And I agree, too. The demand for the 300 pages forces some
writers to pad, though I've also seen short books printed in
huge type in order to make them seem longer. Many of the
books that people on this list revere are short by today's
standards: The Burnt Orange Heresy, many of Thompson's, most
of the Gold Medals... in fact, the fashion of longer books in
the mystery and crime field seems to be fairly recent
(last couple of decades). While some books require the length
because of their ambition or because they paint a wide social
canvas or cover a long period (Pelecanos, Ellroy, Puzo), most
do not. What I'm not sure about is the reader's role. A
priori, I would doubt that readers demand longer books.
Literature by the inch is not a huge priority for most
people, and people have less time to read, not more, so what
gives?
Best,
mrt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Oct 2007 EDT