American Crime Fiction: A Cultural History of Nobrow Literature as Art

ISBN-13: 9783319301075 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 222 str.

Peter Swirski

Opis

Peter Swirski looks at American crime fiction as an artform that expresses and reflects the social and aesthetic values of its authors and readers. As such he documents the manifold ways in which such authorship and readership are a matter of informed literary choice and not of cultural brainwashing or declining literary standards. Asking, in effect, a series of questions about the nature of genre fiction as art, successive chapters look at American crime writers whose careers throw light on the hazards and rewards of nobrow traffic between popular forms and highbrow aesthetics: Dashiell Hammett, John Grisham, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain, Nelson DeMille, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Recenzje

"American Crime Fiction: A Cultural History of Nobrow Literature as Art has a unique approach to the question of the value of genre fiction and the relationship between high and low culture. ...  American Crime Fiction would appeal to a non-specialist or to those specializing in American popular culture more generally ... .  For those who enjoy American crime fiction this book is not to be missed." (Anna Kirsch, International Crime Fiction Association, captivatingcriminalitynetwork.net, February, 2018)

"Swirski is once again to be congratulated for integrating his extensive knowledge of literature, literary theory, and literary aesthetics and his insightful views on culture. American Crime Fiction is fascinatingly challenging in its take on America, on crime, on fiction, and on art. Anyone interested in any of these will have a great time reading it. The book has arguably more to offer to those interested in American history and culture ... ." (Iris Vidmar, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 75 (3), 2017)

Spis treści

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

CHAPTER 1. Nobrow: Contents and Discontents

The Most Ossified Popular Genre of All—Of the Standard of Taste—Flogging a Dead Horse—Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t—Heads I Win, Tails You Lose—Vice and Its Victim—Beachbooks for Intellectuals—Sex, Money, and Revenge

   

CHAPTER 2. Briefcases for Hire: Dashiell Hammett and John Grisham

The Pauper and the Prince—The Toast of Hollywood—Waldron Honeywell—Who Framed Roger Rabbit?—Pow, You Are There— Seven Thousand Liquor Cases—Vacant Niche in the Market—The Banzhaf Bandits—Worst of Pages—Exhibit A— One Part Hammett, Two Parts Grisham

CHAPTER 3. Boilerplate Potboilers: William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway

Good God, I Can’t Publish This—Guts and Genitals—Southern Gothic—Murder Capital of the United States—Sanctuary Much—Worse than Dresden—Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?—.38 Police Special—The Great American Paradox

 

CHAPTER 4. The Not So Simple Art of Murder: Raymond Chandler

No Chinaman Must Figure in the Story—Mayhem Spiced with Nymphomania—A Bombshell Redhead on the Run—The Is to Was Man—Pirandello Minus the Obtrusiveness—At Odds with the Canon—Wise Man, Wink, Wink—A Whodunit Without a Dunit—The Great Wrong Place—Anytown, USA—I Cannot Work or Sleep Till I Have Finished It

CHAPTER 5. The Urban Procedural: Ed McBain

Big Lights, Big City—Salvatore Albert Lombino—Graphic and Photographic—The Worst in Christendom—Colonel Mustard and Lady Buxom—M*E*T*R*O*P*O*L*I*S*—Nothing but a Woman—Mischief—The N Word—Behind the Thin Blue Line—Crime and the City

CHAPTER 6. Take Two: Nelson DeMille and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Eppolito and Caracappa—Jack Cannon—Trouble Brews in Happy Valley—All Its Watches Limp—Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia—The Most Dangerous Country in the World—Take Two—We Keep You Clean in Muscatine—American Dream

BIBLIOGRAPHY

O autorze

Peter Swirski is a Canadian scholar and literary critic featured in Canadian Who's Who. Specialist in American literature and American studies, and Amazon's #1 Bestseller in American Literature, American History and Criticism, and Canadian Literary Criticism, he is the author of sixteen award-winning books, including the staple of American popular culture studies From Lowbrow to Nobrow (2005); a trio of bestsellers on American literature, culture, and politics: Ars Americana, Ars Politica (2010); American Utopia and Social Engineering (2011), and American Political Fictions (2015); and a tour de force on thinking and creative computers From Literature to Biterature (2013).

Blurb

This book looks at American crime fiction as an artform that expresses and reflects the social and aesthetic values of its authors and readers. As such it documents the manifold ways in which such authorship and readership are a matter of informed literary choice and not of cultural brainwashing or declining literary standards. Asking, in effect, a series of questions about the nature of genre fiction as art, successive chapters look at American crime writers whose careers throw light on the hazards and rewards of nobrow traffic between popular forms and highbrow aesthetics: Dashiell Hammett, John Grisham, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain, Nelson DeMille, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.