On 10 June 2003, Bludis Jack wrote:
: In general, If my one recent reading and my recollection is
correct, the
: McGee books followed a predictable paradigm. A wounded bird
(female)
: comes to Travis to find something that belongs to her.
Someone has
: either stolen it or conned it from her. (side note: The
wounded bird is
: often from one of his past books--if not from a past book
from McGee's
: pre-series past.)
Your archetypal McGee plot is on the money. For a long time,
that was all I remembered about the books, and I stayed away
from them. Rereading them, though, I find there are enough
variations to keep my interest--as JDM would have planned.
McGee and Meyer might find themselves thrown into an
adventure when they rescue a woman from a murder attempt, for
example. In one book McGee's friend is murdered, and he
investigates. In DRESS HER IN INDIGO, McGee and Meyer do a
favour for a friend and find out about his daughter's last
days in Mexico before she died in a car accident.
McGee's job is to get back what was stolen from you, and for
payment, he keeps half. That's how he makes his living, so
that's what most of the books are about. It gets him into
adventures, it takes him travelling, and it introduces him to
at least two very attractive women in each book. Mr.
Pelecanos commented a while back on the wish-fulfilment in
the McGee books: he's big, smart, tough, he doesn't have a
real job, he lives on a boat, and babes dig him. McGee can be
fairly lacerating about it sometimes, especially about the
wounded birds and why he never wants to get seriously
attached to a woman. Mordant self-reflection often crops
up.
About the standard plot, I'm reminded of an essay by Umberto
Eco, "The Narrative Structure in Fleming:"
A: M gives a task to Bond
B: The villain appears (perhaps
in vicarious form)
C: Bond gives a first check to
the villain, or the villain gives a
first check
to Bond
D: 'The girl' shows herself to
bond
etc.
I bet a similar thing could be done with McGee. He always
meets two women, one wordly and one innocent; he cons his way
in to get close to the villain; he mulls over his
shortcomings and then Meyer cheers him up.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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