On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Kent Westmoreland wrote:
> Juri wrote:
> The writers Cain influenced might in the
end
> provide more interesting body of work than those who
followed Chandler's
> work.
> This statement is almost unanswerable because it is
one of the most
> uninformed statements I have ever heard/read. I
can't imagine any American
> mystery writer of the latter half of the 20th
century that wasn't influenced
> by Chandler. Even if they haven't read him, they've
been influenced by
> writers who were influenced by him. Even writers
like Julie Smith, who work
> appears to have nothing in common with Chandler
admits to this.
What I meant was simply that the writers like Robert Parker,
Stephen Greenleaf, Walter Mosley and others (should I also
name some paperback writers like Frank Kane and Richard
Prather?) haven't been able to renew the genre to the same
extent that writers like Goodis, Willeford, Harry
Whittington, Charles Williams, Lionel White and others have
done. The private eye genre lacks intensity and personal
intimity that fills the works of those other writers. The
private eye genre is too easy.
This is what I meant. Everyone's been influenced by Chandler
(of course I know that!), but not everyone writes like
Chandler and that's just good. Not all the writers who follow
in Chandler's footsteps are bad (Howard Browne for example
must be one of the best), but I find many of them very
tiresome indeed.
Juri
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