"The fuck'm I doing here?"

[John McFetridge]

This is from a discussion about Elmore Leonard, but it seems to apply to all noir/hard boiled fiction (or it wants to, anyway) and I wondered what people thought about it:

"Though pioneered a century ago by the English dandy Ronald Firbank, and then popularized by a man whose first name was Evelyn, the technique of letting conversation carry a story is regarded in America as the tough guy’s way to write a novel, and Leonard makes no secret of his pride in it. Unfortunately, it compels him (as it did Firbank and Waugh) to stick to talkative characters. This excludes the true professionals on both sides of the law, leaving us with small-time cops and ex-cons who rarely keep quiet long enough to seem cool. They’re street-smart for sure, but although the recurring interjection “The fuck’m I doing here?” certainly puts Sartre in a nutshell, no one seems to think about anything, at least not anything interesting."

The discussion cane be seen here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004908.html

It seems to me that maybe noir fiction is a little too subtle for this guy and that he needs all the "thinking" to be spelled out so clearly most of us would find it boring.

What do you think?

[Kevin Allman]

I plum adore James Sallis. Boy, talk about an underrated writer.

I met him years ago and blurted out "You're James Sallis!", which came out like "You're Angelina Jolie!" or something. Felt like a mook. He looked embarrassed and said, "Call me Jim."

[Kevin Allman]

Only an academic or pseudo-academic could work Ronald Firbank (?!?!?!) and Evelyn Waugh into a discussion of noir. (Apologies to all you academics and pseudo-academics out there, but it's the truth.)

And: "a man whose first name is Evelyn"? Mee-yow! Hey, champ, if you want to establish your manly-man bona fides: being bitchy and catty probably ain't the way to go. (John Wayne's birth name was Marion. Want to take him on?)

[I. J. Parker]

Right.