RARA-AVIS: _Solomon's Vineyard_ hard boiled soft core

From: Jay Gertzman ( jgertzma@earthlink.net)
Date: 17 Feb 2004


The hard boiled detective narrator of this classic, Kraven (who is the opposite of cowardly), is so hard to take, especially but not only because of his way of dealing with Black people, that I wonder about Latimer's point of view: was he using Kravin to comment on the moral and emotional compromises one had to make to be successful in this field? The ending aseems to suggest this, as does Kraven's asides ("the poor kid," etc). I read the 1982 re-issue, which was supposed to be complete. But any time a sex scene is about to get to the point where it could have gone further in a pornographic vein (and give prurient readers something really explicit), the scene ends. This was very common practice in soft core erotica from the 20s through the 60s. You just had to pay more for the real hot version. I wonder if somewhere, there is an underground version of _Solomon's Vineyard_ (as was the case with erotica published over the coutner or sent through the mail).

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 Feb 2004 EST