Narrative Reflections

The joy--and the limitation--of much crime fiction: simplicity.  Obscured, hidden, elusive at first reading, yet essential and binding.  My dilemma as a reader and teacher: Is the noir model of life adequate? Is it true enough?  Qui bono, you know?  I teach Hammett's The Maltese Falcon every year or so, but early in the term, for I wouldn't want to end their education with Sam Spade's "I won't be a sap for you."  I am too much the Romantic Idealist for that.


P.S.  When I wrote this note, I was thinking of the crime writing genre as a whole, its general nature and tendencies, and not of the excellent work within the genre.  Crime writing is one of my favorite genres, and it's the one I'm slowly working in.