It's amusing to hear some critics claim Ross Macdonald wrote
just one book over and over, while others find that certain
of his books are not typical of his work. Macdonald is of
particular interest to some of us Canadians because he spent
his formative years in Southern Ontario, and his style of
American hardboil has some distinctively Canadian
qualities.
There's the link to landscape. If not the first, Macdonald is
certainly among the earliest noir authors to link
environmental degredation to the moral corruption of his
antagonists. And the corruption is multi-generational.
Macdonald's characters have been doomed to their sins by the
corrupt decisions of their parents and grandparents.
His are the shoulders Ellroy and Mosely stand upon. As the
century unfolded, it became increasingly clear that core
societal values passed from generation to generation have
produced individual and collective lives incompatible with
healthy emotional and physical existence. Many noir authors
recognize the toughest battle between good and evil is
internal and without victory, but Macdonald is the first and
still one of the few to reveal how this works. Yet, as has
been pointed out on this list earlier, Macdonald maintained a
fundamental compassion for his characters.
These themes are repeated in most of Macdonald's novels. He
may indeed have written the same book over and over again,
but as Ellroy points out, it's still a hell of a book.
Kerry
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