I'm up to #10 as I reread John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee
series: THE GIRL IN THE PLAIN BROWN WRAPPER (1969). It's the
worst of them so far, sad to say. It's loose and flabby, the
plot is obvious, and the action just doesn't make much
sense.
It takes 40 pages for the action to start. Before that we're
treated to a marine salvage operation with McGee, Meyer, and
some chums while they raise a sunken ship from the ocean
floor with some new-fangled foam. Then there's a flashback to
how McGee helped a woman, this time an older one, back to
mental and physical health. We all know how. McGee gets a
letter from the woman written when she was on her deathbed.
She asks him to help with her daughter, who has lost her
mind, and he goes to see what he can do.
As soon as the situation is explained, it's pretty clear
who's behind it and how they're doing it. However, why anyone
in the small Florida town puts up with McGee poking around is
beyond me. Some bad men try to beat him up, and fail. Some
women try to sleep with him, and often succeed.
There's one bit where he's talking to a young black maid at a
motel. She pulls a dumb act to get rid of him, and he wants
her to speak openly. This is 1968, remember. "Okay, so they
had had more than their share of grief from men of my outward
stamp, big and white and muscular, sun-darkened and visibly
battered in small personal wars. My outward type had knotted
a lot of black skulls, tupped a plenitude of black ewes,
burned crosses and people in season. They see the outward
look and they classify on that basis." "Tupped a plenitude of
black ewes"!? I can hardly believe it. Another period bit is
when a neurologist says, "This RNA manufactures protein
molecules--don't ask me how." They teach that in high school
now, but 35 years ago it must still have been a
mystery.
McGee often drops articles in descriptions: long muscles of
arms, strong dark column of throat, slow thump of heart,
lift-clamp of thigh. I wish I hadn't noticed this, because I
started keeping an eye out for it, and then imagining McGee
ordering breakfast: "Sweet black of coffee. Yellow eye of
egg. Buttered crisp of toast. Seedless jelly of
blueberry."
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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