The Hardy Boys in India

I grew up buying the Hardy Boys novels in packs of five at "Sam's Club" and inhaling them in short order. They were the bread and butter of my reading life until I discovered Agatha Christie at about the age of thirteen--after that, they fell into disfavor. But I still have a soft spot for the two teen sleuths and their chums, and it's nice to see they're still going strong:

For 80 years, The Hardy Boys has been an essential part of every detective-fiction lover’s childhood. Now the Hardy bros appear in graphic novels — in candy colours, toting mobile phones and guns. Nancy Drew too is keeping up with the times, in a similar series.

Candy colours?!

At any rate, the comics will be updates of novelized adventures, with the boys being "tech savvy." Huh. When I was a child, a personal boat was tech-savvy enough for me, but there you go. Apparently this series is only being released in India--where they also seem to be issuing comic-books of Agatha Christie's novels.

Hmm. This is the second story I've linked to that has to do with India. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a sociological reason that "classical" detective fiction seems to be--at least, until recently--going so strong over there while it labors in obscurity in America.

It's Official---Only Halfwit Authors Write Mysteries.

...or so the British legal system has decided:

This week, Joan Brady - a talented American novelist living in Devon, who won the Whitbread prize in 1993 - received £115,000 in an out-of-court settlement from a cobbler close to her Totnes home. The novelist alleged that fumes from solvents used at the plant had caused her physical distress and mental distraction.

One example given of her problems [...]was that she had become so confused by the fumes that she was forced to abandon a serious novel, Cool Wind from the Future, and turn instead to mystery fiction, with Bleedout.

More at the link. This kind of stuff maddens me; there is no reason why a well-written mystery novel should be considered inferior to a well-written "serious" novel. Indeed, one could argue that the pretensions of "serious" fiction are inferior-making properties in themselves. "Plot-driven fiction" is, at any rate, directed outward, to the reader--it invites the reader into a mutual experience. In that way, it's essentially democratic and egalitarian.

Furthermore, we should note--as this commentator does--that many authors of "serious" fiction are now using tropes from mystery novels. In fact, they're using tropes from all kinds of genre fiction. The classes are melting together--just a bit--and a decision like this only shows how out-of-touch many "highbrow" people are.

Bond 22 is "Quantum of Solace"

Commander Bond has the story--with plot details. I must say, Bond 22 is shaping up quite promisingly. (FWIW--Quantum of Solace is the title of a Fleming story--and though we've been assured that the plot of the film is original to it, still the story might be worth checking out).

It's an odd choice. Risico or Property of a Lady might have made more sense; what's more (unlike other Fleming titles,) this is a remarkable un-exotic title.

On the other hand, it sounds literate (unlike Die Another Day), and I trust this latest direction for the films, so we'll have to wait and see.

"The Man Who was Clever"

I'm working my way through The First Saint Omnibus--a collection of thirteen novellas featuring Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar. They're arranged chronologically, from a story from the Saint's earliest appearance (Enter the Saint) through the later years.

The first story in the set is "The Man Who was Clever." It is a straightforward caper, with few elements of mystery or espionage. The plot revolves around Templar's efforts to bring down a criminal who uses a beauty-supply store as a front for drug dealing (sound familiar?). Simon Templar, also known as the Saint, does not seem as well-established as he will later become. Heis in the process of establishing his position as the "Robin Hood of modern crime," the man criminals fear. His character, therefore, is much more opaque than I expect it to be in future stories--he's building a mystery, creating a persona (hey! I wonder if this could tie in with my discussion of personhood over at General Thinker).

Still, this lack of insight into thought-processes of the Saint make him into a bit too much of a superman--he can, obviously, do anything and get out of anything. Not that that's a problem, as a rule; however, a humanizing touch here and there would go a long way toward making Templar more believable (remember how ubermensch Ellery Queen is humanized by the author's tongue-in-cheek tone? Something along these lines would be in order here).

The pace is sound and the plot enjoyable, and though everything is not quite in place, I look forward to see the development of the Saintly formula in future stories and novels.

What's in a Name?

The California Literary Review has a brief-but-interesting discussion by Jem Bloomfeld of the names of various detectives in the history of the genre. Interesting; I had never considered the tension between the over-the-top names of detectives and the "realistic" emphasis in the stories themselves.

The Death of the Indian Detective Novel?

Interesting article about the slow death of detective fiction in India. I find it interesting that it's been sixteen years since the last super-detective hung up his magnifying glass--while in America it's been more like thirty.

The interesting experiments with the adventurer-detective figure —- from the intent Byomkesh, the suave Feluda, to the spirited quartet Gondalu (Nalini Das’ adolescent girl-gang with names ending with -lu), Samaresh Basu’s streetsmart Gogol, and the maverick old butterfly lover Colonel Niladrishekhar (Syed Mustafa Siraj’s nature lover who ends up trailing no-gooders) —— arguably had shown the way. Critics, writers and fiction lovers thus find no reason why few tread the path. Though not quite expected, there seems to be a socio-economic jinx to the Bengali detective. Aveek Majumder, lecturer at the department of comparative literature, Jadavpur University, finds the changing tastes of the Bengali middle class a possible culprit. “In their better days, the Bengali sleuth and his exploits found readers in Bengali children from the middle class. The same middle class which can now afford an English-medium school for its children, a school which reprimands a child found speaking in Bengali.”

A major theme in the article is the slow phasing-out of the Bengali language--so I wonder if it would be impertinent to wonder if any of these are available in translation?

....

Reuters has an article about how the internet assists authors of crime fiction in their work; an interesting contrast to this piece, which claims that technology kills suspense, in movies particularly. So is what's good for the author bad for the art itself? One wonders.

R.I.P. Edward Hoch

I just saw on Mystery*File that Edward Hoch has died. He was one of the few remaining practitioners of the classic detective short story, and has had a story in every issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine since the seventies.

He will be greatly missed.

Lucky at Cards--Lawrence Block

Lately I have discovered the wonderful world of Hard Case Crime. It's an outfit that publishes out-of-print pulp novels, as well as new works by authors such as Stephen King. As you can see here--and at the website--the books also boast impressive cover art and design very reminiscent of the golden age of the pulp novel.

Lucky at Cards is a novel by Lawrence Block published pseudonymously almost forty years ago. Its plot is fairly conventional;unlucky cardsharp meets bad-hearted broad and they plot to get rid of her husband. The twist here is that they can't actually kill him, so the cardsharp applies his intelligence to concocting an elaborate frame-up.

This novel is well-written, with a kind of noirspeak that communicates simply but eloquently. Characters are well-realized and fairly memorable, even if they are somewhat stock (the sultry dame, the good-hearted local girl, the sympathetic cardsharp). The plot moves along at a brisk clip--it's a fairly easy read, and someone with time on their hands could probably knock it out in a few hours.

The most interesting thing to me was the tension of self-identity present in the protagonist. He is a man who has lived his life just outside the bounds of normal society. Suddenly, as he begins to live his life among the townspeople, he realizes that he actually likes the honest life. Of course, fate conspires against him, but it is this tension that drives him, and therefore drives the plot, to its conclusion. (This is, I think, a fairly common convention of the genre, but I'm not familiar enough with it to be certain).

In all, Lucky at Cards is an exciting and well-written book; I look forward to delving into Block's other work.

New 'Blog

This is where I intend to shunt all my ramblings on detective/spy/crime fiction/television. Updates expected soon.