I agree with you. I feel like the onset of the postmodern age
is one of the primary causes
of this new blending of high and low art. Cinema and Warhol
are the two main examples of
this new way of thinking. Film always walks the fine line
between the purest of artistic
motives and the most base, money-grubbing attitude you've
ever seen. Warhol walked a line
as well, between the maligned industrial design industry and
the rarefied air of the NY
underground art scene.
Hard boiled fiction, while mostly falling in the modernist
way of thinking, has always
interested me for the very reasons you mention. There's a
clear lineage to be drawn here,
one that places hardboiled fiction as one of the forerunners
of Postmodernism: Hardboiled
fiction influenced film noir, which in turn played a large
role in spawning the postmodern
age. Chandler was an intellectual that wrote dime paperbacks
chock full of "higher"
literary aspirations, and they sold like gangbusters. I enjoy
finding the intellectual
bits in his work, and it is discouraging to encounter snooty
attitudes when we suggest that
hardboiled fiction is worthy of study as a literary form. I
suggested this in my American
Short Story seminar class in school (seemed like a perfect
environment to me), and my
professor actually gave me the Oates review to read as a
reason why we shouldn't study
Chandler for his style.
I'm sorry for blathering on. I'm just so happy that this list
is active and involving, and
I'd like to contribute any way I can. Happy reading,
everyone! By the way, I just picked
up The Pope of Greenwich Village at a used bookstore. Is it
any good? Anything in
particular I should look for?
Roger
Fred Willard wrote:
> > found.dead.in.texas@airmail.net wrote:
> > >
> > > She . . . was very late and everyone bowed
down like the Queen Mum had arrived. . .
> >She stressed she was a novelist not a "genre"
writer
> >
> >
> >"Robert E. Skinner"
<rskinner@mail.xula.edu> wrote
> > Ouch! What was she doing at Bouchercon? Wasn't
she
> >scared she'd catch something?
> > --
>
> I think this is very interesting. I don't see
anything wrong with
> calling yourself whatever you want. For example, I
prefer the
> category "crime fiction" rather than mystery because
I don't want
> people thinking they are picking up a cozy and
finding bloodshed
> and violence.
>
> But if you are using the term "novelist" to distance
yourself from
> the riff-raff in genre writing, I think the concept
is a bit dated in that
> the avant-garde began embracing popular culture forty
years ago or
> more.
>
> I don't want to get too academic here, particularly
since I don't have
> any academic credentials, but I don't see the
distinctions between
> fine and popular art as being as sharp as they may
have been at
> one time.
>
> Fred
>
> Please note new addresses below:
> ------------------------
> Down on Ponce by Fred Willard
> fwillard@bellsouth.net
>
> http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/~fwillard
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