I have found that erm it seems basically to be a very pessimistic kind of fiction, more pessimistic than people have often given it credit for, largely because they tend to see, for example in Dashiell Hammett, who's the author I'm most interested in from this period, erm a precursor of a lot of heroes, private eyes, who were said to have a very kind of steely moral integrity, which they balance against a general corruption in the world outside, and it does seem to me that in fact with Hammett the detective mirrors the corruption of that world as much as he stands against it, so that it does seem to me rather pessimistic.