[lbo-talk] Re: Hard boiled philosophy

Michael Hoover hooverm at scc-fl.edu
Mon May 15 13:36:26 PDT 2006



>>> magcomm at ix.netcom.com 05/15/06 10:26 AM >>>
Dear List: Jerry writes:
> The private eye is declasse in a traditional way but the private
eye also positions himself on the margins of the class system in other ways analogous to criminal lumpens, jazz artists and other marginal bohemians.

Which is exactly what Ross MacDonald did in his Lew Archer series. Archer starts out as a Marlowe clone and then evolves into something completely new (crime novelists are still mining the vein first opened/discovered by MacDonald). It was as if he blended the strengths of both Hammett and Chandler and jettisoned their flaws. Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister <<<<<>>>>>

sent below some time ago to completely different thread: i really dug a lot of ross mcdonald's work (there is some gender crap to deal with even if he didn't treat his women characters as badly as some other hardboiled detective writers), _goodbye look_ and _far side of the dollar may be his best stuff...

significantly, his books present complex political puzzles, the keys to which are found in the past in circumstances and obligations about which folks in the present, suffering from *historical amnesia*, know nothing... mh

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