>If you read my post carefully, you will see that one
paragraph is by
>Kevin (who cited Crais and Parker originally) and the
other one is mine.
>There is no contradiction.
Yep, I agree. It's usually tough enough figuring out what I'm
trying to say
(because half the time I'm thinking out loud) without mixing
my stuff in
with Mario's. While he and I may disagree on Macdonald's
relative influence
on Parker and Crais, I think his excellent post is well worth
re-reading.
And I agree that Macdonald's influence hasn't always been
beneficial, and
some of his takes on my examples have really given me
something to think
about.
But....
One of the most Macdonaldesque things Crais wrote was, I
think, ironically
enough, his short story in the RAYMOND CHANDLER'S PHILIP
MARLOWE
collection. But the influence of Macdonald is there in much
of Crais and
Parker's work; the concern for the lost and the damaged, and
the hidden
sins of the past infecting the present. Crais' upcoming L.A.
REQUIEM deals,
at least partially, with the repercussions of child abuse,
and much of
Parker's Spenser series, particularly the earlier books,
concern themselves
with the salvation of damaged, discarded kids. That their
sometimes very
un-Archer-like solutions may sometimes depend on very
un-Archer-like
sidekicks doesn't, in my mind, negate Macdonald's influence.
And both Crais
and Spenser are good enough writers, I think, to rise above
their
influences (or at least, can be good enough writers--it's
hard, sometimes,
to stand up for Parker these days).
It's interesting, too, that both Grafton and Paretsky have
been brought up
in our discussion of Macdonald and his influence on the
genre. In some
ways, Macdonald, by introducing a sort of liberal (or maybe
leftish?)
mindset of tolerance and compassion, and empathy for the
innocent, opened
up the genre, and paved the way for the thirty-two flavors of
eyes we now
have.
I do think that Macdonald represents a crucial point in the
hardboiled
detective novel, as does Mickey Spillane. It seems to me that
Spillane and
Macdonald (the anti-Hammer, if you will) represented a fork
in the road. If
much of modern detective fiction can be traced back to
Chandler, I'd
suggest that much, if not most of it also passes through
Macdonald on its
way there. Surely it's easier to see the path between V.I. or
Kinsey to
Marlowe when Archer's sitting there.
Which begs the question: when is it Hammer Time? While there
were once tons
of imitators, and some sly reworkings of Hammer in the
fifties and sixties,
the legacy now seems to be found mostly in men's adventure
books; a very
small handful of contemporary eyes (maybe Collins' Nate
Heller and
Estelman's Amos Walker); and in characters such as Mouse and
Hawk and Clete
Purcel and Joe Pike, in books that generally, owe more, in
their thematic
concerns, to Archer, rather than Hammer.
Influences are tricky things.
Kevin Smith
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
Now out: The February issue, with fiction from Robert Iles
and Leigh Brackett,
and Face the Face, our new contest for fans of paperback
eyes.! Yippy!
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