RARA-AVIS: Getting Sentimental

Bill Hagen (billha@ionet.net)
Wed, 20 May 1998 23:44:45 -0500 (CDT) Interesting thread on Ellroy, sentiment and sentimentalism. I too first
thought of "Torch Song," but Duane's post mentioning other detectives and
femme fatales reminds me of Buzz Meeks' fatal attraction for Mickey Cohen's
current girl, Audrey, in the middle of _The Big Nowhere_. I don't expect
it to turn out well (still reading), but it has sentiment that can't be
concealed by the irony and just plain lust that are also there. Meeks
realizes how stupid the whole scene is, even imagines his own epitaph, yet
goes ahead, seems to commit.

It's always seemed to me that the best hard-boiled voices are not just
cynical or amused by it all. They have an undertone of disappointment, of
a loss of something or someone that could modulate into sentimentalism if
they ever let up. I've always read the conclusive kiss-off of Brigid
O'Shaughnessy, for instance, as more self-denial than sadistic (regardless
of where Bogart took it). And I always liked Dick Powell's Marlowe in
_Murder, My Sweet_, in part because he manages to express a hurt behind the
wise cracks.

Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>

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