Hello, Bill Hagen and all. You make an interesting point
about academia's
reaction to pop culture. I took a course in detective fiction
at UCSB (U of
Cal at Santa Barbara or U Can Study Buzzed) back in 1985
which featured novels
by Poe, Conan Doyle, Hammett, the guy who wrote Suspicion
(sorry, forgot his
name!), the Continental Op and the Inspector Maigret series,
among others.
Very popular class (about 200 students) and I was taught the
various categories
of detective fiction, hardboiled being one of them. Frankly,
I got a bit of a
hoot from the professors trying to intellectualize what is
essentially
potboiler fiction, in some cases no more profound than your
typical Sidney
Sheldon beach read. But I was grateful for the exposure to
what I consider
really well written fiction. I'd rather read Hammet than
Joyce any day of the
week nor do I consider my tastes pedestrian as a result. I
happen to adore
Shakespeare, too, so I guess my point is, good fiction, as in
beauty, is truly
in the eye of the beholder. Cynthia.
> Popular culture is now a thriving academic industry.
(Mea culpa) Raymond
> Chandler can be found in standard American Literature
survey anthologies.
> Oxford University Press is resurrecting such titles
as Edgar Wallace's _The
> Four Just Men_, Marie
> Belloc Lowndes' _The Lodger_, and George Du Maurier's
_Trilby_, each with a
> respectful introduction, in its Popular Fiction
series.
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