Jay, thanks for mentioning this, I saw this as well. The
thing that struck me is that, despite how sure of himself
James is about the merits of "mystery writing" versus
literature, going by the examples he gives, he is remarkably
unread in the genre. He cites some excellent writers, but
it's a very narrow list, and I think in the end it's silly
and, well, ignorant for someone who hasn't read the books to
decide what's serious and what isn't. If he said, he read 100
mystery, crime, noir etc novels over the past year and came
to the conclusion that mystery novels shouldn't be taken
seriously that would be one thing. But it seems like he's
read about five books. Too bad for him, I guess. J
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Jay Gertzman
<jgertzma@...> wrote:
>
> "Blood on the Borders" by a patronizing Clive James
(9 April issue)
> describes mystery writing as a genre that is fun and
easy to read--
not,
> of course, to be taken as "serious writing" (like
the most
pretentious
> genre of all time, the New Yorker short story??). He
quotes
Chandler's
> "down these mean streets a man must go..." as making
you "want to
read
> on." But the statement was from an essay not a
novel. Simenon was a
> great model for those who give the crime novel "its
aspiration to
> seriousness." Which of course it does not deserve.
But those who
do not
> use PI's like Maigret, sez James, cannot write
enough books to get
> consideration (by critics like James) as artists.
James does not
seem to
> know of Simenon's "roman durs," but he has read
plenty of Donna
Leon's
> Brunetti novels, because his younger daughter likes
the writer.
Sooo
> nice of him to get down to her level. The rest of
the article deals
with
> how the genre can be good as a kind of travelogue
(based on the
cities
> favored by the writers). Rankin's Edinburgh is a
better setting
that
> Glasgow; it looks better although Glasgow is
tougher. Quoting a few
> phrases from recent writers he thinks he is
sensitive enough to
expose
> as silly, snotty Clive sniffs, "those are the kind
of moments that
make
> real writers wonder if they shouldn't go into the
crime-fiction
business
> and run up a score."
> He's just too witty to be anything but precious, is
Clive
James, a
> dilettante in at least 4 genres: poetry, essay,
fiction, and
> non-fiction. You just /must/ have heard of
him.
>
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