Etienne Borgers (freeweb@rocketmail.com)
Wed, 23 Jun 1999 03:51:12 -0700 (PDT)
I totally agree with Mark's deconstruction of this now
current trend, heir of Gothic and gore: the psycho serial
killer novel.
Besides Chandler's essay on crime writing, I suggest that
Colin Watson's essay on British crime literature becomes also
compulsary reading for any would-be member of this list to be
accepted... Will facilitate to give a definition of what is
NOT hard-boiled.
Hannibal is certainly not hard-boiled, not noir... just
gorish. That people like it does not change the issue.
Serial killer is to hard-boiled novel what special effects
explosions are to crime movies: a nuisance.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
---Mark Sullivan <AnonymeInc@webtv.net>
wrote:
>
> A few ideas I've been thinking about
lately:
>
> Raymond Chandler once famously wrote:
>
> "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of
people
that commit it for
> reasons, not just to provide a corpse: and with
the
means at hand, not
> with hand-wrought duelling pistols, curare,
and
tropical fish."
>
> Somehow, I think too many writers have gotten
away
from that treatise
> and I think the increased reliance on
serial
killers as villains is
> largely to blame.
(HEAVILY SNIPPED)
> So I guess what I'm saying is, serial killer
books
are merely cozies
> dipped in blood.
>
> Mark
>
_________________________________________________________ DO
YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 23 Jun 1999 - 06:58:23 EDT