RARA-AVIS: 1st/3rd person narratives
BaxDeal@aol.com
Sun, 25 Apr 1999 14:21:49 EDT
I was under the impression James Crumley's THE LAST GOOD KISS
might have been
written in the 3rd person, but grabbing it off my shelf, was
proved wrong.
funny how the memory fades with age and drug abuse.
interestingly however, Crumley's BORDERSNAKES, which has been
stuck in heavy
rush hour traffic in my "to read" pile seems to be written in
the first
person, with 2 separate narrators, Good Kiss's C.W. Sughrue and
THE WRONG
CASE's Milo Mildragovitch.
this is a narrative style I've come across in other, none genre
works of
fiction, but one not widely exploited in detective fiction, in
which the 1st
person narrative is largely predominant.
thinking back, I now realize how I'd come to my mistaken
impression re: The
Last Good Kiss. my first exposure to the material was the
excellent
screenplay adaptation written by Walter Hill, a fairly
hardboiled filmmaker
when he isn't cranking out studio fare in order to keep his
career going.
Hill's underappreciated JOHNNY HANDSOME is a good example,
starring the much
maligned Mickey Rourke, tough as nails Ellen Barkin, world
weary Morgan
Freeman and escaped from hell Lance Henriksen. story follows
facially
disfigured, low life petty criminal who, after plastic surgery
has a chance
to live a new life and instead reverts to criminal ways and
ultimately the
revenge that spells his own doom.
Freeman's cop, who allows Rourke's hood to go off and exact
that revenge,
stands over the bleeding to death Johnny Handsome and sighs the
last line
which dropkicks this dark tale smack into the realm of noir:
"That doctor
didn't understand about that last part, did he, Johnny?"
few people do.
BD/jl
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