<<It's interesting, too, that both Grafton and Paretsky
have been
brought up in our discussion of Macdonald and his influence
on the
genre. In some ways, Macdonald, by introducing a sort of
liberal (or
maybe leftish?) mindset of tolerance and compassion, and
empathy for the
innocent, opened up the genre, and paved the way for the
thirty-two
flavors of eyes we now have.>>
Me:
At the risk of sounding like a cantankerous party-pooper, let
me say
that Macdonald cannot be credited with introducing such a
mindset of
tolerance and compassion in hardboiled P.I. fiction. The
Archer of the
first period had no such qualities - he was an exagerated
Marlowe, a
hard and cynical, wisecracking tough guy.
On the other hand, Thomas B. Dewey (for example, in his 1953
classic,
_Every Bet's a Sure Thing_, in which Mac deals with two small
children)
featured a humane and caring detective long before Macdonald
made Archer
human -- the latter transformation was apparently the result
of
Macdonald's own crisis and psychotherapy. Notice also that
the remodeled
Archer is a jinx and a doomster -- he brings ruin to everyone
involved.
Another author who (I think) preceded Macdonald in
introducing an
anti-stereotypical, fully human detective is William Campbell
Gault with
his Brock "The Rock" Callahan series, one of my favorite P.I.
series.
Callahan has a personal life, has a normal relationship with
women (a
steady girlfriend, who would later become his wife), has
friends, is not
a ball of anger and repression, and overall has a healthy
attitude
towards people and towards himself.
To be continued, obviously...
Regards, and it looks like this month's unofficial topic is
Ross
Macdonald. He must have done something right to make people
talk so
much.
mt
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