Someone recently made the comment that publishers want longer
books. This may have been true in the past, but not now. The
current wisdom is that the crime novel masquerading as
potential bestseller should be less than 100,000 words. The
crime novel not masquerading as p.b. should be about 70,000
words. The desire for a physically bigger book was based on
several previous beliefs. The bigger the book, the bigger the
price tag, the bigger the profit. One of the secrets of
Stephen King's success (and Robert Ludlum's and John le
Carre's and Peter Staub's, etc.) was the size of the books.
Serious research like that. Now, publishers have discovered
that they can put a big book price on a normal size book and
make even more profit. The shorter book is a quicker read,
duh, and therefore frees the reader to buy more books. The
shorter book is more appealing to foreign language
publishers. The shorter book lends itself better to audio
adaptation. And, I suppose, with the way things are going,
they feel a shorter book will be quicker to download.
So, I don't believe authors are being encouraged to pad their
novels, per se. What they're being encouraged to do is
provide more information about character -- bio, favorite
color, shoe size, etc. -- than the average crime novel needs
or can support. This is why many series seem to fall apart --
because after all the blanks have been filled in about a
protagonist's personal life, the only thing left is the job
at hand. That would be fine, but editors believe readers are
more interested in the personal stuff than the professional.
So the author winds up repeating, ad nauseum, info about the
sleuth or concocting something drastic to change the status
quo - which is where supporting characters oftentimes are put
into play. Either they're pushed into the limelight, where
their personal lives can lumber the mystery, or they get
bumped off. Either way, the book becomes a "breakthrough"
addition to the series, with lavish promotion and critical
acclaim and, Lord help us, reader affirmation.
Chandler and Hammett didn't have to worry about all that
crap. They, particularly Hammett, wrote about heroes who got
the job done. They were identified by their attitudes and
their actions, with no page space wasted on extraneous
biographical information. Off the job, Marlowe went to his
apartment and drank or played a game of chess. That wouldn't
be good enough by today's standards. The chess game would be
described move by move, with each move triggering some memory
that would provide the reader with a blinding insight into
Marlowe's character, possibly the reason this man of more
than average intelligence would choose such a lonely
unrewarding profession. Maybe, when he was just a little
chess player, some bad kid stole his white knight. Chandler
didn't bother with such guff. The fact that Marlowe knew and
liked the game of chess said enough about the man.
Anyway, my theory is that the continuing popularity of
Hammett and Chandler is based in large amount on the fact
that the lives of the Op and Spade and Marlowe (in the early
books) are basically unexamined by the text. What we know
about them, particularly Hammett's characters, comes from
reading between the lines. As much as I enjoy Robert Parker's
novels, I'm not sure how long they'll continue to be read
once the last book in the series has been written. For my
money, Parker has told and retold us everything a reader
could possibly want to know about Spenser, Susan, Pearl the
dog, Hawk and their perfect relationships -- sort of a
middle-age "Friends" without the laughtrack. But, judging by
the length of time this list has spent prodding, poking,
analyzing and criticizing the novels, I could be wrong. Maybe
Pearl is Parker's Flitcraft.
Dick Lochte
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