>In the wake of Marlowe, virtually all fictional
PIs
>would be:
>
>1) Male
>
>2) American
>
>3) 30 to 40 years old (at least when the
series
>starts)
>
>4) Unmarried (usually single, often
divorced,
>occasionally widowed, but virtually always
unmarried)
>
>5) Ex-cops
>
>6) Who operated a one-man agency
>
>7) Located in a large US city
>
>8) Who told their stories in the first
person.
You might also add a tendency to crack wise and a love for
outrageous similes and metaphors.
But I digress...
Ayway most fictional P.I.s met those conditions even way
before Marlowe came along. The only ones Chandler may have
really had a part in were 5, 6 and 8. And 1,3 and 4 are
pretty much common in ANY heroic fiction, be it Zorro,
Sherlock Holmer, Robin Hood, Batman, The Lone Ranger or Conan
the Barbarian.
What Chandler did do, as Bill pointed out, was popularize
these traits, and lock his vision of the private eye in the
public's mind, for better or worse. But in the last twenty or
thirty years it's been quite exciting and even, yes,
thrilling, to see how many writers are willing to tinker with
almost all of these characteristics. Only 3 and 4 seem to
remain certainties these days, among the more imaginative
writers. And 2 and 7 generally apply only to American
writers.
By the way, you guys are all invited over to my site to cast
your votes for the 2002 CHEAP THRILL AWARDS for the best and
worst in P.I. fiction for this year. Which includes any book
you read this year, which means all those classics from the
20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s count too. And I've got some copies of
Elmore Leonard's latest, WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO
DANCE
Evidently ranting and raving does have its privileges.
--
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.thrillingdetective.com -- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
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