Re: RARA-AVIS: Existential and all that

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 12 Nov 2008

  • Next message: Rick Helms: "RARA-AVIS: Re: Jack Bludis; LAP DANCE"

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "gsp.schoo@..." <gsp.schoo@...> wrote:
    >
    > Sure. I like Jason's work too, and a number of other contemporary
    noir writers. And there are new readers discovering the genre all the time. My comment isn't a knock on the quality of current writers.
    >
    > I've never considered the genre a gimmick, though I'm sure there are
    amusement bucks to be wrung from its pages yet. But when reality surpasses fiction, the fiction is no longer producing relevant ideas, new directions. It is journalism's job to report the past.
    >

    But does great fiction necessarily produce relevant ideas and new directions? I am thinking of guys like Faulkner... Or, in our genre, I don't think Chandler, Hammett and other acknowledged masters contributed much in terms of ideas and directions, though they did capture the moods and ways of their contemporary societies, of course.

    Best,

    mrt



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