Earlier this month, Jacques had this to say about Lawrence
Block:
"Block seems to be one of the most mysterious personalities
among the great modern crime writers... If I try to figure
out the person from the books
(which is something the reader does almost unconsciously), I
come up with aspects: great knowledge of arcana, wicked sense
of humor, great virtuosity with the pen, the ability to be as
hardboiled as anybody, a sense of aesthetics, a lurid side.
He comes across as a half dozen writers put together."
I'd suggest that if you want to get a better insight into the
kind of guy Block is, you might want to read what he writes
about fiction, rather than his fiction itself.
He wrote a excellent monthly column on fiction writing for
WRITERS DIGEST for several years. Many of these columns were
collected in TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT (one of the
best books about writing fiction ever) and SPIDER, SPIN ME A
WEB (almost as good).
Of course Block wrote about other writers and how they manage
to hold their readers, tell compelling stories, crate
believable characters, construct convincing dialog, etc. But
he also wrote a lot about his own work.
Consequently, in those fiction columns, you can find out how
he came to create Matt Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan
Tanner, and his other series characters. In a column on the
process of collaboration, he described how he came to write
the atypical CODE OF ARMS with Harold King. In several
columns he described a work in progress, a very unusual novel
for him, that eventually was published as RANDOM WALK.
The description of the writers he admires give us an insight
into the admirer, as well. For instance, how many would guess
that Block is a big John O'Hara fan?
He'll even use writers he doesn't particularly care for to
illustrate points. In one column on how to make smooth
transitions between scenes, he describes how effortlessly
Mickey Spillane, a writer he really doesn't admire much,
manages such scene transitions so smoothly and with such
apparent effortlessness.
Fiction, by its very nature, puts the writer at a remove from
the reader. But Block's comments about the craft of fiction
are as close to an inside look into Block's personality as
you're likely to get.
And, if you're a writer, or aspire to be one, they're among
the best "how-to" books out there.
JIM DOHERTY
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 Dec 2007 EST