"Fritz Leiber - The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

Fritz Leiber - The Girl with the Hungry Eyes




The Girl with the Hungry Eyes

FRITZ LEIBER

==========

“The Girl With the Hungry Eyes,”published in 1949, is a classic and will probably never become dated.
The advertising industry is still searching for “The Look” to sell products to the great American maw.
And with new technology continually being developed, the industry becomes more and more adept at
insinuating itself into our lives.

==========

All right, I’ll tell you why the Girl gives me the creeps. Why I can’t stand to go downtown and see the
mob slavering up at her on the tower, with that pop bottle or pack of cigarettes or whatever it is beside
her. Why I hate to look at magazines any more because I know she’ll turn up somewhere in a brassiere
or a bubble bath. Why I don’t like to think of millions of Americans drinking in that poisonous half-
smile. It’s quite a story—more story than you’re expecting.

No, I haven’t suddenly developed any long-haired indignation at the evils of advertising and the national
glamour-girl complex. That’d be a laugh for a man in my racket, wouldn’t it? Though I think you’ll
agree there’s something a little perverted about trying to capitalize on sex that way. But it’s okay with
me. And I know we’ve had the Face and the Body and the Look and what not else, so why shouldn’t
someone come along who sums it all up so completely, that we have to call her the Girl and blazon her
on all the billboards from Times Square to Telegraph Hill?

But the Girl isn’t like any of the others. She’s unnatural. She’s morbid. She’s unholy.

Oh it’s 1948, is it, and the sort of thing I’m hinting at went out with witchcraft? But you see I’m not
altogether sure myself what I’m hinting at, beyond a certain point. There are vampires and vampires, and
not all of them suck blood.

And there were the murders, if they were murders.

Besides, let me ask you this. Why, when America is obsessed with the Girl, don’t we find out more
about her? Why doesn’t she rate a Time cover with a droll biography inside? Why hasn’t there been a
feature in Life or the Post? A Profile in The New Yorker? Why hasn’t Charm or Mademoiselle done her
career saga? Not ready for it? Nuts!

Why haven’t the movies snapped her up? Why hasn’t she been on Information, Please? Why don’t we

file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Leiber,%20Fritz%20-%2...not%20Enough]%20-%20The%20Girl%20with%20the%20H.html (1 of 15)16-2-2006 15:43:21
 Fritz Leiber - The Girl with the Hungry Eyes

see her kissing candidates at political rallies? Why isn’t she chosen queen of some sort of junk or other