Hi,
Like a lot of cynics, Thompson was, I think, a wounded
Romantic. When I was somewhat younger his books spoke to me,
but as time has gone on, while I still appreciate Thompson's
moments of utter brilliance, his books as a whole seem to me
too often to be unwieldly, ramshackle kinds of affairs.
(I think his best books are probably A HELL OF A WOMAN and
THE GETAWAY, although my personal favorite is POP 1280, which
is all over the place but is often very winning in a blackly
humorous way.)
I'm more of a Goodis man, I guess. I think at his best his
books are absolute perfection, cold, clear, not a wasted
word, with a crystalline structure. He's very wise, I think,
about human psychology and frailities, and at his best
manages to avoid the self-pity that clots up Woolrich, for
instance.
(My favorite Goodis book is DOWN THERE/SHOOT THE PIANO
PLAYER.)
doug
PS. I like both Bogart and Mitchum, but Mitchum's a little
more approachable, I think. You can fantasize that at your
best you might be Mitchum; you'd never be Bogart.
--- Dave Zeltserman <
dz@hardluckstories.com> wrote:
> Bill Crider has been posting very entertaining
video
> on his blog,
> http://billcrider.blogspot.com/,
where he has been
> interviewing
> folks at Bouchercon, mostly with this
question,
> along with the
> choice of Bogart or Mitchum.
>
> It would be interesting to see how RARA AVIS
folks
> respond to this.
> Personally, I put Thompson and Hammett at the
top
> (although I
> consider Rex Stout the best pure writer of all
the
> crime fiction
> writers of the last 70 years), with everyone
else
> somewhere below--
> Goodis somewhere under Willeford and slightly
above
> Dan Marlowe.
> Goodis is probably a technically sounder writer
than
> Thompson, but
> Thompson hits moment of absolute brilliance in
his
> writing that puts
> him at a special level--at least for me.
>
> As far as Bogart or Mitchum--with all due respect
to
> Robert Mitchum,
> who was great in Night of the Hunter and Out of
the
> Past, I'd have
> to pick Bogart in a landslide. Range and
screen
> presense he showed
> in Treasure of Sierre Madre, Maltese
Falcon,
> Casablanca, African
> Queen, The Roaring Twenties, The Petrified
Forest,
> The Caine Mutiny,
> In a Lonely Place, among many others, could only
be
> rivaled by
> Cagney, DeNiro, and maybe Pacino.
>
>
>
>
Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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