At 18:49 01-08-03 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm now reading Jean-Patrick Manchette's The Prone
Gunman (thanks to
>whoever recommended it on the list). This features a
very effective
>clipped, just-the-facts writing style. I never would
have questioned
>the translation if I hadn't just read the Brit
translation of Malet. I
>wonder how true this is to Manchette's style in
French. I can see the
>Hammett in the statement "Manchette was influenced as
much by Guy Debord
>as by Dashiell Hammett," but not the Debord. Of
course, the Debord
>reference is probably more an allusion to Manchette's
generation and
>worldview, than some situationist writing style. As
far as that goes,
>except for the occasional cultural reference, I
didn't see much evidence
>of Malet's surrealist background in his book
either.
>
>Mark
Manchette's style is quite "behaviorist" and his novels are
never padded with unnecessary text. I did'nt read the
translations, so I cannot tell you how faithful to
Manchette's style it was. Because there's a real style in his
writing but it always stays efficient and "thrifty".
Reference to Debord's is to be understood as influences on
his ideas, not on his style. Debord's situationism, very much
in favor during the 60's and 70's by some intellectual
circles (and May 68 uprising students) was advocating (under
others) the direct action by the "phagocyting" of any
existing communication media by using their own methods,
channels, and even tones, also their existing distribution
and audiences, to spread ideas that were not the commonly
admitted ones, without doing real propaganda. In Manchette's
own views, he was applying the situationist method to the
noir/NB novel taking the opportunity to defend "gauchiste"
ideas and ethics(leftist in the French senses- not in the
general sense of this word). But he was first a writer, and
my personal view is that his talent made that noir literature
was finally "phagocyted" him...
And if you did'nt read THREE TO KILL yet, that's the next one
by Manchette you should read.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
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