Re: RARA-AVIS: Sensitive detectives


Joseph M. Johnston (johnston@netreach.net)
Sat, 4 Dec 1999 11:12:27 -0500


On 30 Nov 99, at 14:29, Doug Bassett wrote:

>
> The more I think about it, the more I think that this
> debate about sensitive detectives is really a debate
> about the popularity of sensitive detectives. It's not
> that there isn't hardboiled stuff being published
> nowadays -- recent postings here have pointed out many
> authors. Why, though, is the "sensitive" detective so
> popular now?
>
This is an interesting point. Some subplots can also add quite a bit to a story if there is a good reason for them being there. I would be interested in people's opinion of Walter Mosley's use of subplots in his Easy Rawlings books.

I read them in order and found the subplots usually pushed the plot rather than just sat there or at least enhanced the setting which pushed the plot. In those stories Rawlings has a lot of internal musings which show some sensitive guy tendencies, but they also seem to to be driven by the events of the plot tumbling on top of him.

I wonder if some would argue that Easy Rawlings wasn't harbioled because the events of the plot took over so much and made him appear to lose control of things so often.
========================================================= Joseph M. Johnston, Ph.D. johnston@netreach.net

--
# 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 Sat 04 Dec 1999 - 11:12:46 EST