From: Kevin Burton Smith <
kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com> Subject: RARA-AVIS:
Chandler's Influence
And attributing "the American setting" to Chandler,
particularly by American writers, is absolutely ridiculous.
Just because a few Commonwealth copycats tried to jump on the
bandwagon by aping the US setting doesn't mean much. Are you
suggesting that without Chandler, Ross Macdonald might have
written about Buenos Aires, Leigh Brackett about Alaska or
Howard Browne about Tickle Creek, Tasmania? No, they wrote
about towns they lived in and knew.
-----------------------------------
Hey, Kevin, glad to see you're mellowing a little.
I think the point may be made that Chandler led the way in
getting writers to pay attention to the setting, American or
otherwise. Even Hammett comes up shy on that score, dropping
street names and local lore
("Poisonville") but not really pausing long enough to provide
a detailed sense of place. As you correctly note, Macdonald
wasn't going to write about Buenos Aires (though one of his
pre-Archer spy novels may have headed in that direction). But
without Chandler making a big thing about the dew on the
jacaranda and the way the air cools as you drive up into the
canyons, it's conceivable that private eye fiction would have
had considerably less interest in the local landscape.
Dick Lochte
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