"The old becomes perpetually the new. That's the mystery." Like the ancient Greeks who would gather every year, drink a lot of wine and watch plays they had seen many times before. Deeply immersed in the characters, they learn a nuance here, a subtle aspect of the human condition there. Oedipus, Creon, Antigone, the whole gang. They don't change, but the audience does. From year to year at the Dyonisian Festivals, those who view the unfoldings they know by heart, see with new, fresh eyes. The archetypical plots reveal themselves slowly. Most say "Death of a Salesman" is the great American tragedy. Perhaps Philip Marlowe, the modern Oedipus, should be given some consideration.
This is a fantastic insight. Poor Raymond Chandler writing in the "The Long Goodbye" with two alcoholic self-inserts wondering if what he was doing was "literature". This sets him in the proper place, the modern Oedipus, and the example with the nature of the Greek plays was perfect.
I mean that would make sense. I'm personally not really sure where the zeitgeist is at but you do hear stories about young people returning back to Christianity for similar reasons I would assume.
Chandler was the most literate and thoughtful of the PI writers, though for my money the toughest dick of them all was Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op.
"The old becomes perpetually the new. That's the mystery." Like the ancient Greeks who would gather every year, drink a lot of wine and watch plays they had seen many times before. Deeply immersed in the characters, they learn a nuance here, a subtle aspect of the human condition there. Oedipus, Creon, Antigone, the whole gang. They don't change, but the audience does. From year to year at the Dyonisian Festivals, those who view the unfoldings they know by heart, see with new, fresh eyes. The archetypical plots reveal themselves slowly. Most say "Death of a Salesman" is the great American tragedy. Perhaps Philip Marlowe, the modern Oedipus, should be given some consideration.
This is a fantastic insight. Poor Raymond Chandler writing in the "The Long Goodbye" with two alcoholic self-inserts wondering if what he was doing was "literature". This sets him in the proper place, the modern Oedipus, and the example with the nature of the Greek plays was perfect.
😉 I am sure it was not his conscious intent, but the subconscious holds great power.
Lesson here:
Fly high in the rare air.
As best you can.
I swear there was a NYT thinkpiece or something to the same effect, of detective novels regaining relevancy because they have agency.
I mean that would make sense. I'm personally not really sure where the zeitgeist is at but you do hear stories about young people returning back to Christianity for similar reasons I would assume.
Chandler was the most literate and thoughtful of the PI writers, though for my money the toughest dick of them all was Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op.
Thanks, I will have to check that dick out.