From: vagans@inanna.eanna.net   
      
   In article <52790288.0312181413.78831c52@posting.google.com>,   
   HowToBecomeWhatOneIs  wrote:   
      
      
      
   >Some criteria are required.  In detective fiction, the main character   
   >is trying to solve a crime- something rare in CP (if at all, since in   
   >CP, the main character is usually doing something unlawfull).  So, if   
   >CP doesn't meet the 'crime-solving' criteria, it doesn't fit in with   
   >detective fiction.  That said, detective fiction and CP have a lot in   
   >common.   
      
   American pulp-style detective fiction may involve "crime-solving",   
   but it is not the point of the genre, as it is in English-style   
   detective fiction. Often there is no crime to be solved, or the   
   crime is committed against the detective (one could say that   
   Case in N has to solve the crime committed against him). The   
   detective may have been setup to take the fall, or the story   
   may involve, not a crime, but a simple tail job, or looking for   
   a missing relative. Their involvement ends up being very   
   personal and it is usually their ass on the line.   
      
   Miss Marples and Peter Wimsey are crime solvers and true sleuths,   
   but the genre of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe is something else,   
   and their status as 'lawfull' is ambiguous at best -- "I never   
   saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been   
   invented to say goodbye to them."   
      
   'Crime solver' does not nearly capture the esssence of the   
   classic pulp detective anti-hero.   
      
      
   --   
     (__)    Sourcerer   
    /(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O When you're looking for something that doesn't exist,   
     \../  |OO|||O|||O|O it makes you crazier the closer you get to it.   
      ||   OO|||OO||O||O                                   -- R. Ebert   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)