juri wrote:
> There is the aspect of the
> corrupt city in almost every hardboiled/noir
book/film, but there is
> also the healing aspect of nature, e.g. in "The
Asphalt Jungle".
That's not just hb-/noir; I think that's part of a more
general tendency in modernism: eg, Lawrence's city is 'the
great wrong place' while the country is presented as
idyllic.
> But I found that John G. Cawelti says that the plot
of "The Dain
> Curse" is straight from "The Mysteries of Udolpho"!
Comments, anyone.
Well DC twists and draws on the supernatural like a great
gothic thing. I don't know Udolpho (if I ever did I've
forgotten it!) but the thing that really struck me about DC
was its gothic quality.
FWIW, I think Hammett places the 'clues' in Falcon so
cleverly as to make the cosiest of cosy writers curl up and
die [it was kind of a shame they didn't]. All that and h-b
too ;-)
ED
-- # 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 2b29 : 08 Feb 2000 EST