Elmore Leonard? Get Real!

[Paul Mackin]

On 2/3/2012 4:07 AM, jochen stremmel wrote:
> There's a misunderstanding, Paul. Rum Punch and The Switch (and most
> Leonard novels after it) are about strong women, not about losers.


But I WANT my stories to be about losers.

I love being married to strong women but I don't much want to read about 
them.


P
>
> And Dog is told by a funny loser, but no thriller.
>
> 2012/2/2 Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>:
>> On 2/2/2012 4:47 PM, jochen stremmel wrote:
>>> "Thriller type genre novels are too full of male cliches. Strong men,
>>> protectors of the weak, which often means vulnerable women, gallant
>>> followers of the code, self sacrificing, winners."
>>>
>>> That's not true in Leonard's case as well. Perhaps you have seen
>>> Tarantino's Jackie Brown (his best movie in my eyes) after Leonard's
>>> Rum Punch. But perhaps you should begin with The Switch, surely
>>> available on Kindle.
>>>
>>> And if you like losers I recommend, not for the first time here, The
>>> Dog of the South.
>>
>> I sort of remember "jackie Brown" (the movie) and it was very good,  but I
>> really wasn't talking about losers in the sense of people on the wrong side
>> of law, committing melodramatic crimes, regardless of whether of not they
>> get away with it.  Incidentally I think Jackie DID get away with it, sort of
>> at least.
>>
>> My kind of losers are ordinary, fairly law abiding citizens whose clashes
>> with social norms seldom draw the attention of the authorities.
>>
>> Crime for people like me is not a real problem Oops that sounds like
>> something Mitt would say, but I can explain.
>> It's something I seldom experience first hand whereas there are a lot of
>> things I do experience (in my imagination at least) and can get more serious
>> about in a novel..
>>
>>
>> P
>>>
>>>
>>> 2012/2/2 Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>:
>>>> On 2/2/2012 2:54 PM, jochen stremmel wrote:
>>>>> Leonard ain't no mystery writer!
>>>>>
>>>>> And only half Simenon's output are mysteries. Not the better half. And
>>>>> whoever wants to put Simenon down should read La Marie du Port.
>>>>
>>>> Thriller type genre novels are too full of male cliches. Strong men,
>>>> protectors of the weak, which often means vulnerable women, gallant
>>>> followers of the code, self sacrificing, winners.
>>>>
>>>> I prefer to read about "losers," guys (or women)  who may feel locked in
>>>> by,
>>>> say,  marriage, family, relationships,  parenthood--people generally
>>>> without
>>>> much ambition or energy but still very worthwhile.
>>>>
>>>> There's a continuous flow of literary novels--some a lot better than
>>>> others--that satisfy my fussy reading preferences, which is why I can't
>>>> take
>>>> much interest in singling out America' greatest novelists. For me a
>>>> novelist
>>>> is great if he or she has a book out that I haven't read yet.
>>>>
>>>> Also it has to be available on Kindle.
>>>>
>>>> P
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 12/2/2 Ian Livingston<igrlivingston at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>> 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 think I'd rather drown. Mysteries are nice, light reading, in which
>>>>>> the unknown becomes somehow known according to minimalist rules. The
>>>>>> real complexities at work in the daily lives, much more the lives of
>>>>>> adventure, get reduced to the meanest of actions complicated merely by
>>>>>> deception, whereas the human mind seeks constantly to reconstruct a
>>>>>> working model of a world in such rapid transition knowledge of fact
>>>>>> becomes nigh impossible. THAT mystery will not be solved by linear
>>>>>> progress, certainly, if it can ever be satisfactorily rectified by any
>>>>>> means at all.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And it is the wallow of that intellectual swale that puts Pynchon,
>>>>>> occasionally McCarthy, Murakami, and a sampling of others out ahead of
>>>>>> Leonard and other mystery writers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>>>>>   wrote:
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>>>>>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>>>>>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>>>>>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>>>>>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>>>
>>>>