Do You Have to Let it Linger?

I've been staring at this blog for a week or so now since I re-re-discovered it on my facebook profile page. I say re-re-discovered it because i once rediscovered it, then promptly forgot about it again. Kind of a story of my life.

The Cranberries first album was "Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We?" And apparently everybody else is doing this again, and since coincidence reconnected me here independently about the same time, I figure, why can't i? Let's be honest here, the most likely event is that I'll put up a few posts before I forget about it, from which I will be able to pull out of one or two sentences that I'm satisfied and proud. The rest of them I'll look back and say (when I re-re-re-discover it), "You were really trying way too hard to be clever. It didn't work."

I've been reading a lot of detective pulp fiction from the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and I freakin love it. I love the setting, the time period, but especially the characters. Mostly the heroes, the Sam Spade private dicks. I would say "cliche," but the authors I've read most (Dasheill Hammett and Raymond Chandler) defined the stereotype. We might label them as such now, after dozens, hundreds have imitated them cardboard cutouts, but truthfully they were groundbreaking in their day and stand head & shoulders above their predecessors. In fact, I recently read a recent "hard boiled" novel by an author I respect tremendously for his supernatural and science fiction novels, and it was plainly clear that his PI hero was no more than a poorly-cast shadow of those he was meant to flatter through imitation. He had all the broad strokes down, the ideas that everybody knows by rote of the stereotype, but he completely lacked the nuances that made Phillip Marlowe and Lew Archer such striking characters. They're not nearly so tough as the stereotype has made them out to be (both Marlowe and Archer are more likely to be the one getting beat up), but they're much more introspective, smart, and wise than they're often made out to be. And perhaps most surprisingly, they have really big hearts. they really care for people, in general, even though they understand that people by-and-large are pretty f'ed up. it gives them a very heavy and sad heart, especially evident in Chandler's The Long Goodbye.

Good stuff. My recommendation for a crash course on the classics...

• The Maltese Falcon by Dasheill Hammett (the defining classic of the genre)
• Red Harvest by Dasheill Hammett
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (the introduction of Phillip Marlowe)
  
• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (the last Marlowe novel)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
• The Moving Target by Ross MacDonald (introduction to Lew Archer)

I'm also having a great deal of fun reading The G-String Murders, a detective/murder mystery by Gypsy Rose Lee, a popular burlesque dancer (and later Hollywood actress) from the 30's and 40's famous for her witty and intelligent banter onstage. I'm sure it didn't hurt her case that she wasn't wearing very much clothing. The dialog in the novel is excellently written, capturing the personality of the characters and infusing them with a great deal of depth and life. The main character (Gypsy Rose Lee, often called 'Gypers,' herself) is quite charismatic and a lot of fun. Most refreshing? Despite being about burlesque strippers being strangled by their g-strings, it has remained completely tasteful and easily PG13 at the worst.

In addition to falling in love with the genre, i'm using all of this reading as research towards a novel i'm outlining and preparing to write which takes place in 1930's Kansas City. Part of it involves a hard-boiled private dick, part of it a singer/dancer for a nightclub, and part of it an aspiring jazz musician. And no--the entire premise is not a hard-boiled detective noir novel. it will definately be something(s) more.