right now i've started reading a book called, as you might have guessed, 'hardball'. it's a long, curly-upy detective story about a woman, V. I. Warshawski, (a private investigator) who takes on an impossible case that may or may not be linked to family history, and helps her cousin.
the helping of the cousin and the case appear entirely disconnected, but when the cousin (petra) goes missing, i'm starting to wonder if they're all linked... and this is a detective story...
the most obvious, and provoking, issue in this book is one of gender. though this book is quite realistic, it still has the tone of the classic detective story. but in classic detective stories, the girls don't do the work, they scream and get assaulted. at best, they use theis 'womanly charms' to get info and shoot endlessly sarcastic lines at the detective, the 'real man'. (not that that's a bad thing.)
but vic warshawski is the real deal. even calling her the real deal makes her seem less real then she is. and she's a proper detective too, not on good terms with the police, facing up gangs, learning about corrupt law and still going to a few glamourous parties. and through all that, the world still hates her. what is it about the detective that means that they have to be against the world? but anyway.
the gender issue is thrown into light especially in a recent scene, where four men, all previous acquaintances of vic's, one even related to her, confront her. she's just out of the hospital after almost burning to death, and many people are blaming her for at least one death. the press are swarming all over her and her apartment's been trashed, all her prized possessions thrown on the floor. the meeting should be a catch up, a meeting between friends or at least co workers to try and find what's going on. instead, it feels strangely like an attack. it's also hinted that they know a crucial secret to her case, but will rather die then tell. so in the end, it's just vic, trying to do her job, and these mean, powerful men stopping her. would it be the same if she were a boy? there men are openly racist, they're probably sexist too. they see her as the daughter of a cop, playing her own little game.
is this realistic? will there ever be a girl equivalent of the classic detective? or, in her not being accepted by society, does vic become the ultimate private detective? an outcast, the lone fighter for justice, still trying to find the truth because it's right, even when the worlds against her? or does them not taking her seriously just make her another girl, trying to fill shoes that she knows will never fit?
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