I fail to see why being influenced by an author would be
detectable in their writing. Being influenced doesn't equate
to copying that author. Reading Chandler and then writing
your own detective fiction is being influenced by ... hell,
reading Chandler and hating him and then writing your own
story because you know you can do better is still amounts to
having been influenced by Chandler. There's nothing
disturbing in that that I can see. Authors are influenced by
everyone they read, but that doesn't amount to copying them
or that anyone is likely to know from reading them just who
the author has read unless it's the author's bio they're
reading.
-- Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
Don't let the skirts fool you these aren't ladies, they're femme fatales ...
http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
-----Original Message----- From: Al Guthrie Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 6:04 AM
That's a disturbing thought. If it's true, PI writers must have peculiarly sponge-like brains. Recently I read George "Ameba" Pelecanos's "Hell To Pay" without detecting the slightest trace of Chandler's alleged omnipotence. And more recently (commented on in the archives) I read Wade "Ringer" Miller's "Deadly Weapon": a PI novel markedly un-Chandleresque in its almost slavish indebtedness to Hammett (any PI writer not influenced by Hammett never read him, but was probably influenced by imitators, including Chandler. That's a disturbing thought. If it's true...).
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