Size doesn't matter. I've just finished (yet another) superb
Carl Wilcox novel by Harold Adams, which tells the story in
about 200 pages, which feels absolutely right. There's no
padding, no secondary characters that don't serve a purpose,
no unnecessary subplots.
On the other hand, some great books are long, even incredibly
long. I don't think the late William Gaddis
(there's a Nobel the US didn't get...) could write short
novels. In the hardboiled genre, Ellroy, Pelecanos and T.
Jefferson Parker have written books that are long simply
because they are ambitious.
On yet another hand, Gaddis wrote only five books, which,
using Jerry Healy's reasoning, shouldn't make him as worthy
as, say, Updike or Oates. Should Philip Roth be more worthy
of attention than Henry Roth? I find this reasoning specious.
Maybe we should explore the Chandler-Parker kinship (and the
corresponding differences) without measuring their, their
output...
Regards,
MrT
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