Dicks
A few days back, author Mark Billingham supplied the Guardian with a list of what he considers the best fictional detectives.
And I… hang on… Frank Cannon??
I liked Frank Cannon for no other reason than his “disability” was centred around the fact that he’d eaten all the pies.
Oh, all right.
But, what? No Travis McGee, no Easy Rawlins, not even Inspector Morse…?
And I got to wondering again what makes for a compelling private dick.
For some reason, they’ve got to be sexy and flawed. I suppose that’s because their job is to muscle and crawl their way through the most dire and intimate circumstances.
We like that they’re alert to the pitfalls of sensuality, and what it is to fail as a human being. We like that their judgements, in some cases, are tinged with reluctant compassion and, in others, are fuelled by the moral outrage of someone who’s fucked up in so many ways but knows the solid lines not to cross.
We sympathise with their constant weariness and growing disillusionment, and we’re fine with no happy ending. We’d like to buy them a drink.
But why so few women on the job?
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- It must be that this is the kind of guy a woman wants to have around and a man wants to be: tough, sexy, independent, honest, smart but not bookish, strong, ready to fight for the good woman and scorn the bad. They’re a little like knights-errant, aren’t they? If you keep the roles but reverse the sexes and keep the heterosexuality (though I bet there’s lots of room for gay and lesbian private dicks), you’ve got a helpless man being rescued by a tough woman who might be sleeping with another man that night, and that may be fine for a lot of female readers but the other half of the book-buying public might not go for it. But if you throw out the roles, you don’t have a private detective story anymore. Maybe. I’m just talking.
And even though I’m legally an adult, I’m dying to make a dick joke.
— eeksypeeksy Jul 29, 2:03am # - Perhaps there are so few women on the job because, for whatever reason, women are not writing dick-lit.
Get to it, girls!
— Simon Hughes Jul 29, 3:26am # - Agatha Christie, PD James, Ruth Rendell, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L Sayers… and then some.
— gail Jul 29, 4:07am # - That’s a page full of female-dick-lit. So there are female dicks and female writers. There aren’t so few women on the job. This is good news.
But I still say get to it, girls; you still have some catching up to do.
— Simon Hughes Jul 29, 6:10am # - The link disappeared. See: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes.html
— Simon Hughes Jul 29, 6:13am # - My favorite is undoubtedly Pepe Carvalho, by Manuel Vazquez Montalban. He’s an ex-communist who worked for the CIA, burns books and cooks exquisite meals in his crumbling house for his dwarf friend (“little foetus, as he calls him) and his prostitute-by-day girlfriend.
I like that he only burns the best literature, enjoys his food and alcohol las if it were communion, and that he does get old through the almost 20 years that he’s been active for the readers’ pleasure.
And of course, how the city of Barcelona reflects through those years, as a character that grows apart from the lifes of these “lowlifes”.
Gail, you are lucky because he’s been translated into French. I’m not sure about English- at least he’s not as available.
— eloisa Jul 29, 8:02am # - Sexy and flawed, let’s see…
Must be the flawed part.
Think of a flawed woman, not just in genre literature, flawed women as main characters. Is that present in equal measure?
Parsifal as gender-neutral?
The real question seems to be the one that was ellided…
Vive l’même?
Could it be something deeper than social custom, something parallel to the genetic posture of men and women generally? Or is that still taboo?
— Lance Boyle Jul 29, 3:48pm # - Winona Sullivan, author of the Sister Cecile mysteries, just passed away last month in Massachusetts.
— Franklin Jul 30, 3:52pm # - What about Nancy Drew, as played by Pamela Sue Martin in the 70s TV series? Do sleuths count?
Anyone else remember “The Three Investigators” from a while back? The kids with the secret hideout in the junkyard?
— gord Jul 31, 8:08am # - I’d run away with any one of Dick Francis’s protagonists in a heartbeat.
— cmb Jul 31, 8:55am # - With jockeys? kinky.
— mrp Aug 1, 1:45am # - tangential furtherances:
Some professional translators knit while they talk. To control the compulsion to talk with their hands. Which they ought not. Because the to-and-fro conversations kick out conflicting gestures. And that leads to what one expert calls “neurological chaos.”
courtesy LMBoyd
— informant Aug 2, 2:27pm # - Maybe his list comes up short for the simple reason that he is unknowledgeable about the genres within genres of American Detective stories. His ignorance is his downfall.
— Henry B. Aug 5, 2:09pm # - No way! I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Sara Paretsky yet, and her V.I. Warshawski (Victoria Iphigenia) books. The first two books are a little halting, but the later ones are very, very smooth and go down like good whiskey.
I’d buy Ms. Paretsky a drink any day, and I have to kind of imagine that V.I. looks a little like the author (hey, a girl can dream).
Sadly, she’s the only good female P.I. that I can name off the top of my head. If there ARE any other good ones out there (and I said good, not popular), please, please someone clue me in.
oh the pitfalls of sensuality,
Alex
— Alex Aug 9, 12:26am # - The Sue Grafton novels (A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, C is for Corpse, etc.) featuring PI Kinsey Millhone are great “one-sitting” reads.
— Daisy Aug 13, 9:02am # - Eloisa: At least six Carvalho novels have been translated into English. They’re available from Serpent’s Tail Publishing in the UK. Lest we forget, which we have, there were plenty of women detectives around in the 19th century, and the fascinating Marian Halcombe in Wilkie Collins’ “The Woman in White” (still the greatest plot ever written, it doesn’t relax its grip for 600 pages) is probably the finest of them all. See http://www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/womendetect.htm
for a long list of more.
— Jonathan Aug 14, 7:17pm # - http://privatedick.blogspot.com –
seen that? A New York City detective is supposedly blogging his daily cases. The latest one he just started in has something to do with a murder. No clue if it’s real, but it’s very entertaining.
— Joe Aug 19, 8:40pm # - My favourite all time detective that’s on TV would have to be Jessica Fletcher. Anyone remember her? She was just such a classy lady. There were books, but they are hard to find, so I hear.
— Porscha Aug 31, 9:33pm #
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