This is why I started thinking about the whole question of
the 1st person
narrator. Unlike Holmes or Dupin, the private dick puts us in
the middle
of the mystery, rather than sitting like Watson in the dark
and in awe of
Holmes' method, revealed after the mystery is over. That puts
the action
in your lap, moves it out of "stuffy drawing rooms" that
Chandler talked
about in the "Simple Art of Murder."
And the first person perspective (or the 'Maltese Falcon' 3rd
person where
we only see what Spade sees) forces us to organize (I think)
more than
discover meaning (like a Watson-reader).
So in 'Killer Inside Me,' the first person lets us think the
way his
crazy cop narrator does, just like we follow Marlowe's
ethics. But nobody
ever mentions the detective perspective and first-person
switch, or at
least I haven't read too much that talks about it.
Does that make any sense, or am I looking in the wrong place?
I think
hardboiled style might depend on it. Maybe's it's hard to
think of
examples of omniscient third person narrators because its
important to be
immersed in a hardboiled setting and to see it from the
perspective of the
hardboiled hero.
Thanks for listening. I've just started thinking about it, so
disagree
with me, please!
Jason Boog
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