Elmore Leonard? Get Real!

[Mark Kohut]

Jochen,
 
Grass came to mind in the early morning because he won a Nobel and his books were published well in America. 
I want to read more of him, but I threw him out as a placeholding question mark for WHOEVER international
writers our plisters might rate top of the pops...fill it in....
 
And, as I indicated, I am lightly read in Leonard for no better reason than that there are so many good writers, so many
good books and I am a slow, albeit voracious, reader. 
 
So, refute away. No one has yet argued against my seeing a bit of a shell game at work in the essay-writer,m not Leonard
 
P.S. If someone said I could take the collected works of only one mystery genre writer when I was abandoned on a desert island, I think I would 
choose Simenon. I'd get a whole society, ala Balzac in the 20th Century. (Unless I was allowed Proust too as non-genre. Then I don't know 
who I'd choose.)


________________________________
From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
To: Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com> 
Cc: igrlivingston at gmail.com; pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:03 AM
Subject: Re: Elmore Leonard? Get Real!

What do you think is Chandler's best novel? The Long Goodbye? Compare
it with the Maltese Falcon. It reconfirms a lot of important things
about life in the USA: The business of USAmerica is business; romance
is a worthwile delusion; it's hazardous to sleep with your partner's
wife; women who engage in serial relationships will lie to you when
the truth would do them more good; existentialism is a practical
philosophy for urban males to follow; and if a man develops a
professional attitude towards his work, he will probably succeed where
others fail.

And try to find the point of view in The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key.

And Mark, would you be so kind and tell me what you have read from
Leonard? And what from Grass?

J


2012/2/2 Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>:
>
> That piece about Leonard is great, thanks John. He's better than
> Chandler, leaner, not as sentimental. Perhaps not better than Hammett.
> (Leonard himself said, Willeford wrote the best crime novels.)Yeah, I've ecnountered this line of thinking before - that Hammett is better than Chandler. Never could understand it.
>
>
>
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