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RARA-AVIS: John D. MacDonald
My condemnation of J. D. MacD. for repetitiveness is based on once
reading a Travis McGee novel and then immediately reading another that
had been published several years after the other and suddenly being
struck by a several page monologue by Meyer that was word-for-word what
had appeared in the earlier book. I cannot remember which two
Travis McGee titles these are and I do not have any to hand from
which to verify my contention. MacDonald was obviously too lazy or too
unimaginative to create fresh philosophizing for his character and so
disdained his reader that he felt no qualms in copying himself. I
suppose that if I had been reading the series as published I would never
have noticed due to the intervening passage of time between the titles,
but all the same this demonstrates a contempt for the audience. As for
the plots, Travis is reworked through the same hoops over and over with
only the names and the locale changed. Of course, Christie did the same
thing, recycling her plots about every 20 years.
David Skene-Melvin
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