>Kevin Smith wrote:
>
>> [A]s much as I'm a fan of [Ross] Macdonald, I'm
also ambivalent as hell
>about his work. Anyone else out there have the same
emotional response to
>Macdonald's work? Or am I just being a bigger weenie
than usual? <
>
>I can't say that I am ambivalent about my feelings
toward Macdonald. As far
>as I'm concerned, he wrote some of the finest, most
distinctive private eye
>novels this nation has ever enjoyed reading, from "The
Doomsters" and "The
>Chill" to "The Instant Enemy" and "The Underground
Man." Even the author's
>tendency to explore certain familiar themes during the
second half of his
>career didn't bother me terribly, for he rarely failed
to find new gold even
>in old diggings. Macdonald's willingness to explore
the inner lives and
>sometimes horrific heritage of his characters set him
apart from most of his
>contemporaries and, as others have mentioned here, set
the pace for the
>writings of people who have more recently followed him
onto best-seller
>lists.
I'm not sure how one can be both a fan of and ambivalent
toward an
author at the same time. On the other hand, it's said by
Freudians that
the ability to hold contradictory beliefs simultaneously is
the mark of
intelligence.
In my (indisputably) humble opinion Chandler couldn't carry
Macdonald's
jock strap. One difference, of course, is that Chandler wrote
in
analogies and metaphors that invited caricaturization.
See
http://www.internetwk.com/news0299/det.htm
for a Chandler send-up. The successor to Chandler is Ace
Ventura, not
Macdonald's Archer. Ace Ventura is the cornball outworking
and logical
conclusion to Philip Marlowe: an out-of-step clown. Marlowe
could exist
for a twenty- to thirty-year period in American history.
Before or after
this tiny window and Marlowe is either shoveling coal or
living under a
bridge somewhere.
Macdonald cannot be caricatured (except insofar as some of
his lesser
works mimic the Chandler style), for he wrote with a much
more timeless
sense of prose, with a much greater understanding of human
psychology.
Mind you, I'm no fan of Freudianism, which Macdonald was
apparently
beholden to, but Macdonald was able to mask its logical
inconsistencies
and attenuate its inflated sense of being an
all-encompassing
explanation for the The Way People Behave and Why. As a
masquerade for
Freud, Macdonald's writings are excellent. Nobody can read
"The Chill"
and come away unweirder, if I may use such a word.
Before I forget, A&E is going to broadcast a movie about
Dashiell
Hammet's and Lillian Hellman's lives together. It's called,
natch, "Dash
and Lill." It might interest some of you to know that "Dash"
wrote most
of "Lill's" best work. "The Little Foxes" is Hammett's, I
understand.
Hellman was a great showwoman -- a kind of P T Barnum -- and
milked her
association with Hammett for years and years. I doubt the
movie lets you
know this, so I'm getting my digs in here and now.
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