Vicki wrote:
"But I'm still back to my underlying question, I guess. What
do people enjoy about the plot-driven novels that they don't
find in the character-driven ones? It's not simplicity,
that's obvious."
I like to think that the best crime fiction (all fiction, for
that matter) balances plot and character, but I've got to
admit that most leans one way or the other. Even though I
tend to prefer PIs, I think my taste probably falls a bit
more into the character side. For instance, my favorite
Chandler is The Long Goodbye, which is far more about
Marlowe's character than the somewhat transparent plot.
Similarly, I don't remember a whole lot about the plots of
James Sallis's Lew Griffin books, but that doesn't keep me
from rating them very, very high.
Even those series I read that are very intricately plotted
still rely on character. For instance, the plots of Ian
Rankin's Rebus books have become increasingly complicated,
but you never get the feeling that the characters are slaves
to the plot. It's easy to think that Richard Stark's Parker
series is pure plot, but the problem I had with the latest,
Nobody Runs Forever, is that Stark had Parker accepting and
doing things that I don't think he ever would have; based on
the character I knew from past books, he would have walked
away from this caper. Similarly, I finally stopped reading
Ellroy's novels because the characters became nothing more
than pieces to be moved around his byzantine plot (well, that
and the racism, homophobia, etc, that inreasingly seemed to
be the writer's, not the characters', bigotries).
I don't read a whole lot of "blockbuster" thirllers, but one
I did read and enjoy very much was Douglas Winters's Run.
That said, I don't remember much about the characters except
that you had the usual salt and pepper partnering of two
undercover cops who didn't at first know the other was a cop.
However, the plot moved so quickly (not to say I now remember
much of that plot) that you sped past the lack of real
character and plot inconsistencies. It was cinematic, an
action-adventure film on the page. I can't believe it hasn't
"become a major motion picture."
As for Lehane, I don't think he scrimps on character, even in
something as plot-driven as Mystic River. In fact, I thought
the movie failed because it stripped away so much of the
characterization. For instance, it makes absolutely no sense
whatsoever why Maria Gay Harden's character turns on her
husband. There is no hint of the terrible internal turmoil
that the book offered to explain her decision. Perhaps the
terrible overacting, especially by Sean Penn (Bill Murray got
robbed), was supposed to substitute for real depth of
character and motivation.
I'm not sure why plot (often substituting caricature for
character) is so much more popular, but I think it's obvious
it is. Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lechter is always going to be
better known than Patrick McGrath's Spider, both on the page
and the screen.
Mark
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