White Gulls Are calling From Across the Distant Shore ...
I haz a big sad. I've been working on this since Wednesday morning. My apologies if I spam your f-list. LJ Cut-tags aren't working for me again.
Robert B. Parker has died, in Boston, Tuesday. His wife Joan left him at his breakfast to go running, and came home to discover him collapsed. Cause of death is as yet unknown. He was 77.
For those of you who don’t know, Robert B. Parker was the author of the hugely successful Spenser mystery novels, as well as mysteries focused on private detective Sunny Randall and Chief of Police Jesse Stone. His work is the basis for the television series Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks and later, several made for TV movies taken straight from several of the novels, with either Urich or most recently Joe Mantegna as the title hero.
I’ve been reading the books for over twenty years. My father actually introduced me to them, at a young enough age my mother disapproved, albeit rather half-heartedly. I must note that she had no problem with me borrowing her history textbooks from college, printed well before the onset of political correctness, and reading about such topics as the Rape of Nanking when I was eight. After all, that was education.
And Chouette was a fan of the Spenser novels herself.
The books were formulaic, but hardly stupid. Their author catered to his readers, but there was never a sense of sly pandering; Parker’s fanbase came back for more because they knew what they were getting into and they liked it. To paraphrase what I have heard many say, going back to the Spenser books was like putting on an old, comfortable coat, perfectly worn to the shape of one’s own shoulders.
What made the formula so bearable, so good, has always been the sparse, economic use of language. Parker wrote in a Spartan fashion, never employing wasteful prose simply to pad the pages. This meant that every word had to be perfectly chosen, and perfectly placed, fitted into the story like jigsaw pieces or, on occasion, landmines. The book in your hands might not be overly long, but it would always be satisfying.
I went to the movies the other day with friends and one was asking what I knew about Avatar. I haven’t seen it, nor do I have plans to, though I’ve always enjoyed James Cameron’s work and have heard good things about the film. The one thing I’ve heard most though is that it tells the same story we’ve seen in Dances With Wolves, Last of the Dogmen, Last of the Mohicans, and a score others- indiginous people standing up to invading forces, trying to hold on to their land and culture.
I personally don’t see this as a failing though; we, the public, want the same story so often not so much because we fear what is new or different, but because so many of the stories we cherish are endemic to ourselves as humans. We tell the same stories, again and again, because they are good stories, and we need to remember them, to give them pride of place and because sometimes, in this odd, complex, confusing world we have created, we need to believe that somewhere, somehow, the good guys win.Spenser, even when he lost, still managed to be the good guy and for that alone, win.
The character of Spenser has always been an inheritently American anti-hero, like Han Solo and Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe and Dirty Harry. Parker made no bones about the fact that he shamelessly aped the style of Chandler and Hammett, giving his readers a character who had been a soldier, a police officer, and eventually left both because, like so many of us, he was bad at taking orders. He most always followed his own innner voice and did so with a cheerful indifference to societal mores that you couldn’t help but love the man for. He was internally focused but hardly introverted and his sense of self and identity was unsurprisingly intact after a life spent essentially alone.
Parker was a master at making you care about his characters, flawed, selfish, internally focused and human. The not so much immoral as amoral Hawk; the shooter Vinnie Morris, psychopath with a strange sense of honor and propriety; Lee Farrell, the gay cop; Paul Giacomin, foster-son to Spenser and in many ways Hawk, a ballet dancer; Lt. Quirk, straight-laced cop who would break the rules in a heartbeat if someone went home safely because of it. Frank Belson, as much Quirk’s second as Morris was to the mob boss he served. Former boxer turned gym owner Henry Cimoli, who keeps a boxing ring and beers in the fridge just for Spenser and Hawk. Mob boss Joe Broz and Chollo, the Mexican Indian second to a Californian mafioso met in Stardust, who can always be depended upon in a tight spot.
Those familiar to the novels will note I am leaving out Bobby Horse, Tedy Sapp, Bernard Fortunato, Major Johnson and Lt. Healy of the Massachusetts State Police.
And he made us care about the victims, even the one who got themselves into their own messes. He had a distinct way, white, middle-class New Englander that he was, of being an everyman, giving glimpses into the worlds of gangs, prostitution, and neurosis that opened his readers eyes to a world outside their own, a wealth of experience they might not have otherise known. He dealt with issues of race, sexuality and gender disparity with a surprising grace.
A critic I was reading after first learning of Mr. Parker’s death brought up an interesting point about the stories; Parker had not only brought back the hardboiled gumshoe, ala` the greats, but he had opened a door for women to read detective novels again, beyond Agatha Christie. Women could appreciate Spenser because not only was he a gunslinger, who did not hesitate to shoot, but he was, most clearly, a chevalier. Many have commented in the stories, his ladylove Susan Silverman not the least, that Spenser was a romantic.
Not the way we think of one today but more an old school, rugged sort of way, like a Caspar Friedrich painting or a Chopin piece. He was a tough guy who was well-read, self-educated, with broad interests that boiled down to an ulitmately simple game plan: solve the case, to thine own self be true, love Susan Silverman.
The only serious criticism I can make of Mr. Parker ( and I freely admit my knowledge is primarily limited to the Spenser novels; I’ve read only one or two of the Randall and Stone books and am working on Gunman’s Rhapsody, his take on the story of Wyatt Earp and the shootout at the OK Corral ) is the most formulaic part of his stories are their somewhat abstract but inherent misogyny.
There is always a scene in which a female client, or the daughter or wife or girlfriend of a client, a) gets sloppily drunk; b) attempts unsuccessfully to seduce Spenser, sometimes rather forcefully; or c) some combination of the two before bursting into melodramatic tears due to his rejection. I do not by any means deny that the majority of women characters were transitory and not meant to be permanent, but the only women in Spenser’s world who were ever fully evolved as actual people were the psychologist Susan Silverman with whom Spenser has maintained a twenty-five year “sorta” marriage; Rita Fiore, ball-busting lawyer who still jokingly attempts to seduce Spenser every time they meet; and Rachel Wallace, lesbian, feminist activist, who throws a martini in his face the first time they meet but with whom he maintains a long, intensely loyal friendship despite the fact that she abhors the way he lives his life.
It’s Mary-Sueing of the highest order ( See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue for a crash-course) but you can’t hold it against Parker because he openly acknowledges it. Asked once if there were a real Hawk somewhere out in the world, he answered, somewhat dryly, “ God, I hope not.”
I could write several papers on the intensely intimate but asexual relationship between Spenser and Hawk, and the dynamics of the relationship between Spenser, Hawk AND Susan. It’s almost an OT3.
I’m not going to say something rankly maudlin like the literary world has lost its brightest star, but the truth is, a light has gone out in it. Parker made Boston come alive for his readers and his love of the city, the Red Sox, and life in general was obvious and delightful. His stories were gritty, with a deft humor woven through them, and while they certainly had their failings, those flaws only served to make their merits shine all the brighter.
Godspeed you, Mr. Parker, on this and all your journies. You, and your voice, will be missed.
Robert B. Parker has died, in Boston, Tuesday. His wife Joan left him at his breakfast to go running, and came home to discover him collapsed. Cause of death is as yet unknown. He was 77.
For those of you who don’t know, Robert B. Parker was the author of the hugely successful Spenser mystery novels, as well as mysteries focused on private detective Sunny Randall and Chief of Police Jesse Stone. His work is the basis for the television series Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks and later, several made for TV movies taken straight from several of the novels, with either Urich or most recently Joe Mantegna as the title hero.
I’ve been reading the books for over twenty years. My father actually introduced me to them, at a young enough age my mother disapproved, albeit rather half-heartedly. I must note that she had no problem with me borrowing her history textbooks from college, printed well before the onset of political correctness, and reading about such topics as the Rape of Nanking when I was eight. After all, that was education.
And Chouette was a fan of the Spenser novels herself.
The books were formulaic, but hardly stupid. Their author catered to his readers, but there was never a sense of sly pandering; Parker’s fanbase came back for more because they knew what they were getting into and they liked it. To paraphrase what I have heard many say, going back to the Spenser books was like putting on an old, comfortable coat, perfectly worn to the shape of one’s own shoulders.
What made the formula so bearable, so good, has always been the sparse, economic use of language. Parker wrote in a Spartan fashion, never employing wasteful prose simply to pad the pages. This meant that every word had to be perfectly chosen, and perfectly placed, fitted into the story like jigsaw pieces or, on occasion, landmines. The book in your hands might not be overly long, but it would always be satisfying.
I went to the movies the other day with friends and one was asking what I knew about Avatar. I haven’t seen it, nor do I have plans to, though I’ve always enjoyed James Cameron’s work and have heard good things about the film. The one thing I’ve heard most though is that it tells the same story we’ve seen in Dances With Wolves, Last of the Dogmen, Last of the Mohicans, and a score others- indiginous people standing up to invading forces, trying to hold on to their land and culture.
I personally don’t see this as a failing though; we, the public, want the same story so often not so much because we fear what is new or different, but because so many of the stories we cherish are endemic to ourselves as humans. We tell the same stories, again and again, because they are good stories, and we need to remember them, to give them pride of place and because sometimes, in this odd, complex, confusing world we have created, we need to believe that somewhere, somehow, the good guys win.Spenser, even when he lost, still managed to be the good guy and for that alone, win.
The character of Spenser has always been an inheritently American anti-hero, like Han Solo and Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe and Dirty Harry. Parker made no bones about the fact that he shamelessly aped the style of Chandler and Hammett, giving his readers a character who had been a soldier, a police officer, and eventually left both because, like so many of us, he was bad at taking orders. He most always followed his own innner voice and did so with a cheerful indifference to societal mores that you couldn’t help but love the man for. He was internally focused but hardly introverted and his sense of self and identity was unsurprisingly intact after a life spent essentially alone.
Parker was a master at making you care about his characters, flawed, selfish, internally focused and human. The not so much immoral as amoral Hawk; the shooter Vinnie Morris, psychopath with a strange sense of honor and propriety; Lee Farrell, the gay cop; Paul Giacomin, foster-son to Spenser and in many ways Hawk, a ballet dancer; Lt. Quirk, straight-laced cop who would break the rules in a heartbeat if someone went home safely because of it. Frank Belson, as much Quirk’s second as Morris was to the mob boss he served. Former boxer turned gym owner Henry Cimoli, who keeps a boxing ring and beers in the fridge just for Spenser and Hawk. Mob boss Joe Broz and Chollo, the Mexican Indian second to a Californian mafioso met in Stardust, who can always be depended upon in a tight spot.
Those familiar to the novels will note I am leaving out Bobby Horse, Tedy Sapp, Bernard Fortunato, Major Johnson and Lt. Healy of the Massachusetts State Police.
And he made us care about the victims, even the one who got themselves into their own messes. He had a distinct way, white, middle-class New Englander that he was, of being an everyman, giving glimpses into the worlds of gangs, prostitution, and neurosis that opened his readers eyes to a world outside their own, a wealth of experience they might not have otherise known. He dealt with issues of race, sexuality and gender disparity with a surprising grace.
A critic I was reading after first learning of Mr. Parker’s death brought up an interesting point about the stories; Parker had not only brought back the hardboiled gumshoe, ala` the greats, but he had opened a door for women to read detective novels again, beyond Agatha Christie. Women could appreciate Spenser because not only was he a gunslinger, who did not hesitate to shoot, but he was, most clearly, a chevalier. Many have commented in the stories, his ladylove Susan Silverman not the least, that Spenser was a romantic.
Not the way we think of one today but more an old school, rugged sort of way, like a Caspar Friedrich painting or a Chopin piece. He was a tough guy who was well-read, self-educated, with broad interests that boiled down to an ulitmately simple game plan: solve the case, to thine own self be true, love Susan Silverman.
The only serious criticism I can make of Mr. Parker ( and I freely admit my knowledge is primarily limited to the Spenser novels; I’ve read only one or two of the Randall and Stone books and am working on Gunman’s Rhapsody, his take on the story of Wyatt Earp and the shootout at the OK Corral ) is the most formulaic part of his stories are their somewhat abstract but inherent misogyny.
There is always a scene in which a female client, or the daughter or wife or girlfriend of a client, a) gets sloppily drunk; b) attempts unsuccessfully to seduce Spenser, sometimes rather forcefully; or c) some combination of the two before bursting into melodramatic tears due to his rejection. I do not by any means deny that the majority of women characters were transitory and not meant to be permanent, but the only women in Spenser’s world who were ever fully evolved as actual people were the psychologist Susan Silverman with whom Spenser has maintained a twenty-five year “sorta” marriage; Rita Fiore, ball-busting lawyer who still jokingly attempts to seduce Spenser every time they meet; and Rachel Wallace, lesbian, feminist activist, who throws a martini in his face the first time they meet but with whom he maintains a long, intensely loyal friendship despite the fact that she abhors the way he lives his life.
It’s Mary-Sueing of the highest order ( See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue for a crash-course) but you can’t hold it against Parker because he openly acknowledges it. Asked once if there were a real Hawk somewhere out in the world, he answered, somewhat dryly, “ God, I hope not.”
I could write several papers on the intensely intimate but asexual relationship between Spenser and Hawk, and the dynamics of the relationship between Spenser, Hawk AND Susan. It’s almost an OT3.
I’m not going to say something rankly maudlin like the literary world has lost its brightest star, but the truth is, a light has gone out in it. Parker made Boston come alive for his readers and his love of the city, the Red Sox, and life in general was obvious and delightful. His stories were gritty, with a deft humor woven through them, and while they certainly had their failings, those flaws only served to make their merits shine all the brighter.
Godspeed you, Mr. Parker, on this and all your journies. You, and your voice, will be missed.