True Detective Stories

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 03:10 PM

Fongoyle, tell me I'm wrong when I sense both obsession and hatred in your postings. --seed

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: LEJ
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 05:24 PM

Hey guys...this was a great and fun thread. Let's not ruin it by flaming each other. Thanks....LEJ

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: alison
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 09:34 PM

could do with a baddy over in An Irish Tale

anyone interested?

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 04:44 PM

Just a refresh of the first Blake Madison adventure to let the newbies know how it works.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Alice
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 03:59 PM

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 04:54 PM

Hmmm. Okay, some very fine writing here and there, but the whole thing smacks a lot more of Mike Hammer than of Philip Marlowe to me. I prefer Philip Marlowe, and here's why...

"Underneath the wisecracking, hard drinking, tough private eye, Marlowe is quietly contemplative and philosophical. He enjoys chess and poetry. While he is not afraid to risk physical harm, he does not dish out violence merely to settle scores. Morally upright, he is not bamboozled by the genre's usual femmes fatales, like Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. As Chandler wrote about his detective ideal in general, "I think he might seduce a duchess, and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin."

Chandler's treatment of the detective novel exhibits a continuing effort to develop the art form. His first full length book, The Big Sleep, was published when Chandler was 51; his last, Playback, when he was 70. All seven novels were produced in the last two decades of his life. All maintain the integrity of Philip Marlowe's character, but each novel has unique qualities of narrative tone, depth and focus that set it apart from the others."

Philip Marlowe is a man I can respect. Mike Hammer is a low class jerk with a talent for survival.

The other thing is, MAN does it ever get frustrating when a whole bunch of people are posting all kinds of crazy stuff at random and buggering up the story beyond recognition and dragging it in 5 different directions. Sheesh. That's the main problem with story threads.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 07:44 PM

Aw, quitcher whinin', Hawk. Ya got a chip on yer shoulder as big as your mother's barn door. Whyncha come up with some stuff worth readin' instead of all this hangdog critique? Whaddya you think, yer the literary critic for the Daily Mail or somp'n? Sheesh!

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:19 PM

Actually, Blake has more in common with Nick Danger than either one of those cats you mentioned, LH. And even Nick never got busted for selling mushrooms when he was a freshman at Montana State like Madison did. Madison would never seduce a duchess, although he was hit on pretty heavy by a countess in a seaside bar in New York City once. And he could only lay claim to the violation of one virgin, which sin he attempted to atone for by marrying said innocent.

No, he's nothing more than a guy I knew fairly well back in my footloose days, a guy who read too many detective stories, picked all of the wrong women, and never knew when to leave the party. We have all adapted better to the changing times than Blake ever could. Blake in his shabby trench coat, carrying a pistol and a hangover, while believing his whole life that "all you need is Love" was a philosophy worth dying for. A walking contradiction with his feet in the gutter and his head in the clouds, a man who lost most of his heroes to violence and self-abuse long ago. He is an exile from a time that has passed. A man who was injured by the hope of man's nobility, and hides the wound beneath his clothes in the dim bars he frequents.

Yes, truly, he has no class, but he has a nose for beauty second to none.

At least, that's my opinion.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:24 PM

... lost most of his heroes to violence and self-abuse long ago...

Hm, ya mean it can be worse than going blind-- fatal?!?! I'm a hafta ask our coroner pal about that one-- may change how I perceive some of the many funerals I have to attend....

See, LH, what happens when weird posts get stuck smack dab in a story thread? Who's to say what's on topic/in story, and what ain't?

~S~

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:29 PM

Wiz, by "self-abuse" I didn't mean masturbation. That's not fatal.
Thank God.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:47 PM

It isn't fatal? Are you sure? Well, maybe that depends on how much you do it... ;-)

I didn't mean to say that Blake is exactly like Mike Hammer, LEJ. No, he's sorta halfway between Hammer and Marlowe, I think. Blake Madison is okay in himself. It's more the overall style of a lot of the contributions that I was referring to...they sound closer to a Mike Hammer story than to a Philip Marlowe story. It's just a question of what style you like for a private eye story. I like it hardboiled, but not too vulgar, if you follow me.

I never read any Nick Danger, so I have no idea about that.

"A man who was injured by the hope of man's nobility" Hey! That sounds a lot like me. ;-) (and more than a few other good people I know)

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 10:52 PM

By the way, your thumbnail sketch of Blake sounds tremendously like my pal Chongo, although Chongo seems to bounce back and forth between optimism and pessimism. When the money's coming in he's optimistic and upbeat. When it isn't, he gets in those dark moods. He's also been looking for "Miss Right" for a long time, but he's a bit confused over which species to focus on when it comes to that.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 11:00 PM

Nick Danger can't be read. He can only be heard.

And yes, I believe Blake is a bit like you. And that's not really such a bad thing.

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 11:06 PM

Yeah. ;-)

So is Nick Danger on the radio or something?

Did you really model Blake on somebody you actually knew in 3-D life?

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Alice
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 11:47 PM

Nick Danger... Third Eye.
(LH you would have had to sit in that patoulie and incense scented room in Bozeman,
glued til after midnight to the thrift store couch with Blake's mom, listening to Firesign Theater, to
understand that reference).

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:26 PM

One more refresh. It's been a blast to re-read this. I think it was one of our very first, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:32 PM

That would require some investigation Kat......

Subject: RE: True Detective Stories
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 05:43 PM

LOL...ya think?:-)