If he likes Westlake, he's all right
My recent detours into poetry and Parker have not taken my mind off international crime fiction. In fact, they've led me to an Irish crime writer I had not tried before: Benjamin Black (John Banville).This joint interview Black/Banville did with Parker's creator, Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) in 2007 dispelled any doubts I might have had about whether he takes crime writing seriously. For anyone who doubts that B/B appreciates fine crime writing, read what he had to say about Stark and Parker in Slate in 2006.
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The Parker browsing also led me to this wonderful utterance from Westlake:“I certainly hope Parker hasn’t mellowed. When one of the Kennedys was killed, a group of Hollywood actors formed an organization to swear never again to carry a gun in a film. Of course, these actors were mostly people like Don Knotts . When Lee Marvin was asked if he’d join that group, he said, `They’re trying to put me out of business.' "That's from the same interview in which Westlake said: "For early influences we have to start, and almost end, with Hammett." Westlake was always one of the most insightful and intelligent of crime writers. It's worth reading the full interview for what else he says about his influences.
© Peter Rozovsky 2011
Labels: Benjamin Black, Donald Westlake, Ireland, Irish crime fiction, John Banville, Richard Stark
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 3:24 PM
74 Comments:
I only wish the discussion was longer. I've heard a lot about Banville/Black since he branched into crime writing, but this is the first I've heard him speak. Not at all the slumming dilettante some would have you think.
That's it. He got some bad press, and it's good to discover that at least some of it may have been undeserved.
I had my own doubts him in 2008, when I attended the crime segment of the Sunday Irish Independent Book Festival in Dun Laoghaire -- two days of discussions and panels with almost all the luminaries of Irish crime writing. Banville attended the festival under the Benjamin Black name, but not the crime segment. Instead, he spoke at the separate main festival in Dublin. That seemed odd to me at the time, but in retrospect I'd guess that the organizers simply wanted the bigger name at the main event.
The Banville/Black controversy was also based on one of his public statements.
I rather like Banville as a stylist (the man can write some of the most thrilling and precise descriptions I've ever read), but I don't think much of his plots. The mysteries aren't all that different from the literary pieces.
Which proves that literary novels can comfortably fit under more marketable tags, while mysteries may aspire to literary awards.
Peter
So he's read a couple of Parker novels and he spends just as much time in that short piece talking about John Boorman's Point Blank. Thats pretty thin evidence that he takes the genre seriously. As an aside in the same piece he admits that he coulndt even be bothered to read one Maigret novel. And then theres all the evidence on the other side where he calls crime fiction contemptible and crime writing piss poor. I have the evidence of my own ears in the reading I attended where he talks about how he churns out a BB novel in six weeks but takes a year to write a Banville book because there's no point wasting too much time on a crime book.
I.J., I'll admit that the man seems to court controversy. I'm especially interested in your suggestion that his mysteries are not all that different from his literary pieces. I'll keep that in mind as I read Banville wearing his Black hat.
Adrian, that's probably his most controversial statement, that he writes 2,000 words a day as Black and 100 days as Banville, or whatever the precise figures were.
But he also wrote the introduction to at least one of the Parker novels in the current University of Chicago reissues. I haven't read that introduction, but I have to accept the possibility that it indicated he takes at least one crime writer seriously.
He's also not the only writer, crime or otherwise, who prefers Simenon's "hard" novels. All this adds up to is that I'll have to reserve judgment until I've read at least one of the Benjamin Black books.
Peter
To me his crime fiction reads a lot like his literary fiction - soulless, pretentious, bourgeois tittle tattle.
It may read that way to me, too. Let's see what happens. If worst comes to worst, he'll turn out to be a soulless bourgeois who likes Richard Stark.
Peter
Or maybe I'm completely wrong. The bookies in three continents can testify to the wrongness of my considered judgements.
I think our man Declan Burke wound up finding him readable and likable after initial skepticism.
I also think Banville's statement that
"I think we live in a very violent time, OK? The vast majority of people have never seen any violence in their lives at all. They might drive their car
into their neighbor’s car and their neighbor might shout at them, but that’s about as near
as they get to violence. So there is this thing that we’re missing out on: “There’s all this violence, all this blood and horror and so on. It must be quite fun. But I don’t see any.”
So they get it from books. And I notice this trend of thrillers that are absolutely dripping
with blood, serial killers slicing people up."
is at least worth considering.
Peter
Yikes, thats hardly an original piece of analysis is it? JG Ballard for one said the same thing thirty years earlier only with much more style, intelligence and insight. In fact it pains me to put Banville's name in the same paragraph with Ballard.
And I dont know what gated retirement community he lives in in his leafy Dublin suburb but I see violence everywhere I go. Blood in the streets is it? A mere two hour drive from Banville's comfortable living room there was a very bloody civil war going for thirty years which he managed to studiously avoid in his fiction.
No one said the man's a genius, just that he's at least thinking about this kind of writing that he's chosen to do. I also don't know how accurate his implication is that crime fiction is any more popular than it was, but I don't remember crime fiction topping the best-seller lists in my youth the way it does now (not that that's necessarily the crime writing I read). Maybe he's doing nothing more than trying to account for Stieg Larsson and Law and Order.
Peter
No, no one's actually said that the man's a genius but at the reading I attended he certainly hinted very strongly that we lucky attendees were in the presence of the greatest Irish novelist since James Joyce. I'm not sure why but I kept finding myself doing doodles of Napoleon on the dust jacket of my book.
Well, if Banville's personality is worth discussing, at least his superciliousness is mitigated by what appears to be genuine appreciation of Westlake who, in turn, revered Hammett.
Peter
Well its your blog, if you dont think his personality is worth discussing then drop it I shall.
At the Banville reading I attended someone asked him to name his favourite crime writers. He, alas, couldnt think of any, saying that it wasn't his type of fiction. When pressed he did mention Simenon which he read "to improve my French." Westlake's name did not come up. How this squares with his avid appreciation in Slate I have no idea.
No, it's not that I don't think it worth discussing. It's just I realized with a start that I was so aware of the Black/Banville controversy without having read any of his books.
How his disdain for crime fiction then squares with his appreciation of Westlake is an interesting question. I always assume, perhaps without any good reason for doing so, that people who say they don't like crime fiction really mean they don't like old-fashioned whodunnits.
Incidentally, "to improve my French" may be a stock answer for authors asked why they read Simenon. Janwillem van de Wetering said that's why he read Simenon.
And Scott Phillips prefers Simenon's "romans durs" to the Maigrets, and Phillips is a good writer and anything but a snob.
Peter
I read Maigret to improve my English.
Maybe thats where JB got his two three thousand words a day model. In the Paris Review interview Simenon said it took him about two weeks to write a Maigret and then another week to do the polishing. Thats not bad. Although it isnt the record, I think I read somewhere a - possibly mythical - account of Philip K Dick writing four novels in a month under the influence of speed.
Is it said that one day Alfred Hitchcock dropped in on Simenon, whose secretary said, "I'm sorry. Mr. Simenon is writing a novel," to which Hitchcock replied, "That's all right. I'll wait."
Peter
And I'll bet Madame Simenon had some delicious cakes on hand.
Oh, much of this was hugely funny. Banville does make crime writers bristle. It seems idiotic to me that he would make those disparaging remarks about mysteries abd their authors and then write them himself. Does he consider his mysteries trash? Why then should we buy them? Maybe he thinks people are idiots and, given the promotion, will buy anything. Maybe he's right.
I'll stick to what I've said above about both sorts of books by him: excellent prose and uninspired plots. On the whole, probably not worth the money.
(Now Simenon has very good plots.)
Adrian, I read Simenon to improve my cooking.
I.J., I would not discount the possibility that Banville simply has the sort of personality that feeds on deliberately making other people angry.
Ah. They say bad reviews also sell books. I can see people buying the mysteries to be able to discuss Banville/Black. I'm wondering about his publisher's reactions to the author's public statements. Or his agent's. Agents have been known to speak harshly to their outspoken authors.
Can Banville be above such considerations?
You're now treading in territory unfamiliar to me. I have no idea what goes on between authors and agents in the sanctity of the office.
I'm not all that familiar with Banville's utterances about crime novels. Since he has now published four novels as Benjamin Black, I have to believe they haven't hurt his sales. I wonder if his pronouncements have the effect, intended or otherwise, of making the Benjamin Black books respectable to readers who might otherwise look down on crime.
This discussion reminds me of "Deconstructing Harry".
'Argumentum ad hominem' is always such good fun...
Totally off the point, I was once mugged on Orwell Road but the fact that now blood was drawn may not count as an interesing enough event.
(Orwell Road is very leafy and very bourgeois... very dangerous...)
I haven't read Simenon, so that explains my cooking skills and my inexpertise with French.
I had read about the remarks made by Banville/Black that Adrian refers to, and it had the same effect on me, especially that he is making oodles of money churning out the crime fiction--and he dares to show distain for it, and by that, for the very readers keeping him in roast beef, and Yorkshire pudding, or whatever.
But I like the quote posted above from Westlake, very good, short, concise, but to the point, and dry wit.
Oops, "disdain," is meant. And, oy, I proofread...oh, well.
Not that getting mugged is fun anywhere, but Orwell Road has grim overtones all its own.
Re ad hominem arguments, I stay away from or grow exasperated with the controversies that break out from time to time among crime writers and their readers.
Oh, and I haven't seen "Deconstructing Harry".
Kathy, Westlake's interviews are sometimes as much fun to read as his books. I don't mind calling Banville a snob, a blowhard, or even a boring writer it he deserves it. I just haven't had the chance to discover whether the last is true.
I wouldn't judge his writing without reading it, but I was aghast at his arrogant putdown of crime fiction, when not only does he write it, but it is bringing him a good income, and what is that saying to his readers and all crime fiction readers?
That we are all mindless dweebs? Or anti-intellectuals?
Jeez, the crime fiction that I'm reading is better than some of the "genre" fiction out there -- pretentious as some of it is -- but then this blog has been down this road multiple times and there is agreement on this issue!
If Banville would drop in right about now, that would be great, even as Bennie Black.
I find myself a bit puzzled by the guy. He places a lot of importance on his aesthetic technique, but there seems to be another guy trying to get out, who happens to write crime fiction. I've only read his non-crime fiction. The early book on Kepler was pretty good and interesting, but Eclipse and The Sea seemed very flat to me. Maybe if he could combine his two aspects, he could write a really great novel. He does seem a bit condescending in his interviews, but of course if he writes something worthy of his rarified self-conception, all is forgiven.
Too bad Westlake's not around to field questions about Banville.
Literary Ireland is a bear pit, so a certain hauteur is probably Banville's protective mask.
Banville's sense of irony can be so esoteric that I just stop reading.
I think that "Deconstructing Harry" is useful for anybody considering an academic career... a very humourous warning.
I'm glad the intended reference to Orwell was picked up. The Orwell prize long list is out at the moment.
Proust is the great writer for gastronomers.
Also, an explanation about the post about the mugging is called for.
It should read "no blood", not "now blood".
The new version should make more sense, though that is not necessarily so.
A raid on the inarticulate is an uphill struggle
A raid on the inarticulate is really a long, tiring campaign full of surprise attacks and frequent skirmishes.
I'd figured out you meant in your earlier post, though "Now Blood" would make a good crime title.
Proust liked writing about cookies, didn't he?
Proust loved madeleines.
Millions of people who have not read a word of Proust know that!
Yes, by only Kathy d. has the generosity to share that information here.
There are many cookery books that recreate Proust's work, with elaborate table settings and recipes designed to keep the cook in the kitchen for days.
A search for "marcel francoise recipes" will lead to sections of "Temps Perdu" where food is present.
I often wonder if Proust meant the reader to understand a hidden reference to "pain perdu" when he chose his title.
And speaking of titles, "Blood Now" would have an even more sinister ring, perhaps.
I like the added formality of "Now Blood." I don't know what pain perdu is, but I hope the poor guy finds his lost bread.
We call it
French Toast
Yum!
Another great v word: hexpin
Thanks. I looked it up after I posted my comment, and I saw it defined as New Orleans-style French toast. The subject merits further research.
Yum for the food or for your v-word?
À la recherche du pain perdu is part of a highly nourishing but very, very long breakfast.
The food. A hexpin sounds painful. And not the French toast sort of pain, either.
A hexpin sounds like something one sticks into a voodoo doll.
Banville's condescension toward genre fiction is well documented. One such quote is posted below (bolding is mine):
“Now, looking back I think the invention of Benjamin Black was John Banville’s ploy to find his way out of what was suspiciously like a rut. I took the pseudonym to indicate that the venture was not an elaborate, post-modernist, literary joke. It is straightforward. I simply discovered I had this facility for cheap fiction.”
His position seems to be well documented but as such with these things it does very little to change positions that are already had. His supporters continue to support him and his detractors continue to do so.
Me personally, I don't the man has a deep genre knowledge but does have a couple of names whose work he likes.
I thought about Banville yesterday when I picked up one of Georges Simenon's romans durs. Banville talked about he could write many more words per day as Black than as Banville. I forget the numbers he gave, but even a caffeinated Black could probably not match Simenon on a slow day.
We on the crime/genre side ought to judge Black's crime writing (as opposed to his snooty comments) on its own terms. Does he do it well?
I prefer Simenon's non-Maigret novels, Adrian; ditto with Highsmith's non-Ripleys.
Just skimming that joint-interview with Banville and Stark/Westlake, though; all very cosy, in an 'after you, Claude' kind of way.
It leaves us none the wiser as regards Banville's commitment to - or love for - crime fiction.
To paraphrase the late, allegedly great, Queen Victoria: 'we are not impressed'
The deciding factor has to be Banville's crime novels. I've read one, and I was no more impressed than Vicky was.
The term 'crime-writing by the numbers' springs to mind
"Cleverness that fails to mask one's own shortcomings" is what occurs to me.
Good one, too
We make a great team!
Well, as I wrote in my review, the man can write a beautiful sentence, but his handling of crime fiction tropes in that book is downright incompetent and not nearly funny enough to be a joke.
Well, that opening chapter of 'Flashfire' is about as pared-to-the-bone lean as you can get
I don't think Hammett ever starved his sentences, to that extent
'Tosú maith, leath na h-oibre'
A good opening is more than half the battle with me. I may take another look at the book. Thanks.
150 pages in, and he's straying into Elmore Leonard territory, style-wise, and even Carl Hiassen territory, humour-in-an-Everglades-setting wise.
Two scenes I especially loved - apart from that opening chapter: the first, where he was picking up paper for change of identity,and things didn't go entirely to plan, and a later one which came from out of the blue.
(although that might have been somewhat Elmore Leonard-ish, also)
I was thinking for the first 50 pages or so that maybe he just got too high on these pared-to-the bone descriptions, because he was packing a helluva lot of detail into confined spaces. I also thought there were far too many successive long paragraphs, with little relief - even for dialogue.
Then he must have heard me.
This one's 250 pages long, compared with 'Point Blank's' 190, and its already showing
(and I thought 'Point Blank' should have called a halt at 177)
I'm thinking he made a mistake in introducing a sub-plot with a resourceful female character; perhaps an attempt to broaden his base, or to silence charges of misogyny
Structurally, I liked the brief re-introduction of the gang-members, some 140 pages in
Plenty of great writing, with some really top-notch writing, but I strongly suspect the verdict will be too much fat, among all that lean and mean.
Mind you, it garners almost unanimous 5-star ratings from Amazon reviewers, most of whom seem to be long-standing Parker fans
Hmm, one of my favorite of the Parker novels is Butcher's Moon, which is by far the longest of the series, I think.
Some of the books have taken criticism for introducing female characters who seem at odds with the rest of the story.
As far as humorous territory, Leonard and Hiaasen may have strayed into Westlake's territory rather than vice versa. Leonard had been writing since the early 1950s, but I'm not sure his stuff took its humorous turn until after Westlake starting writing the Dortmunder novels and his comic standalones.
Yeah, I know Stark/Westlake came first: you had introduced me to Leonard's Western writing, which preceded his crime novels, but this one strikes me as some kind of hybrid - of 'Hunter/Point Blank' hardness, and classic Elmore Leonard, with its blend of humour and cocktail of colourful characters, including resourceful women.
The variety and volume of POV scenes/characters seem to be coming thick and fast, now, as opposed to the two POV characters of 'Point Blank'
Of course it would be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that spartan hardness over a 20+ series
That might be one reason I generally like the pre-comeback Parker novels better than the post. He was always up for trying different things in the pre-comeback novels. He may have been a different kind of writer in the later books. That was an awfully long layoff he took, 23 years, I think.
He's fairly cranking things up now, and its entertaining, but there's more POV characters than you can shake a stick at.
Of course I'm only comparing this with his first Parker so I don't know did he use this m.o. in any of the pre-comeback set.
But more and more it reminds me of the Elmore Leonards I read, 20-25 years ago
I'm at sea with Leonstd the way you are with Westlake/ I've read maybe four of Leonard's novels and a few stories, but I don't know where they fit in that six-decade career of his.
'Point Blank' could have done with the kind of abrupt ending that 'Flashfire' had: not perfect, but it was brave.
And he made some brave choices in the last couple of chapters.
Definitely a much softer Parker than the 'Point Blank' one: in touch with his feminine side, to an extent, but on the whole I thought the characterisation - and the style - was inconsistent. I don't think he thought everything through, sufficiently.
For the most part it smacked of 'prime-period Leonard', although not as good, because 'prime-period Leonard' was consistent, and true to itself.
I enjoyed it, overall, but I'd like to see the best of the pre-retirement period before I can assess the veracity - or otherwise - of John Banville's contention.
Yes, Parker decidely is a bit softer in the post-comeback books. I've mentioned this before, but my other favorite pre-hiatus Parker novels include The Score. Butcher's Moon is the final novel before the hiatus and, at least one reader has aptly observed, it feels like a summing-up. I liked it very much.
I mentioned that Westlake liked to set challenges for himself. Slayground opens with a heist gone wrong, Parker escaping a car crash with the loot and fleeing into an amusement park called Fun Island. The rest of the novel takes place in the park.
A separate book, The Black Bird, opens with the same scene, only it follows Parker's sidekick Grofield from the car and into his own story.
I’ve mentioned the ”Parker novels” section of the Violent World of Parker website. Its judgments on the Parker novels are sound. And the rest of the site is an unparalleled resource on Westlake – an excellent place to visit if you want to know more about the books, the characters, the movies, the author, and more.
'Slayground' sounds interesting: is that 'pre' or 'post'?
Bizarrely, the archive search facility on the Dublin Library system website isn't available, overnight, so I'll have to wait until 'waking hours' to see what Parkers are available
"Slayground" is pre-layoff. The last pre-hiatus book appeared in 1974. Stark/Westlake resumed the series in 1997.
The University of Chicago Press is reissuing all the novels. Allison and Busby put out a few three-volume omnibus editions of the early books in the UK.
Just did a search of the library database: they don't have any of your favourites, and they mostly have the post-hiatus novels.
They have a good-looking omnibus, which includes the second and third novels, as well as an interesting-looking one, 'Deadly Edge', which is about a rock concert heist
(and I wonder how many 'hey maaaan' stereotypes that will feature).
I've added it to my 'wish-list', so hopefully I'll see some action on it
"Deadly Edge" includes far fewer such stereotypes than you might think. I can recall none, adn Westlake generally avoids such things. But the scene of the heist--I think--it's the opening scene is excellent. The music is just a distant throb to the heisters, which is a nice touch.
If I recall correctly, a crime writer friend said that fictional heist may have been based on a Led Zeppelin concert in Montreal.
So, would Westlake be a 'Dead' or a 'Led' fan, then?
Here's the opening of Deadly Edge:
"Up here, the music was just a throbbing under the feet, a distant pulse. Down below, down through the roof, through and beneath the offices, down in the amphitheater shaped like a soup bowl, the crowd was roaring and pounding and yelling down at the four musicians in the bottom of the bnowl."
That's not a bad way to set a scene, I'd say.
'bottom of the bowl', eh?
Sounds to me as if he thought all rock music was shit!
No, I'd say that's Parker making a calm, unemotional assessment of thre situation at hand.
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