Banville to Rankin to Chance
In an astrological sense it was the perfect time for Clive James to write a New Yorker article explaining crime fiction to the readership. In close proximity to April Fools Day, Opening Day, Passover, Easter, and the dark shadow of April 15th, a full moon and a wobbly stock market, his thoughts clarify the murky world of genre fiction. We love Rebus because…
The New Yorker is best read in elegant surroundings while perched on traditional furniture. Your reporter cannot understand the text, doomed by a Naugahyde recliner and a can of room temperature Budweiser, a vestigial urge to know how Pavano did at home, and a lingering sense that life is so much simpler when Carmen Elektra is in the story ( Clive didn’t mention her. He never does.)
Perhaps like a string quartet opening for the Rolling Stones literary fiction is doomed to be outgunned by the sheer pageantry of commercial fiction, the cool cover art, clever titles, tons of promotion and advertising. I can foresee a day when halftime at the Super Bowl features crime guy John Banville reading aloud from the fifty yard line backed up by a chorus line of Vegas showgirls while the Blue Angels manuever with subsonic precision high above the luxury boxes.
There were some odd moments in the article. I thought Clive was implying that Henning Menkel’s settings were glamorous. He liked Donna Leon’s outsider status but knocked her for choosing Italy, Venice, no less, the Serenissima. Banville set his novel fifty years in the past so that his characters could smoke and drink. He seems to think this is cheating and he lingers around a valid point that place is trumping story in some cases in yet another attempt to signal readers that they will love the book because they love Venice, Sweden, South Florida, or the Rockies. Maybe he fears that success is subversive, that wretched excess lurks beneath the tawdry covers of pulp. Let’s hope so. It’s the revenge of the working class.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
The string quartet wouldn’t be able to make enough noise to fill a Rolling Stones stadium. They wouldn’t bother trying.
The Hood Company