1. Back to Auster: I read Leviathan and thought it was just
fair.
Auster seems pretty attached to his own literary devices for
their own
sake (a type of hyper mannerism, I suppose). The true
hardboiled, I
might hazard, is much less introspective/self-involved (not
to be
confused with less intelligent).
2. Jameson: Someone pointed out that Fredric Jameson, the
Marxist
critic at Duke, writes about Chandler. He has, I think, a few
pieces on
Chandler (and some stuff on the noirish Blue Velvet). One of
Jameson's
Chandler bits is in a pretty good book called _Shades of
Noir_, though
Jameson's piece isn't so good. There's a better piece on
Cornell
Woolrich and the city.
3. "Dreams are made on" Someone asked about this quotation.
I'll stick
my neck out and say it must be Shax. (Prospero in The Tempest
maybe?)
4. Frank Denton noticed the cigarette-rolling detail in TMF.
I'm not
re-reading it now, but I recall a friend pointing out that
that
description (I assume it is the same one) comes right when
Spade finds
out that Archer is dead (we just hear Spade's side of the
dialogue "Dead
you say?" etc. or some such). Thus we get some of Spade's
reaction to
his partner's death telegraphed through his attention to the
cigarette's
detail (he seems a bit more concerned with that
cigarette).
Much talk of San Francisco, from which I just returned. Not
just good
restaurants and atmosphere, but great bookstores (much better
than most
of the eastern seaboard stuff I've seen). Here's what I got;
I'd be
interested in hearing if some of these titles should be
skipped for
better works by the same author (e.g. is the Gault work I
found
representative of his best work): D. Raymond, He Died With
His Eyes
Open; M. Collins, Freak; M. Byrd, Fly Away Jill; Wm. C.
Gault, Day of
the Ram; Francis Carco, Perversity (a pre-vintage Black
Lizard); R. E.
Alter, Carny Kill (also pre-vintage Black Lizard); R.
Whitfield, The
Virgin Kills; F. Brown, The Lenient Beast; H. Browne The
Taste of Ashes,
Halo in Brass (D. McMillan editions).
After, I got my copy of Halo, I found another one in a
different shop
signed by Browne for 6 bucks. Anyone interested can call the
proprietor
at Amadeus Books, 510-284-2665 (3467 Golden Gate Way,
Lafayette, CA
94549).
Finally, on the trip, I read Howard Browne's Thin Air. Found
it
disappointing. It's sort of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
does the
hardboiled thing. On the other hand, I read another book that
I liked
much more: Philip Kerr's March Violets. Has anyone read this
book? It
has one plot problem and a somewhat weak ending, but
otherwise is very
strong. The PI is a Marlowe-like figure (except he has sex
twice),
wise-cracking, etc. doing the Chandler thing (rich
industrialists,
holding out for clients, etc), all in pre-war Nazi Germany.
This
setting prevents its hardboiledness from seeming purely
nostalgic for
the Chandler mode. It's derivative, but pretty well written.
Can
anyone comment on Kerr's other work?
Sorry for all the wind.
Doug Levin
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