He was a self-plagiarist. I remember telling Larry that I
thought
I'd stumbled on his key book (I read them out of order, as I
found
them) -- the one which was the prototype for the rest,
because it had
*all* the scenes in it which turned up, reused, in various
other
books. Some involved characters (I seem to recall a man who
ran a
gambling den) and some bits of business (a shady character
smokes
"funny" cigarettes, which Kane's protagonist turns down when
they're
offered with the line, "No thanks -- I prefer mine with
tobacco in
them.").... What was remarkable was the way Kane reused these
bits
and scenes in fresh plots and contexts, from book to book --
virtually
word for word. Why did he do it? He must have realised his
readers,
following his PI character, would encounter and recognize
these as
recycled lines. Did he think they'd accept it as readily as
readers
of DOC SAVAGE, say, accepted the potted biographies of Ham
and Monk
and the others, recycled in each story and issue?
I have this image of Kane as a man who sat at a rented desk
and
pounded his manual typewriter daily, while never taking off
his hat.
I think this image comes to me from Shaw, who knew him, but I
may have
fabricated it. I think of Kane as an oldstyle, lesser Frank
Gruber,
pulp hack sort of a guy. I'll bet there was an ashtray
overflowing
with cigarette butts right next to that typewriter,
too.
--Ted White
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