--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jimdohertyjr"
<jimdohertyjr@...> wrote:
>
> Doug,
>
> Re your comments below:
>
> > I don't think people are really looking for
"realism",
> > anyway. While it's true that the busy little
forensic
> > details of "CSI" and similar shows seem to be
part of
> > their appeal, and while there's always been a
small
> > diehard group of fans obsessed with
authenticity in
> > their police procedurals and the like, in
general I
> > think people look to fiction to escape their
reality.
>
> As one of those who is "obsessed" with authenticity
in the police
> procedural, I take some exception to that
comment.
>
> The reason procedural readers like procedurals to be
accurate is
> because the sub-genre is defined by the accurate
depiction of the
> profession of law enforcement. If it doesn't do that
it's not
> delivering what it's supposed to deliver.
>
> That's not obsession. That's simply a reasonable
expectation.
The statement to which you take "some exception" seems to me
to be a relatively innocous and accurate point, but to the
extent it pricked you personally, I'm sorry.
I stand, however, by what I've said. I think there's a
relatively small group of readers in all sorts of genres who
are obsessed with authenticity in their fiction. There are
military technothriller types obsessed with armament details,
hard SF fans obsessed with the science, etc. I have never
been sympathetic to such an approach to fiction and have said
that often. I think at best such a pursuit is a silly
distraction; at worst it misunderstands what fiction is, what
it can and should do.
And I think PI
> novels that DO try to accurately depict PI work in
the same way
> police procedurals try to depict law enforcement,
like Gores's DKA
> novels, appeal to readers who might be put off by
the comic book
> heroics of a Mike Hammer or even the tarnished
romanticism of a
Phil
> Marlowe.
If your point is simply that some people *do* like
relentlessly authentic stuff, well, granted. I just don't
think most people care about such things one way or the
other. And I think it's a pretty silly reason to read a
novel. But that's why there's a whole bunch of them for sale
at Barnes and Noble.
The DKA novels may be scrupously accurate portrayals of PI
offices of their time; I don't know, I don't know anything
about PI offices. If you like them for that reason, great.
But I've read a few of them and thought "87th Precinct
knockoff". And I think that's a clearer understandiing of
them. Which is my point: books are best understood as
fictional constructs.
I seem to remember having this discussion with you some years
ago. That one grew heated: I have no wish to cause strife
here again. Let's just say we have a philosophical
disagreement and move on, eh?
> Now, whether it'll be incarnated ever again as
the
> > traditional "I get a hundred bucks plus
expenses" and
> > a bottle in the bottom desk drawer is hard to
say. My
> > guess is that he/she will probably be back
again in a
> > big way, but not for awhile. My guess is that
we're
> > living through an unsettled age and a PI needs
to be
> > in a settled time, since his/her whole raison d
etre
> > is to confront the corruption that undergirds
the
> > seeming stability. (This is the same reason why
spy
> > fiction, my other major interest, has somewhat
receded
> > as of late. It too is predicated on
stability.)
>
> I'm not sure that what you're saying about
"unsettled times" bears
> scrutiny. The hard-boiled PI was conceived, born,
and thrived,
> between the wars, during the gangsterism of
Prohibition, the
economic
> woes of the Depression, and the anxiety over the
rise of fascisim
in
> Europe and Asia. What was particularly "settled"
about that era?
Well, I was "guessing", or speculating. And that and a couple
of bucks will buy you coffee at Starbucks. My guess, though,
is that the PI's role is essentially a reactive one; he makes
most sense as a figure who explores internal corruption of
society. Think of all the PI stories which revolve around the
rot beneath the surface of the wealthy, for instance -- Ross
Macdonald made a career out of it. And that requires a
certain kind of stable society to bounce up against.
As you say, the PI may be a creature of his era. I'm not sure
that's true, exactly, but I think he may be a creature of
certain kind of eras. And the question then becomes what
distinguishes those eras?
>
> As for spy fiction, I've noted a rise, not a
decline, in recent
> years. Nothing like the the levels of popularity
seen in the mid-
> 60's, but certainly a spike. The sub-genre DID
decline quite a bit
> with the end of the Cold War (a time of apparent
"settled
stability")
> but took an upsurge with 9/11 and the consequent
"War on Terror"
> (inarguably unsettled times).
I hesistate to get too involved in what would be a
distraction from this board. Suffice it to say the Cold War
laid down a schema that allowed spy novelists to thrive as a
genre. To that extent, it was a "settled time" for it's
authors. It seems pretty inarguable to me that the genre
isn't what it once was, in part because the world isn't as
coherent in that respect as it once was. Heck, they can't
even figure out what to do with James Bond anymore --
certainly he made more sense with SPECTRE and the like.
Though certainly there are still spy novels being published:
interesting though that so many are historical in nature
(Furst, for instance) or self- consciously retro (McCarry's
OLD BOYS). doug
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