Hard Boiled Mysteries & SRD

[kastenessen]

I think sparse and vigorous both work. As for comparing it to hard-boiled, I don't read much of that genre. The closest to it that I usually enjoy is Ross MacDonald, who has a special feel for tragedy.

Yes, maybe I'm generalising too much, just trying to put words to what I feel. SRD's style is uniquely his own, though here he tries something different. And never would I call TCTC for hard-boiled...

I have read quite a few crime novels, both "old"-school writers like Raymond Chandler and more modern like James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Andrew Vachss...and I'd say that the prose of THE MAN...is more similar to Chandler than the modern ones(anyway)...

kasten

[Dragonlily]

Oh, have you read Ellroy's BECAUSE THE NIGHT?

Shockingly, I don't think I've read any Chandler. Or the others, but Chandler is the one every mystery reader is supposed to have read. The simple reason is that I'm not attracted to gumshoe. So MAN WHO must not be gumshoe, either...

It looks to me like the extremity of Brew's emotional and physical condition goes beyond what gumshoe detectives are allowed to feel. Am I right in thinking they have a deliberately deadened emotional condition? Kind of like a surgeon who couldn't do his job if he felt the pain he is dealing with?

[kastenessen]

Oh, have you read Ellroy's BECAUSE THE NIGHT?

Oh yes! I have read everything up until WHITE JAZZ wich I couldn't read because of the very difficult prose, a lot of tabloid language and stuff...but his first eight are great, among them BECAUSE THE NIGHT...but my favourite is CLANDESTINE, his second, It made a big impact on me and KILLER ON THE ROAD is good too...

...I'm not attracted to gumshoe. So MAN WHO must not be gumshoe, either...

Actually, I don't really understand the term gumshoe, but seriously, I can say that there are similarities between Brew and Philip Marlowe. Both are P.I's and beaten upon but in different ways. Brew carries a lot on his shoulders, and guilt and shame drives him, I would't say that about PM, but both are Knights fighting the Big Evil. The differences are of course there; for instance does Brew has a companion which PM doesn't...

It looks to me that the Extremity of Brew's emotional and physical condition goes beyond what gumshoe detectives are allowed to feel. Am I right in thinking that they have a deliberatly deadened emotional condition?

I don't know, I haven't read that much "classical" crime-stories, maybe in Ed McBain and such...but aren't the P.I. generally a very cynical person who have seen every evil and not being able to do anything about it? Here's where Brew differs as I see it; I don't see him as cynical at all. He is a force of nature in waiting...in one sense a christ-like figure, taking all the blame upon himself and we are left waiting for him to explode. It's that feeling I get when I read THE MAN WHO KILLED...

kasten

[Dragonlily]

...but his first eight are great, among them BECAUSE THE NIGHT...but my favourite is CLANDESTINE, his second, It made a big impact on me and KILLER ON THE ROAD is good too...

I haven't read CLANDESTINE, but KILLER ON THE ROAD grabbed me so much that I cast it for a film.

BECAUSE THE NIGHT was my introduction to Ellroy, and I immediately went searching for more. Chilling. His unusual prose is dense and absorbing. I thought AMERICAN TABLOID was going to be a disappointment at first, but Ellroy made the seemingly impossible character arcs believable and even gave them, finally, some appeal.

both are Knights fighting the Big Evil.

I like this description. Of course it fits Brew, even if the part of the Big Evil he can least confront is in himself.

aren't the P.I. generally a very cynical person who have seen every evil and not being able to do anything about it? Here's where Brew differs as I see it; I don't see him as cynical at all. He is a force of nature in waiting...in one sense a christ-like figure, taking all the blame upon himself and we are left waiting for him to explode. It's that feeling I get when I read THE MAN WHO KILLED...

Spoiler

Then Brew winds up imploding.

Ross Macdonald's Archer certainly fits your description. He's the lone P.I. who sees so many tragedies, but the only ones he can deal with are the ones he's hired for. If you haven't read many classical hard-boileds because they are too cynical, I do recommend Ross (not John) Macdonald. I have a stack of them, but BLACK MONEY sticks most in my mind.

[kastenessen]

His unusual prose is dense and absorbing. I thought AMERICAN TABLOID was going to be a disappointment at first, but Ellroy made the seemingly impossible character arcs believable and even gave them, finally, some appeal.

Never got to that one, and never bothered with translations either, though I have a translated THE COLD SIX THOUSAND waiting at my bookshelf...but dense and absorbing, those are the words, very true...

And about Knights fighting the Big Evil...

Joy wrote:

Of course it fits Brew, even if the part of the Big Evil he can least confront is i himself.

Yes the story of THE MAN WHO KILLED HIS BROTHER is both extrovert and introvert. It takes place outside Brew and inside...he has to repair himself and solve a crime at the same time. As a P.I, I believe Brew is unique, him carrying this burden of having killed his brother, guilt and shame following wherever he goes...a terrible burden...

kasten

[Dragonlily]

It seems to me I can remember another P.I. hero carrying a burden of disgrace, but I can't remember which one. Can anybody fill in the blank?

AMERICAN TABLOID is the last Ellroy I read. It was at heart a celebration of his paranoia. I never did buy THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, but the idea has a lot of potential for expressing Ellroy's anguished past, his mental instability, his brilliance and his cynicism. No doubt it is grippingly written.

Anyone who has read THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, I would like to hear opinions. I may yet read it.