I
don't know if I hadn't ought to teach novel writing because I
discover so many critical issues in the novels that I read. I
understand that we read for various reasons and different levels of
attention. Still, I think I can make valid points.
I'm
not even speaking of such ambitious projects as The Great American
Novel (which I'm satisfied that Melville wrote more than a century
and a half ago, tho the concept seems still to be alive), but just
functional novels that you can wrap some brain cells around. And it's
not like I'm such a perspicacious reader. Hand me an Agatha Christie
story that I have already read, and I will still need to wait till
the denouement for Poirot to meticulously explain who killed Lord
Fluffernutter. That has more to do with my ability to work puzzles
than my insight into novels. No, really!!! I'm quite the critical
juggernaut regarding works of fiction. BTW, fiction is the same as
poetry, only we call it fiction. Something about how language
transfers to the brain...
Anyway,
my current test case is The Hunt Club
by John Lescroart (never heard of him before picking up this book).
By page 121 (out of 405), we've
got a murder, and a protagonist. More like two protagonists, but
maybe plot turns and red herrings will settle things more clearly.
The
book, and presumably the story, begins in 1992. Wyatt Hunt works for
Child Protection Service. That's an unusual occupation for someone we
expect to solve a murder mystery. Sensitively written, too.
I thought this was quite
intriguing. It's a bit of a
red herring, as it happens.
Jump four years forward, Hunt manages to remove some children from a
bad home scene. In the course of which, he meets up with a long lost
old friend, who seems to be the second protagonist, Devin Juhle.
Juhle is a cop.
Hunt
loses his job by not playing along with his corrupt boss. He and
Juhle and Hunt's platonic lawyer girlfriend contrive to bring the
boss down. The boss was collecting worker's comp for a fake injury.
This caper—they catch the supposed invalid at physical labour—was
fun so Hunt decides to become a private eye. Not
my first self-query here as to where this all
heads.
This
brings us to chapter five and the present day. That's a lengthy set
up. Hunt has a successful agency with several employees including the
now adult children he saved early on. A cluttered scene introduces
the “Hunt Club”, friends and associates of the agency. Note how
“Hunt Club” has two meanings. It would make a great title for a
book.
Most
of the main characters sit in on this scene, set at a restaurant,
where the repartee flies. Actors, with facial nuances, vocal
intonation, and such, could
probably say these lines with some liveliness and conviction, but
this jazzy dialogue just seems forced to me as I read it, and not as
funny as somebody thinks it is. Maybe S. J. Perelman could come in
for a rewrite.
I
have here identified one problem pertaining to novelists, the belief
that what they heard in their head transferred to the page. Okay, all
writers, including the one at the keyboard now, wrestle
with that one. This scene
proposes,
I gather, to introduce many of the players in the story. As
I discover, these characters appear in most of Lescroart's books,
with varying levels of importance. The
low-grade snarkiness of everyone's dialogue in
this scene does little to
help bring these characters to life.
Furthermore, Lescroart confusingly unleashes quite a few characters
here.
I'm having trouble keeping track of them. In
this crowd, they don't distinguish themselves. Lescroartt
assumes that you've already met these characters in other of his
books.
New scene. A young waitress meets a federal judge at her restaurant
and eventually they have an affair. They further eventually are found
by the judge's wife at the judge's home, shot to death. Saying the
wife found them should not suggest that she didn't shoot them
herself. That's still to be determined.
A guest at the frothy restaurant scene is a lawyer who appears on a
Court TV-like show. She gets sick drunk at the restaurant, ending
with her slapping the show's producer who accompanied her to this
gathering. Hunt gentlemanly brings her home.
Next
day, when she's sober, she makes the world's best spaghetti carbonara
(before or after, I
forget which, the de
rigueur rumpty bumpty).
This is a chance for the author to show off, and it gets a bit weird.
Lescroart
describes her process in detail, as if it were some culinary miracle.
You must know the miracle as well as I do: fry bacon, boil spaghetti,
smush some eggs, grate
cheese, mix together. There's
room for genius there, I suppose, but I am sure that I had basic
ability in those skills by age eleven. Andrea, the character, calls
it her patented
recipe. The author's just showing off.
There,
I have identified a second problem with novelists: they can find
themselves showing off. Scheming
to make an impression, that is. Lescroart
does some name-checking, for instance. I think Ian Fleming may have
invented this sort of thing, to illustrate James Bond's hipness. At
any rate, there's some product placement here: Jordan cabernet,
Hendricks gin. Doing so seems more about the author than the
character.
Presumably,
Lescroart knows his San Francisco. I don't have a San Francisco, but
I can see enjoying the references if I did. Local settings have a
tingle, no doubt.
Juhle,
until further notice, seems to have a happy marriage. Hunt lost his
wife and child in childbirth. One of those looming pasts to bring up
at odd moments in the storytelling. This sort of thing savours of
two-bit pop psychology. That's right, not just plain pop
psychology, I wrote two-bit.
Too neat, and really just superfluous.
I
really liked the essentially unneeded
beginning of the book with Hunt as child protection agent. The story
has devolved to police and lawyer procedural. Early on, I thought
maybe there might be a dark side to Hunt and/or Juhle but now I
realize that they are two poles in the investigation,
assuming investigations
have poles, and basically two
pals of the author, both of which
points I
here do assert.
Juhle takes the by-the-book route while Hunt can be loose with
the rules.
What
the story has come down to, then, is a lot of scene changes that
instigate a lot of questions. Not
very lifelike, if that's a goal, and quite stodgy in its narrative
movement. We're just rooting for the good guys, at this point. Come
on, denouement!
Which
bring the question: What does Dear Reader want from a novel? Is it
just catching the perp,
in this case, and in general, the feelgood plot? I think everyone
responds positively to the notion of good or at least okay endings
for the protagonists. Frodo destroyed the Ring, tho with a grey tinge
to the happily ever after. Etc. Justice served.
I
like that shit as much as anyone, but I also like the journey . Or I
should say, I want to. (Tolkien
managed his journey with intricate depth: it can happen!) I
don't want to notice the writer's art
so much. I don't want to realize that characters
are machines, automatons acting out the writer's schemes. I do notice
that stuff. The stuff between the periods interests me. I regard the
scheming overlay
as distraction.
Keats
noted it two centuries ago, the Egotistical Sublime. The author gets
in the way of
the words. Blake noted
it, the Authors are in Heaven (and the corollary implication that the
author is on earth, mere
earth). Author
as essential hero. I say no. The author is a sieve, here to collect
some interesting bits.
The
lift of novels,
according to me, is not from plot development and character
realization
but in the telling language. Yes, novels that go the way they should
offer a pleasing sensation. I read (am
reading) that way now.
The real scene of interest,
however,
occurs in the sentences beckoning meaning. Language is poetry when we
get to that point, even in
novels. Otherwise, a
novel becomes just more
messages from Our Sponsor.
I'm
still reading The Hunt Club
so I can give nothing away. It wouldn't matter if I could. It
represents a gesture towards completion that doesn't really apply to
anyone. It is the sort of book, finally, that you'd like, if you like
that sort of stuff. That's not a condemnation, but it does suggest
the insular park we are content to stroll in.
