Mr. Archer wrote:
> Yeah, well, I can understand liking a
book/author
> for the overall
> experience, and enjoying visiting the world
created,
> even if, or perhaps,
> because, it's familiar, yet interesting
and
> evocative. I read a couple of
> Burke's; liked them; then said: "Okay, been
there,
> done that." When I read a
> new book by someone I've read before and think,
half
> way through, maybe I've
> read it before, that's when I realize I've
grown
> tired of their schtick.
>
> Part of it is marketing, in that publishers
want
> series characters that
> 'lock in' a certain fan base; and many readers
enjoy
> the familiarity of the
> series. I enjoyed Stout's Nero Wolfe, knowing
that
> what I was going to read
> was sure to be familiar in many details. I
never
> took the stories
> 'seriously', that is, I read them as
clever
> diversions, not in any way a
> seriously intriguing literary experience, which
is
> where I might put Burke,
> for ex. Same with most of Christie. Cute, but
not
> any meat to them. Souffle,
> rather than stew.
I do think the worth of a series has to be evaluated in the
context of the whole series. Volumes can ebb and flow in
quality, for one thing, sometimes relatively late in the
game: which would you rather read, McBain's COP HATER or
SADIE WHEN SHE DIED? Ross M's THE MOVING TARGET or THE FAR
SIDE OF THE DOLLAR? And of course it's not unusual for
serious artists in the genre to write formulaic series: Ross
Macdonald leaps to mind; it's been a long time since I read
him but I'd guess Simenon fits in there, too.
You're right that there's a difference between what Stout was
trying to do and what Chandler, say, was trying to do. I'll
go along with "one is a soufflee and one is a stew", too. I
guess I'm also saying that you can eat them both. Stout
certainly wasn't the literary artist Chandler was; that
didn't make him bad or his books not worth reading. Even at
it's most down and dirty level (Edward S. Aarons's Sam
Durrell series, say) I'd argue that "formulaic", while
something worth noting, doesn't really tell you much about
whether a book is worth reading, just as bad lyrics don't
necessarily tell you whether a rock song's any good.
my two cents.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up
Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Dec 2003 EST