--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, harry.lerner@...
wrote:
>
> For his Lew Archer series, THE CHILL and BLACK MONEY
are among his
> best, although all of the Lew Archer stories are
worth a read. >
Quoting Jeff Vorzimmer <jvorzimmer@...>:
> >> What about the other MacDonald,
Ross?
> >
> > Haven't read that many. Any
recommendations?
Jeff - Harry's recommendation of THE CHILL is a good place to
start. A careful reader of the Macdonald canon will be
rewarded on several levels. Macdonald generally plays fair,
and the convoluted plots can be solved if you pay attention.
More interesting, though, is his use of themes and imagery to
drop clues throughout each novel. In THE CHILL, bird imagery
is used to foreshadow events or give clues as to the killer's
identity (a pigeon in Chapter 6, and an owl in Chapter 9). In
THE BARBAROUS COAST, the theme of masks and layers obscuring
the truth factors into the story tremendously. In the opening
chapter, he establishes the masked/layered theme when he
describes an area "masked with oleanders". He follows up with
references to masks throughout
(Chapters 7, 20, 21, 22, 31 to name a few). In THE
ZEBRA-STRIPED HEARSE, as you might imagine, he plays with
black and white (and grey imagery), light and dark, all
through the book. In SLEEPING BEAUTY, orange is sprinkled
through the book (the eye of a bird, a dress, Orange
County).
Millar/Macdonald studied Imagist poets and theory and applied
this in his novels. He was very familiar with the work of
Richard Aldington, John Gould Fletcher, Amy Lowell, T.E.
Hulme, and Remy de Gourmont. All of his novels are loaded
with metaphors and similes that are often part of the
structure of the book; he would use a series of image arcs to
tie various elements of the book together.
The nice thing about his books is that they work as detective
yarns, but, there's a lot more going on under the hood if
you're willing to look and pay attention.
Harry - Thank you--I'm aware of Lew Buckingham.
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