<<Leonard and Pelecanos and J.G. Dunne and many of the
other best among today's writer's owe more to George V. than
to anyone else who came before them. George
lives.>>
Just like Higgins owes, owed, to Hammett, Paul Cain,
Hemingway and Dos Passos. Just like, say, Constantine owes to
the great social writers of the thirties and later, like
Lewis, Steinbeck, Agee, O'Hara. Nothing is really new as a
concept. What is new is the story, the details, the
particular voice, the quirks.
When you convert a style into another operating system, it's
no longer the same style, as shown in the work of so many
Chandler imitators (good and bad), and in the work of the
best Ross Macdonald disciple, Stephen Greenleaf. One could
stress the Macdonald connection with Stephen's work, but
that's really minor. Macdonald wouldn't have told the same
stories, probably wouldn't have shared Tanner's ethos, and
wouldn't have gotten his guy so personally involved in the
stories.
I propose that we consider the tradition as a commons, just
like jazz standards are a commons. I was thinking of this as
I listened to Ellington & Coltrane's sublime rendition of
"My Little Brown Book". You take from the commons and you
give back a chewed and considered little, to enlarge
it.
Regards,
MrT
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