ABSTRACT
Sensations of a pleasurable nature have not anything inherently impelling about them, whereas unpleasurable ones have it in the highest degree. (Freud, 1923/1961: 22)
The prospect of a human body being rendered helpless, put under slowly increasing stress, so that the maximum amount of sensation can be run through skin, nerves and muscle, will always seem horrifying to some readers, not a fascinating attempt to bring out the body's stamina and grace. (Califia, 1988: 25)
The novels of Dick Francis raise significant questions of loss and desire within a series of narratives in which the homosocial is always posited as the most significant bond. They also appear with awesome regularity at the top of the British bestseller lists. His thirty-seven novels to date are, in terms both of genre and consumption, truly 'popular' fictions - a pre-eminence achieved, it would seem, through the repeated deployment of a remarkably consistent model of the 'wounded' hero. Unlike the majority of other writers considered by this study, Francis has avoided the creation of a serial detective, choosing instead to produce a more or less successfully cloned series of individual heroes. The most notable exception to this rule is Sid Halley, who appears in three novels and will form the primary focus of this chapter. All manifestations of the Francis hero, however, can be seen to inhabit a common psychic landscape, exhibiting such characteristic traits as isolation, integrity, reticence, pride and endurance. Indeed, so potent is the Francis hero's capacity to endure that early commentators described the fictions as sadomasochistic.1 The term is certainly appropriate to the formula adopted by Francis, whose texts inhabit a borderline between the detective novel and the thriller, a genre which traditionally boasts an investment in the power relations of s/m.2 However, this connection begs important questions. Is the conflict between sadistic villain and enduring hero simply the deployment of a generic convention, or do the novels contain a more complex narrative of power that is profoundly rooted in gender issues? What are the implications for both gender and genre of a construction of heroic masculinity that situates agency not in action, but in stasis, silence and seemingly passive endurance?3
