem to be ignoring
a reply.
T'aint necessarily so..
.Also, Marie seems to be replying to a message that wasn't on
the list.
Seems I woulda remembered the "pecksniffs and dogmatists who
would ding my
helmet" line. Does this mean our old pal Mr. Lance (under a
new ID?) is
back?
Good call on Ellroy's American Tabloid, John. I forgot about
Ellroy's
books. Definitely worth the paper they're printed on,
although, like I said
before, many 300+ crime novels aren't. And thanks for your
support, (I'm
off to rummage), and now, Ed, let's talk...
Was Sam Spade a bit light in the gumshoes? I took a night
course in mystery
fiction at a local C.E.G.E.P. (community college, I guess), a
few years
back, and, while much of the class seemed barely able to
read, there were a
few fans in the group (I'm still not sure about the teacher-I
think she had
ideas that it would be an "easy" course). Anyway, a few of us
got into this
big discussion about whether Marlowe was gay. One guy
suggested the usual
clues: Marlowe refusing to sleep with Carmen, trashing the
bed after she
leaves, his general refusal to sleep with women in the early
books, etc.,
etc. The teacher started noticing eyes rolling over, and
squashed the blab.
We continued at break, though, and someone else suggested
Spade was also
gay, or more specifically bi. Evidently this guy had found a
bunch of clues
in the text, and went on to fill us in on the details.
Unfortunately, I
can't remember all of them. Anyway, it seems the "When you're
slapped" line
had sexual connotations (I guess now it would be called the
bitch-slapping
scene). Also, Spade's coldness to Iva and Brigid, and his
homophobic
taunting (masks homesexual tendencies, ya know) of Cairo and
Wilmer were
suggested.
Now, I've been around long enough to know that if you start
deconstructing,
you can prove anything, so I'm not necessarily agreeing with
the thesis.
Cases have been made lately for the supposed homosexuality of
all sorts of
literary and historical figures, everyone from Tarzan to
Hamlet to Hitler
to Columbus to Bert and Ernie to who knows who. But it seems
like an awful
lot of work, when there's already some pretty good,
openly-gay detectives
already (Joseph Hansen's tough, terse Dave Brandstetter
series is one of
the best hardboiled series around, gay or straight, and
nobody has to
present evidence to figure out where ol' Dave's preferences
lie).
But it is sort of fun to play around with these notions. Can
anyone else
out there suggest any other "proof"?
Kevin Smith
Web Guy for The Thrilling Detective Web Site
For info, mailto:kvnsmith@total.net
"You wanna talk to me, go ahead and talk"
Bob Dylan, via Sam Spade, in "Tight Connection To My
Heart"
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