We've started doing Crime Fiction, and "Anil's Ghost" was the book we started with. Starting with this was probably the worst idea...I totally have no idea where the boundries for Crime Fiction end and begin. Thank God that "The Skull Beneath The Skin" is much more archetypal for the genre, for if it wasn't, I would have no idea what the archetypal "crime fiction" text is. We're also doing "The Real Inspector Hound".
I was wondering, does anyone think "The Silence of the Lambs" is a relevant text for this field, either the book by Thomas Harris, or the movie? For me, it seems a good choice, but I guess it does break the archetype almost as much as "Anil's Ghost" does.
Is anyone else reading or have read "Anil's Ghost" and thought "what if we didn't choose this text?!". The book was so good, but totally threw me in relation to the Crime Fiction genre. I've seen "The Big Sleep" before, so I know it is also fairly archetypal of the Crime Fiction genre...
As you can see, Michael Ondaatje has really thrown me a curve ball with "Anil's Ghost".