James Rogers (jetan@ionet.net)
Fri, 24 Dec 1999 08:12:17 -0600
At 12:58 AM 12/24/99 -0500, Gerals So wrote:
> While I don't believe Parker reached his full
potential, I do
>believe he deserves a spot among the greats, and I'll
read him anytime.
>Hammett's and Chandler's writing declined more
steeply than Parker's
>over a shorter period of time.
>
>
Wow. I was trying to refrain
from putting down Parker -this time - since I enjoy it too
much to really feel good about it (Catholic guilt). But I
won't play the sap for you.
I honestly think that
even if one rates Parker pretty high he is not even working
in the same area as Hammett or Chandler. Hammett's last book,
while not hardboiled, is a good, slick and commercial piece
that deserved it's success. In this respect, I would compare
it to the first Spencer books. But _Maltese Falcon_ and
_Glass Key_ are going to eventually be part of the American
Lit canon. When Hammett lost the ability to write he could no
longer write at all, so I don't see his stuff as so much a
decline as I do "sudden death".
Chandler is less defensible in
literary terms but I think that many, perhaps most, die-hard
Chandler fans would suggest that in _Little Sister_ and _Long
Goodbye_ RC is getting more ambitious, not less. In fact some
of my problems with those two books stem, possibly, from the
author trying to take the series detective story into places
were it doesn't fit comfortably at all. _Playback_ isn't very
good, but the author is a very ill guy at that point.
Merry
Christmas to all, even the Spencer and Burke fans.
James
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