An interesting post, Mr. Zackel:
--- Frederick Zackel <
fzackel@wcnet.org> wrote:
> I think I mentioned this before: that I suspect
the
> Lone Wolf mythology
> seems to have exhausted itself.>
> American readers are frightened by the Lone
Wolf.
> Too often the Psychopath
> at the End of the Street -- the quiet guy who
lived
> all alone and never
> bothered anybody -- has the same look.
True, perhaps, but I instinctively distrust these sorts of
sociological meditations on writing. I mean, one could just
as easily say the Lone Wolf mythology is still here, just
clad in different forms (Keaunu Reeves in the Matrix, for
example -- one lone guy who turns out to be the Messiah).
Point being that there's enough stuff in popular culture to
craft whatever argument one wishes to make.
And as I once said, anyway, I think there's more to hb
approach than simply the Lone Wolf (although that's an
important part of it).
>
And
> now we have nostalgic
> PI books written by male college grads who
miss
> adventure in their lives.
> But it's only their fantasy about the Good Old
Days,
> when Men were Men and
> Women were Femme Fatales, and most of them are
not
> familiar with the mean
> streets, but more likely only find themselves
in
> suburban jobs where they're
> surrounded by corporate cubicles of other
cloistered
> eunuchs.
>
> Meanwhile the Lady Dicks aren't nostalgic.
Like
> suffragettes a century ago,
> they're out there on the streets. (Consider
the
> feminist agenda to "Take
> Back the Streets." A meritorious agenda, if I
ever
> heard one, and I wish
> them all the luck in the world at that Labor
of
> Sisyphus!)
Probably accurate, again, although this seems to imply one
should read these female writers out of a sense of duty, or
something. I mean, there is a pleasure principle involved
here. :) My one experience with a female PI writer -- Marcia
Muller's WOLF IN THE SHADOWS -- was not encouraging. As I
said before, I think this is a bad, dull book by a mediocre
writer. I picked it up because people I respect (Ed Gorman in
this case, I think) had written that this was the pick of the
litter. That may or may not be true, but I'm certainly not
going to be picking up any of her brethern anytime
soon.
One could, incidentally, offer different arguments for the
rise of the female PI -- the fact that the majority of book
buyers nowadays are women, for instance.
>
> Right now the Hard-Boiled Hero looks like
a
> candidate for a Spousal Abuse
> Seminar.
You know, I freely admit it -- I have a taste for Macho Male
fantasy. And when I read Crumley -- my favorite writer in the
genre nowadays, I don't go into agonies of political
introspection about it -- I gobble it down and cry for more.
:)
More seriously, we can only really judge past literary
history -- not the present. It's impossible to say, right
now, that "hb is dead" with any degree of accuracy. You
really wait a good number of years and then take a look at
it.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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