Jim Blue wrote:
"Because the former [Scudder's blackouts] rises from a battle
with personal demons, a hard boiled theme as old as the
genre, while the latter [Gennaro's being abused] violates
even Sam Spade's oft repeated motto, "I won't play the sap
for you."
Jim, leaving aside the question of whether or not Gennaro is
hardboiled
(I accept that by your definition she's not), do you really
think accepting, even excusing physical abuse does not also
rise from personal demons? And while the struggle with it may
be internal until the moment comes to face the oppressor, is
it really that different from the struggle to face
alcoholism? Scudder does not have a single incident that led
him to be a drunk. Shooting the kid may have led to his final
plunge into the bottle, but he was already on the diving
board. He was drunk when he shot the kid. So I fail to see
how Scudder was not playing the sap to the bottle throughout
the books before Eight Million Ways to Die.
Mark
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