Mark,
Re your comments below:
"Given how much Spillane sold in the '50s and early
'60s (then second only to the Bible in all time sales, as I
recall reading somewhere), his sales can coast a long time
and he'll still be up there. But weren't the Hammers out of
print in the US for a while before the somewhat recent
omnibus editions (and weren't a lot of those almost
immediately remaindered -- I know there were stacks of them
very cheap in my local Borders -- assumedly because sales did
not meet presumed demand)?"
The Hammers, and other Spillanes, were available in PB
reprints virtually continuously from the '50s through the
'90's. There may have been a few short periods when they
weren't available, but they were few and far between. The
appearance of a new Spillane was usually followed by new PB
editions of all his earlier work.
I'll grant that his sales figures after the first phenomenal
burst of popularity probably don't come up to those earlier
numbers, but he's been consistently popular and sonsistently
read for decades.
There've been several sets of omnibus editions, and virtually
all omnibus editions, no matter of who, wind up
remaindered.
"However, you're making a big 'test of time' assumption that
was recently touched on here -- are sales the test of
time?"
Consistent sales over a period of time certainly are, because
they are proof that the popularity of a writer isn't a
passing fancy.
Take a look at best-selling mystery writers prior to
Spillane. How many people remember S.S. Van Dine, E. Phillips
Oppenheim, Mary Roberts Rinehart, or even Edgar Wallace? But
even non-mystery fans have heard of Spillane. In terms of
longevity AND top sales, Spillane's in a class with Conan
Doyle, Christie, and very few others.
The assertion I was responding to was that Spillane hasn't
stood the test of time. He clearly has. If you don't like his
writing now, I submit you wouldn't have in his salad days,
either. It hasn't improved or degenerated with time. So if
he's still being read
(and he is), and studied (and he is), and written about (and
he is), his writing must, at some level, stand the test of
time.
The only reason I addressed the "test of time" issue is
because that was the issue that was raised.
"If so, literary valuation fluctuates all over the place. Or
is it the determination of experts? And if so, what experts,
scholars, fans, other writers? Each is likely to get you
different answer. (And, if I were honest, I'd have admit I
too often shift between the various points of view to fit
whatever point I am trying make."
I didn't get into the "test of time" argument when it came
up. The issue raised here wasn't whether or not the test of
time was a valid way to gauge literary value, but whether or
not Spillane had weathered that test. He has. Clearly and
undeniably.
As to whether or not it's a valid test for literary value, I
guess I'd say it's like democracy. It may be a piss poor way
to gauge such things, but it beats all the others.
"Personally, I see problems with each theory, not to mention
with the test of time notion itself -- I refuse to believe
that I am reading the same One Lonely Night, for instance,
that was read in the '50s, even if the same words are on the
pages. (Similarly, there's a big difference between Spillane
writing setting books in the '50s contemporaneously and, say,
Max Allan Collins doing it in retrospect.) When I enter a
world where men wear fedoras matter of factly, I respond to
it as either nostalgia or history (or both), choose to enter
into the spirit of the times or translate it to my own (as
when I consciously inflate the takes in old Richard
Stark/Parker books). No matter how much I may study the
cultural context of a time, I am at best approximating the
mindset of a contemporary reader, and distancing myself from
the book in trying to approximate it; however, if I don't do
that, I am reading it as if it were printed today. Now as a
reader for pleasure, that is what I would most likely do, but
that means reading it differently than the original readers
did. So, even if I enjoy it, has it really stood the test of
time, implying it has some universality that transcends time,
or has it proved itself malleable to a different time?"
You're confusing the "test of time" with the context in which
a given piece was written. A book may be of its time, but
still transcend its time.
You can't imagine that a Jane Austen novel is set in any
other era except England's Regency period. That's the
context. If the story she tells is timeless enough that it
speaks to a contemporary audience despite the fact that none
of us has ever lived in Regency England, then it's passing
the test of time. Whether or not you personally like
Austen.
Ditto with Conan Doyle's Victorian London.
Ditto with Hammett's Prohibition Era San Francisco.
Ditto with Chandler's Depression/WW2-era Southern
California.
And, based on his sustained popularity over more than a half
a century, ditto with Spillane's early Cold War-era
NYC.
"ps -- And for the record, in my earlier email, I said I
tried to get over the snobbishness too often interwoven with
intellectualism, not intellectualism itself. Not that you
said otherwise, Jim, but you implied that the two might be
synonymous when you joked that I would hate One Lonely Night
if I held on to any intellectual (and by further implication,
pinko) leanings."
Well, there are intellectuals who like Spillane. Ayn Rand,
for instance. (Or does she count?)
In any case, I think I said you might not like it if you
still retained a trace of "intellectual snobbery," not
"intellectualism," per se.
But I haven't got the energy to go back and check.
JIM DOHERTY
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