RARA-AVIS: Ross Macdonald - humor (?)

MARIO TABOADA (matrxtech@sprintmail.com)
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 18:56:46 +0000 Nick points out that he finds humor in Ross Macdonald's early works. I
have read and re-read these and I cannot remember a single funny
character or situation. The Chandleresque lip exhibited by Archer does
not, in my opinion, inject real humor into these stories. I would even
say that it sounds a little forced or out of tune given the situations.
Neither the characters nor the situations are funny at all. From the
beginning, Millar wrote a tense mystery (also polished, deep, etc.).

Even leaving out the almost-pure humorists (like Norbert Davis and
Johathan Latimer), Macdonald seems quite humorless when compared to
other major P.I. masters such as, say, William Campbell Gault, Howard
Browne, Chandler, John D. MacDonald, or their modern progeny like Bill
Pronzini, Lawrence Block, Walter Mosley, Arthur Lyons, Max Allan
Collins, Loren Estleman, and so on.

In fact, the only major contemporary crime writer I can think of who
scores as low as Macdonald in the humor department is Stephen Greenleaf
- and he is something of a Macdonald imitator...and I'm not even sure
that he's as grim as old Macdonald.

How about the great Thomas Dewey? Nah, he was gray all the way - not
funny, not grim, the Middle Way forever. But, because of this neutrality
of tone, I find him endlessly re-readable.

Regards, and sorry to ramble. It's been a long week...

Mario Taboada
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