Please stir! I do not think R-A has to be a sleeping
community...
I unfortunately have to agree with your statement: Ross MD is
certainly one
of the most overrated author in HB.
I myself tried years ago to get trough his work, but really
could'n't.
say that at best it is average; it practically always handles
"psychological
novels" tones and descriptions that are used to explain
everything and
everyone in the plots, added to lengthy and useless
developments. Then these
endless family affairs...
From time to time a chapter exhibits some interesting form
of writing but
most of the time it's "deja lu". This compared to some other
authors
preceding RMD in time or publishing during the same
period.
Maybe acceptable from very average writers, but deceiving
for somebody
ranked amongst the *bests* in HB by lots of critics (or are
they just
repeating the some old appreciation...?)
I was telling myself that I probably didn't read the very
good novels of RMD...
But that was wishful thinking.
I relegate RMD on the third rank in my personal HB
Pantheon.
Maybe the critic you are referring to for 'The New York
Times' could have been
William Goldman? Goldman lauded RMD for his Archer series:
"...the finest
series of detective novel ever written by an American " Good
for him...
Maybe I could also stir a little now: You want a MacDonald?
Then take John
D. MacDonald. Not for his colorful Travis Mc Gee series, but
for his
previous writings harboring masterpieces. That's stirred...
but not shaken!
Isn't it?
E.Borgers
>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.
>
>
>Doug Levin
>
>
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