If We're Doomed To Repeat the Past, Can We At Least Skip The Present?
I am acquainted with a woman author who has, I think, gone out of her way to be good to me. She has a good brain, and I respect her quite a bit, and I hope I won't do her a disservice by talking about her here.
One of the nice things she has done for me has been to invite me to participate in her book group. I've since resigned my chair after being castigated by several members for not only not caring for a book by P. D. James, but by REALLY not caring for her writing. That, and the fact that we read too many current books by authors I've long since tried and discarded did me in (not the castigation itself, it wasn't that severe, I just didn't care for it much).
In any case, my friend recently weighed in on the discussion floating about concerning the quality (or lack thereof) of work to be found currently in the mystery genre. She agreed that the she was also feeling cold about the state of the state. Yes, this is the same topic I posted on yesterday and there's no reason to rehash it again today. But the next thing I read in an e-mail to the book group (they never took me off the list) was that she didn't want to read any more classics. She felt that modern writers benefitted not only her reader's mind but her writer's one as well and that it was undesirable to read the old stuff.
I found this very interesting. On the surface, it occurred to me that she's bemoaning the state of current crime fiction yet she only wants to read more of it. I'm not sure that's as much of a contradiction as it sounds, but mainly because I think she must think there's enough modern stuff out there that's worthwhile. But I could be wrong.
In any case, the last book that I had recommended to the group was Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon." Unfortunately I left the group before the next meeting so I couldn't justify my reasoning. In short, today's crime fiction is today's crime fiction because of what was written in the past. The old classics, and indeed, merely writers from earlier ages, created the building blocks that today's writers use to create their books. To my mind, you're depriving yourself of a big portion of learning the craft of writing if you neglect the history or the evolution of the current crime novel.
People may not shoot each other as much as they did in Hammett's books and Los Angeles may not be the same as it used to be in Chandler's, but there's so much that can be learned from their work. The characters they developed, their plots, all the things that we throw stones at when we pick apart today's genre bestellers were done often much better back then. The era doesn't matter so much as the skill of the writer and better yet, the observance of the genesis of precisely those things one likes and doesn't like about today's work.
If you think today's work is more skillfully done than yesterday's, pick up a book by Harry Whittington to see how plotting SHOULD be done. Read a Peter Rabe for the sheer style of it, not overblown, just terse and hard hitting. Many of the writers from the Fawcett Gold Medal era had a profound sense of style, something that I find sorely missing in most of today's crime fiction. Many of today's bestsellers rely on gimmickry rather than a talent and style crafted by someone who cares.
I'm not saying that older works are better because they're older, either. A clunker's a clunker no matter when it was published. But neither does newer mean better and a reader is depriving themself of much enjoyment if they allow themselves to overlook the work of people like David Goodis or Ross MacDonald. And as a writer, I wonder that if looking at the new stuff in order to learn your craft is like trying to learn a new language by studying its slang. You're just not going to get it all.
I don't think I'm wrong, but who knows. I'm mystified daily that one cannot walk into a bookstore or go online and buy a single set of the works of Charles Dickens or Ernest Hemingway or John O'Hara. I learn a whole lot more from everyone of the older gents I've mentioned than I will ever learn from a James Patterson or Jonathan Kellerman. And I think that's a good thing.
Now if I can just wish these old guys back into print, I may get someone else to agree with me. One never knows.
One of the nice things she has done for me has been to invite me to participate in her book group. I've since resigned my chair after being castigated by several members for not only not caring for a book by P. D. James, but by REALLY not caring for her writing. That, and the fact that we read too many current books by authors I've long since tried and discarded did me in (not the castigation itself, it wasn't that severe, I just didn't care for it much).
In any case, my friend recently weighed in on the discussion floating about concerning the quality (or lack thereof) of work to be found currently in the mystery genre. She agreed that the she was also feeling cold about the state of the state. Yes, this is the same topic I posted on yesterday and there's no reason to rehash it again today. But the next thing I read in an e-mail to the book group (they never took me off the list) was that she didn't want to read any more classics. She felt that modern writers benefitted not only her reader's mind but her writer's one as well and that it was undesirable to read the old stuff.
I found this very interesting. On the surface, it occurred to me that she's bemoaning the state of current crime fiction yet she only wants to read more of it. I'm not sure that's as much of a contradiction as it sounds, but mainly because I think she must think there's enough modern stuff out there that's worthwhile. But I could be wrong.
In any case, the last book that I had recommended to the group was Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon." Unfortunately I left the group before the next meeting so I couldn't justify my reasoning. In short, today's crime fiction is today's crime fiction because of what was written in the past. The old classics, and indeed, merely writers from earlier ages, created the building blocks that today's writers use to create their books. To my mind, you're depriving yourself of a big portion of learning the craft of writing if you neglect the history or the evolution of the current crime novel.
People may not shoot each other as much as they did in Hammett's books and Los Angeles may not be the same as it used to be in Chandler's, but there's so much that can be learned from their work. The characters they developed, their plots, all the things that we throw stones at when we pick apart today's genre bestellers were done often much better back then. The era doesn't matter so much as the skill of the writer and better yet, the observance of the genesis of precisely those things one likes and doesn't like about today's work.
If you think today's work is more skillfully done than yesterday's, pick up a book by Harry Whittington to see how plotting SHOULD be done. Read a Peter Rabe for the sheer style of it, not overblown, just terse and hard hitting. Many of the writers from the Fawcett Gold Medal era had a profound sense of style, something that I find sorely missing in most of today's crime fiction. Many of today's bestsellers rely on gimmickry rather than a talent and style crafted by someone who cares.
I'm not saying that older works are better because they're older, either. A clunker's a clunker no matter when it was published. But neither does newer mean better and a reader is depriving themself of much enjoyment if they allow themselves to overlook the work of people like David Goodis or Ross MacDonald. And as a writer, I wonder that if looking at the new stuff in order to learn your craft is like trying to learn a new language by studying its slang. You're just not going to get it all.
I don't think I'm wrong, but who knows. I'm mystified daily that one cannot walk into a bookstore or go online and buy a single set of the works of Charles Dickens or Ernest Hemingway or John O'Hara. I learn a whole lot more from everyone of the older gents I've mentioned than I will ever learn from a James Patterson or Jonathan Kellerman. And I think that's a good thing.
Now if I can just wish these old guys back into print, I may get someone else to agree with me. One never knows.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 7:27 PM
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