Re: RARA-AVIS: Mosley's colors

From: Robert Elkin ( rictusaporia@yahoo.com)
Date: 24 Jul 2005


Re Easy Rawlins: The first three tomes formulate the so-called colors of freedom, blue/red/white; we then get into colors denied freedom, black/yellow...green = $, of course, as well as growth potential, etc. I disbelieve the late realization of the use of color, here. Rob

--- Karin Montin < kmontin@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> I read Devil in a Blue Dress a few years ago, but it
> has always bothered me that Daphne is not a devil,
> yet she is demonized by the title. My impression is
> that Rawlings started with a song references and
> went from there. I think I read somewhere that he
> only realized the colour angle after publishing
> several titles.
>
> As I have mentioned before, I found the plot in this
> book and the two others by Mosely that I've read to
> be full of holes, though it's been too long for me
> to provide any examples. In this book there is a lot
> of confusion around a couple of characters named
> Green. Any colour symbolism in that escapes me.
>
> Karin
>
> At 10:34 24/07/05 -0400, Jay Gertzman wrote:
> >I have just read Mosely's first Easy Rawlings
> novel, _Devil in a Blue
> >Dress_. I have read that Daphne, the woman referred
> to in the title, is
> >associated with various colors, not only blue but
> green, brown, white,
> >etc. She is of mixed parentage, and has powers of
> universal femininity.
> >It is puzzling to think about her as either a devil
> or a femme fatale.
> >But Mosley makes her a complex and probably
> archetypal character,
> >although I am not clear on all the implications. I
> notice that many of
> >the Rawlings novels have one color each in the
> title. I wonder if
> >Mosely's treatment, not so much of race but of
> behavior patterns of
> >Americans interacting with race and class, is not
> an example of how
> >flexible the noir crime novel is (Charyn,
> Hendricks, Mailer, Paretsky,
> >Burroughs).
>
>

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