Seminal works (Was: Re: RARA-AVIS: RE: Hunter and Leonard)

From: tieresias@att.net
Date: 30 Mar 2003


I think it interesting to note how Leonard said he didn't "learn" anything from Chandler/Hammmett. It's semantics to me.

Seminal works in any genre are those which influence future writers, period. This subject has been brought up on this list before, but I think it is still relevant (particularly to this discussion).

Although writers (and critics) are quick to note those worthies who came before and influenced them in a positive manner, it is a more difficult proposition to asssess which authors one has read that might influence one in a negative manner.

For instance, my disdain for the majority of the writings of James Ellroy is well-documented on this list, and speaking as an heretofore unpublished author of at least one full-length mystery novel, I can honestly say that the crawl- in-your-own-filth-both-real-and-metaphorical style of Ellroy's writing has in fact had a negative influence on my own work (such as it is). In other words, I have been pushed away from writing things that might be hailed as "Ellroyesque", etc.

I think that seminal books do that. They influence either positively or negatively, based upon any possible combination of power and originality. Thus, although Leonard (a man I consider to be a brilliant writer) may not have 'learned' anything from Chandler, I don't consider it much of a stretch to say that there can be little question that he has been influenced by reading his work, even if he rejects it as "instructive."

Just my two cents,

Brian
>
>
>
> Al wrote:
>
> <Well, without inviting Hunter and Leonard to take lie detector
> tests,
> <there's no way of knowing for sure. But I'm frankly astonished
> you think so.
> <I can easily see how Chandler's style of writing would drive
> Leonard to
> <distraction. After all, their writing is contrary in almost
> every possible
> <way.
>
> Wasn't Leonard's claim that he had learned nothing from either
> Chandler or Hammett? I don't see how anybody writing in the crime
> field today can say that and mean it. I'm thinking primarily of
> Hammett here. The Black Mask boys, with Hammett as the most
> visible, put a distinctive stamp on crime fiction that influenced
> everything in the genre that came after. I wonder if there was a
> follow up question: if Hammett wasn't an influence, then who?
> Perhaps like Robert Parker, Leonard is a Melville man.
>
> Dick Lochte
>
>
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