Unfortuntely, I pretty much agree with you. Oates to
the
contrary, the Macdonald books didn't really seeem to take his
character any
place that Marlowe hadn't already visited. Archer seems like
the first of
the "me generation" of P.I.s....we get a bit more of his
personal life
(divorces, etc,) than we need and to me it sort of wrecks the
atmosphere of
lonely self-reliance that I expect from Chandler and Hammett.
As to the
critcal attention he received, I recall that Chandler said he
was almost
ruined as a writer (some would omit the "almost") when Auden
did his essay
on him. I guess Archer and Marlowe were destroyed by the
carriage trade,
just as they always suspected.
James
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James Michael Rogers
jetan@ionet.net
" I carried it too far, that's for sure" - Jeffrey
Dahmer
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