Gee, the reason POODLE SPRINGS sounds more like Parker than
Chandler might
be that Parker wrote almost the whole thing. Chandler left
behind only the
first four chapters or so, and I thought Parker (already
hardboiled's
favorite whipping boy) did a reasonably good job, considering
that no
matter how good a job he did, he was bound to be trashed for
it. And the
byline DOES read by Raymond Chandler AND Robert B.
Parker.
What was interesting was all the vitriol thrown at Parker
(even before the
book came out) when many of his contemporaries (a few of them
Parker
bashers as well) pulled the same trick, albeit in short story
form, a year
earlier in RAYMOND CHANDLER'S PHILIP MARLOWE, and emerged
unscathed, for
the most part. Granted, I think the short story collection
was, overall,
better than POODLE SPRINGS, but those authors also had it
relatively easy.
They only had to deal with a Marlowe we already knew pretty
well, and they
only had to do it in a short story. And the critical blame
could be spread
around. Parker had to write a complete novel, and he had to
take Marlowe
into a whole new direction. We don't know exactly what
Chandler had in
mind for Marlowe as a married man, but my guess is that if
Chandler had
lived to complete POODLE SPRINGS, it may well have been met
with less than
overwhelming critical success as well. Maybe even less than
popular success.
Should Parker have not taken on the job he was offered by the
Chandler
estate? Maybe. But he did. And surely there were few crime
writers as
popular at the time, owing so much to Chandler, or with as
much experience
as Parker at dealing with a private eye who is part of a
long-term romantic
relationship. And, like it or not, at the time Parker's name
was seriously
being bandied about as the logical successor to Hammett,
Chandler and
Macdonald. For the estate (or publishers or whoever), it must
have seemed
like a natural. Both Chandler and Parker have done far better
work, but I
didn't find POODLE SPRINGS to be dreadful, either. It wasn't
high art, but
I enjoyed it; a sort of literary game of "What if..." It was
fun.
(Yeah, I know, there goes my HIGH-FALUTIN' LITERARY CRITIC
membership card...)
And some of the short stories in RAYMOND CHANDLER'S PHILIP
MARLOWE are
pretty darn good, too. But the best Chandler/Marlowe
pastiche, I think, was
Uruguayan writer Hiber Conteris' TEN PERCENT OF LIFE. It's
1956, and
Marlowe's hired to look into the suicide of a literary agent
who
represents...Raymond Chandler. It's respectful, yet playful
with the
Chandler's work, a difficult balance.
On the other hand, avoid at all costs William Denbow's
CHANDLER, a horrible
mock-bio featuring Chandler and Hammett, acting as private
eyes, teaming up
to crack a murder case (yeah, right). Now this one is truly
dreadful...
BY THE WAY...
I haven't seen the TV flick, but by all accounts, the writers
barely used
anything from Chandler OR Parker. And one of those writers is
Tom Stoppard,
who's currently being sued by crimewriter Faye Kellerman for
ripping off
one of her books, A QUALITY OF MERCY, for the screenplay of
SHAKESPEARE IN
LOVE. And no doubt the Shakespeare estate has hired John
Grisham to write a
sequel to THE MERCHANT OF VENICE... (See, there's this young,
idealistic
lawyer, just out of law school, whose first client is this
old Jewish
guy....) And surely they'll be getting Melissa Ethridge to
re-record the
old Joplin hit as TAKE ANOTHER PIECE OF MY FLESH, NOW, BABY
for the
soundtrack...
But I digress....
Kevin Smith
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
Now out: The Spring Break issue, with fiction from Robert
Iles and Leigh
Brackett,
and FACE THE FACE, our new contest for fans of paperback
eyes. Win a copy
of THE BIG BOOK OF NOIR!
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