"Should I read Ross MacDonald's "Lew Archer" cases in
sequence, just like Lawrence Block's "Matthew Scudder"? Do
the personality of character varies as time goes on?"
There really isn't much "personality of character" in the Lew
Archer books. This isn't meant as a criticism. In fact,
that's one of the things I find so fascinating about this
series, how Archer is kind of absent from his own books,
observing and solving without revealing much of
himself.
Now I'm anal about reading series in order, and I went back
and did this with the Archer novels at one point. However,
although he has periods, there's not much interdependence or
plot development between the inidividual books. And I'd agree
with Brian on the books he listed as Macdonald's best
period.
Makes me think. Isn't this idea of series having a structure
and plot beyond a single entry kind of new, just a few
decades old? Yes, there are slight changes over time with
Wade Miller's Max Thursday or Meyer may hae to get anew book
at one point in the Travis McGee series, but I really can't
think of older series that seem to plot in arcs. About the
first I can think of is Stark's Parker series, whose first
four books seem to have been plotted as one, which is kind of
strange since the first was definitely written as a
standalone, with the ending havng to be changed to accomodate
a series.
Oh, and of course, there are the 57th Precinct novels. Was it
the first to do this seriously?
Mark
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