Bob Toomey (btoomey@javanet.com)
Wed, 01 Dec 1999 02:57:07 -0500
Doug Bassett wrote:
> Why, though, is the "sensitive" detective
so
> popular now?
Sensitive times, sensitive guys. Tough times, tough guys.
Naw, too simplistic. How about this? Women like sensitive
guys and men can tolerate them up to a point, as long as
they're not crybabies, so you expand your market by appealing
to both. Naw, too cynical. Just say it's the search for
variations on Chandler and Hammett, the archetypes. Phillip
Marlowe had his sensitive moments, maybe even a bit
oversensitive in "The Long Goodbye," and the Continental Op
was looking distinctly soft by "The Dain Curse." Some of the
followers tilt that way, some tilt more to the wisenheimer
side.
Mostly they do Chandler because he's easier to imitate and
carries a literary cachet. Hammet is harder to follow.
Hammett had been there. Eventually he forgot that and wrote
"The Thin Man." This is the one that got copied, spawning an
entire subgenre of screwball married couples tripping over
corpses between the martinis. Nobody's even come close to
doing Sam Spade.
No, blame Chandler: "Down these mean streets a man must go
who is not himself mean." Hear that often enough and all the
meanness can just leak right out of a guy, and the next thing
you know she's sleuthing for an enviornmental group or
attending AA meetings and studying feng shui. Hell, maybe it
is the times.
BobT
-- # 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 01 Dec 1999 - 02:50:48 EST