I read a couple of books that originally were published in
the 40's:
The Buterfly - This is the first book by James M. Cain I have
ever read. I liked it. I guesss it could be called rural
noir. Jess Tyler, who lives in a Kentucky valley, has lived a
limited but God and the law observing life since his wife
took their two young daughters and left him for another man.
His life changes when his older daughter, now grown up and
very attractive comes to live with him. He lusts after her
and allows her to persuade him to break the law. As he he
loses his values he invitably declines.
In the preface Cain writes of the research he started over
twenty years before for this book. He denies being influenced
by others stating, " I Have read less tan twenty pages of Mr
Dashiell Hammett in my life." and "I owe no debt, beyond the
pleasure his books have given me, to Mr. Ernest
Hemingway."
The Big Clock - This is neither hard boiled nor noir. It
seems more an attack on magazines like TIME than a believable
mystery. The protagonist, George Stroud, is put in charge of
investigating a murder for which he should be the most likely
suspect using the magazine's resources. Even though he tries
to sabotage his investigation, it seems to find out more
information than the police. While the ending supposedly
would remove all suspicion from him, I don't think it would.
Mark
-- # 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/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Dec 2002 EST