The private eye novel hero, at least as drawn by Chandler and
all his
followers, can also be traced back to such earlier prototypes
as Shane and
the Wyatt Earp myth (hired guns who clean up a bad town-see
Red Harvest)
and even further back to James Fenimore Cooper's Nathaniel
"Hawkeye" Bumpo
(you know, Last of the Mohicians, The Deerslayer, etc.)
Picture Natty, the
solitary man of honour in a dangerous world, daring to speak
the truth
"consarnin' you or any man that lived." And who do ya think
taught Holmes
about those darn footprints?
Of course, once you start tracing influences, it's hard to
stop. More than
one critic has suggesting that all Cooper was trying to do
with his
Leatherstocking Tales was recast the heroic romance tradition
(not the
kiss-kiss Harlequin type, I mean stuff like the Arthurian
legends,
Spenser's Faerie Queene, knights, honour, chivalry, etc.) in
an American
setting. And if you look at the hardboiled detective novel,
the hero's code
really hasn't changed that much. It's still more or less: the
world may
suck but you're supposed to protect the innocent, defend your
honour, do
the right thing. All that "Down these mean streets a man must
go, neither
tarnished or afraid..." stuff that Chandler wrote in The
Simple Art of
Murder.
Next week: we deconstruct The Simpson's as Greek myth via The
Honeymooners.
Kevin Smith
Web Guy for The Thrilling Detective Web Site
For info, mailto:kvnsmith@total.net
"Well, I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you
over/But that'll
pass..."
- Seeing the Real You at Last (Bob Dylan, via Dashiell
Hammett)
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