That's okay, 'cause when I said ... "The easily offended
should stick with cozies anyway ... no use offending their
delicate sensibilities with reality." I didn't mean that
cozies weren't real or realistic, just that they do not have
the same graphic realism that HB has. A prostitute in a cozy
would be a high-priced call girl along the lines of a
historical courtesan vice in HB where the average prostitute
would probably appear as a crack whore (not to say that
prostitutes are limited to that ... Lawrence Block in "The
Sins of the Fathers" deals with a call girl / escort type of
prostitute vice a common street walking lady of negotiable
affection with a taste for coca puffs).
The UK has a significantly smaller population than even CONUS
America ... but let's take a peek at The Sunday Times (I
assume that is an acceptable equivalent to the Pravda on the
Potomac?) ... and considering the headline, I'm already in
trouble ... the post lead with a lady's sporting
article:
Paedophile
Homes to be Raided
Walking a
thin blue line (Two men were murdered at this year's Notting
Hill carnival.)
Police call
up the cardboard cops
Parents cheat
in school appeals
Hidden bombs
spark hunt for lone terrorist
Breath test
to sink the drunken sailor
Tea house
tips for hardened drinkers
Lawyers sue
gardai over 'phone taps'
Dublin takes
to the skies in fight against street crime
Eircom hacker
'has cracked RTE' (17 year old schoolboy)
Weapons body
in row over hotel bugging
Smurfit staff
'stay silent' in murder case
Mafia moves
in as Pompeii gets £25m facelift
... well, in quantity we appear to be the same ... but
quality? ;) Crime doesn't happen so irregularly in the US
that the novelty of it makes it appear in our media ... blood
sells is what makes crime the primary news that we get. But
that doesn't change the fact that the crime occurred and it
may have occurred to someone you don't know, it may have
occurred to you, or someone you work with. There was a survey
that reported an alarmingly number of people will either be a
victim of a crime or that some one close to them will be a
victim of crime. My mother had a pipe bomb attached to her
car after she tried to unionize her fellow waitpersons at a
restaurant whose owner had ties with the mob so I've already
made my statistic ... a few times over if you include the
family friend who was convicted of rape and whose police
chase ended in my bedroom where the police found him hiding
under my brother and I's bean bag chair. I'd like to say that
I was unique, but after having traveled the US and with ten
years serving in the military with Americans from across the
country it just ain't so. The exception are those who haven't
not those who have.
-- volente Deo,
Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
"If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will." -Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Hardboiled http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Routledge Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 12:20 PM
Anthony
I don't think I argued that the things described in hb fiction don't happen, just that they don't happen to many people and even in big bad America they don't happen that often - that's why they make the headlines. Your headlines could apply equally to any day in the UK, too, by the way: the trial of Dr. Harold Shipman finished a few months ago. He was convicted of (I think) twenty murders, but is thought to have finished off at least a hundred of his patients, some of them in his surgery with others waiting outside his office. But when was the last time you saw a newspaper report along the lines of "All but three people in Atlanta not murdered today" or "Doctor is caring and compassionate professional"? There is a tendency I think for the press to overplay the risks: a report a few years ago noted that Americans are more likely to die a violent death in the suburbs than in the city itself - mostly in traffic accidents. So I just don't buy the idea that hb fiction is any more realistic (for most people) than the cozies, which aren't very - I still love reading it, though. There might even be an advantage in scaring us (Pravda of the Potomac may not be so far from the truth): remember Chandler's point that "A tired scared man can't afford ideals, he has to buy food for his family".
As for the English village: I live in one that has grown to a suburb because people wanted that kind of life. A certain number still behave as if it exists: we have a Bobby on the beat, a vicar who walks up the road in his cassock to a church where the bells ring on Sunday morning, a post office where people go to gossip, and a drug problem at the local school. Er, scratch that last bit.
None of this matters, of course: literature only really works when you disregard questions of verisimilitude :)
Cheers Chris
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