RARA-AVIS: I'll try to be nice...

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@colba.net)
Tue, 11 Aug 1998 14:04:54 -0500 >Who's dismissing a book because of the gender of the author?
>Don't go putting words in anyone's mouth ... that would be dumber.

Well, don't worry about it then. I certainly didn't intend to put words in
anyone's mouth. But the fact is some people do discriminate against a book
because of the gender of the author (and women do it too). Okay, maybe
they're not dumb, but it's certainly not the most intelligent criteria for
choosing a book. I would hope the books we discuss on here (or film or
television or comics or whatever) fit some vague definition of hardboiled
crime fiction, at least, but I for one don't care about the writer's
gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual preference or show size. Hell,
I even enjoy books by guys whose politics I don't agree with. In fact, I
enjoy reading hardboiled and/or private eye books from all sorts of
writers. The big criteria is that they're entertaining, and maybe,
occasionally, make me think. It makes me appreciate the genre more.

I'm currently reading a book about a Barcelona private eye, Murder in The
Central Committee, by Manuel Vasquez Montalban, translated from Spanish,
and it's a whole new world, gastronomically and politically. Half the time,
I don't know whether to get hungry or start humming the Internationale...
has anyone else read this guy?

If this list ever degenerates to the point where the only books we discuss
are by dead alcoholic white male Americans, I'm outta here...

And despite some pop psychobabble psychologist's catchy little title, most
of the men and women I know are from Earth...But you are right, the experts
don't agree. On anything.

Sorry, by the way, for sounding like a lost verse from "We Are The World"...

**************************************************
Kevin Smith
It's summertime, and the living is cheesy...What are you reading this summer?
Tell us in this month's P.I. Poll on The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.