> On this topic, after re-reading most of Ross
Macdonald's novels over the
> past couple of years - with great enjoyment - it
dawned on me how weak he
> is in the humor department. He gets a square zero -
there is some irony,
> but no humor. I had never thought of this as a flaw,
but now I am
> beginning to. William Campbell Gault, on the other
hand....
Interesting. Irony would look better suited to hardboiled
than humor,
although I love Jonathan Latimer !
> 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
There are probably others. My sense of humor may be differing
from
yours. It's true that some writers like Ellroy and MacDonald
lean on the
grim side, but I'd never seen this lack of humor as some kind
of failure.
I think it simply wouldn't fit their style.
But, I have to ask : what is the place of humor in a PI novel
? Comic
relief ?
Laurent
________
"It was his story against mine, but of course I told my story
better"
Humphrey Bogart in _In A Lonely Place',
From Hardboiled, by Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa
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