Michael Sharp wrote:
> jess wrote:
>
> >This is a different definition of "golden age"
than the one I'm used to,
> obviously. A "golden age" is a time when >things
were better, and I really
> don't believe that
> >Ellroy--or most of us, for that matter--think
that things were better
> during the 1940s.
>
> >If you mean "golden age" in terms of publishing,
sure. But that isn't the
> context in which the original poster >alleged
Ellroy's affection for the
> 1940s and 1950s.
>
> Depends what you mean by "things." "Things" were
better, I think,
> writing-wise.
Just to make myself excessively clear, when I said "things" I
meant life in general, as opposed to writing and publishing.
Perhaps the 1940s and 1950s were a Golden Age for publishing
and writing
(although I have to wonder at the percentage of profits
writers made from their work then as opposed to now, and at
what rights they retained to their work), but in terms of
society as a whole, I very much doubt that.
> And while I'm sure not many people have some burning
desire
> to return to and live in the middle of the 20th
century, I do think the
> whole impulse to read hardboiled fiction today is
permeated with nostalgia.
> I think the aesthetic of earlier times, the brands
of masculinity, the
> pre-electronic hands-on-ness of the time ... some
combo of these things
> *is* appealing to lots of readers, I think. Not all
of them, not for me
> anyway, but writers and film makers simply would not
keep returning to the
> 30s-50s if there weren't something in them that held
appeal for people. In
> Ellroy and Mosley, Chinatown and LA Confidential,
desire for some
> "original" hardboiled moment is everywhere in
contemporary hb culture. Not
> good, not bad, necessarily, just there.
But, again, you're mixing the appeal of that moment with
nostalgia, which is, I repeat, a privileging of that
moment.
I can certainly see why writers choose the 30s-50s; there's
an aesthetic about that time and place, in terms of the
perceived style
(of fashion and dialogue) and the historical and cultural
resonances of those decades, that is undeniably appealing.
Those were the years when Bogie defined cool, and when cars
were big and low-slung and looked mean and fast. But to see
those years as the Golden Age for anything but writing and
publishing is to want to return to those years, to see those
decades as being superior to our own. And there I disagree
with you. I just don't think more than a small handful of
fans or writers really thinks that life in the 1930s-1950s
was better than life is today. I think people might be
nostalgic about individual aspects of those decades--clothes
and dialogue, again--but I don't think they see the entire
age as a Golden Age. Not really.
jess--and if they do they aren't thinking things
through
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