At the risk of starting something (not my intent), I just have to say that while I agree with Patrick and others here on some of their points regarding Parker's body of work (I really loved his early stuff when I first discovered his writing, began to tire of it later on), I fail to see where insulting the tastes of the "middle" gets you anything other than the label of "snob."
And where some here wear that sort of appelation as a badge of honor, to me it's as much a label as "C student" is an epithet. Both of them strike me as nothing more than a waste of time.
I haven't read a Parker book in years, but I'm grateful for having had the experience. Without experiencing Parker's early stuff I might never have had my tastes whetted for stuff by such heroes of the hard-boiled canon as Hammett, Chandler, the MacDonalds, Guthrie, Bruen, the Connollys, Abbott, Chercover, Thompson, Izzo, Doolittle, Goodis, Burnett, and a host of others.
I guess what I'm saying is that one person's pablum is another's doorway drug.
YMMV-
Brian
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick King <abrasax93@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 08:04:15
To: <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Parker's Procedurals, Westerns, and Their Film Adaptations
For all I know, there may be a huge silent majority who thinks Parker was great.
*****************************
Of course. In any classroom, the majority are always C students.
Patrick King
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