I almost always agree with your opinions but I cannot
disagree more with your dismissal of the work of B. Traven.
His work is uneven with some novels better than others--but
this can be said of nearly every writer. His style is often
conversational--the storyteller-- but I like that style and
find it quite accessable. My favorite Traven novel is THE
TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, which I would put at the top of
any list of the "easily readable" and I've reread it more
than any other novel. I picked up the Pocket Books edition
with Bogart on the cover when I was 12 and read it in one
gulp and then reread it immediately. I lucked into a first
American edition when I was 14 and picked it up for $8
although that was a lot of money to me then.
But I do respect your view as always even on this rare point
of disagreement. I also think very highly of some of his
shorter work as represented in his collection THE NIGHT
VISITOR.
The fellow who finally tracked down the details on Traven was
Will Wyatt who produced a BBC special and then a book
entitled THE SECRET OF THE SIERRA MADRE: THE MAN WHO WAS B.
TRAVEN (Doubleday 1980). An interesting earlier work by Judy
Stone is THE MYSTERY OF B. TRAVEN (William Kaufmann 1977)
which includes impressions from her conversations with the
old man in Mexico. A comprehensive, if somewhat turgid,
biography was published by Karl S. Guthke In 1987.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "E. Borgers"
<webeurop@...> wrote:
>
> Miker,
> IMO you can forget B. Traven's work, not easily
readable.
> Of course, as I don't read German fluently, I could
not check
the version of Death Ship that he first published during the
twenties. Many versions, many also "reduced" by
editors…
> I think that looking for a work on his life will be
far more
interesting. It's a real saga.
> There were also two very good documentaries (for TV)
depicting
his life, works… and explaining once for all the identity
problem and its solutions.
> But I do not have the ref for the documentaries any
more.
>
> E.Borgers
> POLAR NOIR
> http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
>
>
> Michael Robison <miker_zspider@...> a 飲it :
I'm on
vacation down in Jacksonville, Florida, and
> I've been visiting some of the used bookstores
down
> here. Checked out the Tappin Book Mine today
and
> walked away with The Real Cool Killers. That place
is
> always good for classic hardboiled. I've
been
> thinking I might want to walk through the whole
series
> after reading Cottom Comes to Harlem several
years
> back. They had Traven's (sp?) Death Ship, but
after
> thumbing through it, I didn't think it looked
too
> exciting.
>
> miker
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Jul 2007 EDT