> All right, I'll stir up trouble to see if I can
provoke some response.
> And I'll admit right off that my opinions are based
on little sampling.
>
> 1. I've only read a little Ross MacDonald, but he
seems way overrated
> to me. I first thought he was going to be great
because Joyce Carol
> Oates praises him so highly in her review of the
Library of America
> Chandler (she implies, as I recall, that MacDonald
improved on
> Chandler). I read part of _The Goodbye Look_, then
put it aside. Maybe
> the mere confines of family squabble seem
uniteresting to me. I've read
> the first fifty pages of _Drowning Pool_. It seems
competent to me,
> with some good dialogue and descriptions. At the same
time, it often
> seems badly stagey and contrived (e.g., Archer's
hearing the long
> dialogue, with all the innuendo, etc., when he first
arrives for the
> cocktail party). I have recently read that John
Leonard wrote a piece
> in Esquire in 1976 about how two critics (at Time and
[Leonard? at] the
> New York Times) conspired to do big stories on
MacDonald, and it was
> only after that time that he rose in
notoriety.
Okay, I had decided that I wouldn't reread _The Drowning
Pool_ (just not
enough time in the day), but now I'm going to have to.
Macdonald was one
of my favorites when I first discovered hardboiled fiction. I
always
preferred his earlier novels to his later, more critically
acclaimed ones,
though.
> 2. Michael Connelly has gotten a lot of attention and
Mario Taboada
> (whose postings I always admire) recently spoke
highly of Connelly. I
> read Black Ice--or rather about 200+ pages out of 300
or so. I renewed
> it, then finally let the library have it back, just
as I was nearing the
> climax. I just didn't care; or rather, I didn't care
about caring.
> Connelly's Bosch--at least in Black Ice--is the
detective you learn too
> much about--he's a recovering alcoholic, he's got
girl trouble, he's got
> issues. It's too much, I say, too much. Perhaps the
other works are
> much better than Black Ice.
I tried to read Connelly a couple of years ago and had the
same experience,
just didn't care enough to keep turning the pages.
James Reasoner
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