SLPAD - 26 - succinct problem statement / shout-outs to authors

[Michael Bailey]

“[…The problem with “Under the Rose” was the same as the] problem with
“Entropy”:
               beginning with something abstract—a thermodynamic coinage or
the data in a guidebook—and only then going on to try to develop plot and
characters. This is simply, as we say in the profession, ass backwards.”


Off topic - Kurt Vile’s song “Bass Ackwards”
https://youtu.be/pOFWHty4XFQ

Such a relaxing video, Ur-surfers on the California coast, great laidback
song too



Then, a less-shame-faced admission of similar, though less-problematic,
(because more subtle?) inspiration-drawing, from the works of

John Buchan - (1875-1940)
Scotsman whose erudition & affability, as well as the cut of his jib, so
impressed Canadian Prime Minister King that he interrupted his feuding with
Canada’s Governor General Byng (“the King-Byng affair” No, really!) to
maneuver Buchan in 1935 into the position of Canada’s Governor General as
successor to Byng, in which capacity Buchan served until his death in 1940.
Not familiar with his novels but 39 Steps was a heck of a great film.
He wrote a 24-volume History of “the War” (presumably WWI?) & lots of other
stuff while also writing his 28 novels.



E. Phillips Oppenheim - (1866-1946) made it onto the cover of Time magazine
in 1927.
Worked in his father’s leather business for 20 years while writing his
early novels under a pseudonym, until a New York leather merchant who liked
his writing bought the firm & made him a managing director, giving him more
time for writing.

John Buchan raved about Oppenheim:

Direct quotes from Wikipedia:
 "my master in fiction" and "the greatest Jewish writer since Isaiah".

“[Oppenheim] described his method in 1922: "I create one more or less
interesting personality, try to think of some dramatic situation in which
he or she might be placed, and use that as the opening of a nebulous chain
of events." He never used an outline: "My characters would resent it."”




Helen MacInnes - (1907-1985) her husband was in MI-6 & also a classics
professor at Columbia in NYC.
Together they translated _Sexual Life in Ancient Rome_ and _Friedrich
Engels: A Biography_ into English from the German.
They traveled extensively together, and she made detailed notes on all
aspects of what they saw, which she used in her novels.
Her second novel, _Assignment in Brittany_, was required reading for Allied
intelligence agents about to work with the French Resistance.


Geoffrey Household - (1900-1988) went to Magdalen College at Oxford (1922)
Served in British Intelligence in WWII.
28 novels, 7 short story collections, and an autobiography.
“He described himself, in terms of his writing, as ‘sort of a bastard by
Stevenson out of Conrad.’”

King of the lateral career move:
- confidential secretary for Bank of Rumania
- sold bananas for United Fruit in Spain
- moved to US & wrote for children’s encyclopedias
- also composed children’s radio plays for Columbia Broadcasting System
- then, traveling salesman for John Kidd Printer’s Ink, in Europe, the
Middle East and South America
- after the war, he lived the life of a country gentleman, and wrote

Most famous for _Rogue Male_ which was made into a movie.

_Rogue Male_ was a Godfather of Rambo!

“The book influenced David Morrell
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/David_Morrell>'s
first novel, the 1972 "hunted man" action thriller First Blood
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/First_Blood_(novel)>,
which spawned the Rambo
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Rambo_(film_series)>
film
series. Morrell has acknowledged the debt in several interviews, including:
"When I started First Blood, back in 1968, I was deeply influenced by
Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male."