RARA-AVIS: P. Highsmith, L. Reed
Joshua B Lukin (jblukin@acsu.buffalo.edu)
Fri, 11 Sep 1998 19:00:23 -0400 (EDT)
Hi folks!
I recently took a look at Kermode and Parker's Encyclopaedia
of the
Twentieth-Century Novel and was surprised to find--among the
Heavy-Hitting
Writers of Our Age--at least two citations for Patricia
Highsmith. This
reinforces my impression that in England and elsewhere,
Highsmith is
taken seriously as a literary Modernist while in the U.S. she
tends to be
relegated to the genre of Suspense Novelist. Has there been
any
discussion on this list as to why that is? Any thoughts?
My second question touches on media outside books. If
anyone
objects, I'll retract it. Here goes: Lou Reed, who's been cited
on this
list as an example of a hardboiled or noir songwriter (and
whose work
appears in "The Boy Who Followed Ripley") wrote a song ca. 1970
called
"New Age," which appears on the fourth Velvet Underground
album. It
includes the lines, "Can I have your autograph/He said to the
fat blonde
actress/You know I've seen everything you've done/From "Paths
of Pain" to
"Jewels of Glory"/ And when you kissed Robert Mitchum/ Gee, I
thought that
you would never catch 'im . . . " Does anyone here know whether
that's a
reference to a specific noir film or films and who the actress
in question
might represent?
Deferentially,
Josh Lukin
#
# 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/.