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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

So, no 1940s Detective Treatment for Jane Eyre

From the Saginaw Times, detective novelist Mickey Spillane has died at age 88. In this memorial article we find a quirky reference to Jane Eyre which is pretty amusing:

"Spillane was the first one to produce sexy novels," Russell said. "From that point on, everyone else followed suit."
Spillane's violent, titillating prose made eager readers out of many a 1950s-era young man who lived vicariously through the Hammer character, Russell said.
"Mike Hammer was the guy who was always getting beaten up, who was always broke, and a lot of guys could relate to that," Russell said.
"Yet Hammer always got the woman, the glamorous, movie starlet-type woman. The bombshells. Spillane's women were much different from the women you found in books like 'Jane Eyre."'


Perhaps not, but since the 1960s an idea has been circulating that Rochester would make a great secret agent, which is similar to the thrilling detective I suppose. Someone once said that James Bond was a literary descendent of Heathcliff and Mr Rochester, for his byronism. And at least two of the most aclaimed actors to play Mr Rochester did play secret agents: Timothy Dalton was Bond, of course. Michael Jayston was considered for the part as well and he played Quiller a secret agent who never carried a gun but used his wits alone. And, I've always thought that Jasper Fforde's rendition of the character was very secret agent like.

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