Maybe this is another thread, but another thing in Elmore Leonard I like is the way he works in the information. There’s often a lot of technical detail (I guess a lot of this is Gregg’s work)
(John McFetridge, yesterday)
And lo and behold…
How much do you think you have learned about the real world from reading EL? About crooks, the justice system, about high-diving?
What do you make of the proposition, Elmore Leonard is a Realist Author?
What do you think of the notion of realism in fiction?
I’ll tell you straight off, I think the idea of having a researcher is a little suspect. It’s like those guitar players - Eric Clapton is one of them - who have ‘guitar technicians.’ What do these guys do? They change guitar strings. While the guitar player is doing what? Taking his nap? Phoning his mother?
I mean, if I was a hotshot writer, I wouldn’t have a researcher, or a secretary or any of that. Maybe someone to mix my drinks…
Another opinion from a guy who has no idea what he’s talking about.
The way it works, you get all the facts first, then look at the picture and make an informed judgment. The facts must lead to the conclusion. That’s as to any issue, the issue of the role of a researcher or guitar tech included.
Substituting speculation for facts is a rookie mistake in any discipline. No one who has his head on straight pays any attention to whiny, speculative complaints. Why bother?
Whoah… someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. I thought the the discussion might be on the subject of the thread, not on the joke I tagged on the end of it. I must disclaim resposibility for any inference that I am seriously drawing an analogy between Gregg & a guitar technician; and, I suppose I should add, much less that he mixes his employer’s drinks.
No, I think there’s something here. It comes up a lot, and as LaCrimmAtty says, there’s a lot of speculation but the only thing we know for sure is the end result—the books. And the books have a lot of information that seems realistic. Seems real enough for me.
Some writers get slagged for not doing enough research and making obvious mistakes. Reality has to serve the fiction in fiction writing (I think) but I also think one of the things Elmore Leonard did to fiction writing was bring this level of information or research to it. It’s almost the opposite of magic-realism.
I don’t know that I’ve learned a lot about criminals, but I’ve sure smiled a lot reading the books and thought, man, I know that guy.
But people are suspicious, maybe because it’s something new. I saw Elmore Leonard interviewed in a bookstore a few years ago and it was one of the first things the guy asked him. I was at a reading a couple weeks ago by Giles Blunt (a Canadian mystery writer) and one of the questions was about Elmore Leonard having a research guy. I read an interview with Robert B. Parker and he seemed to have something against the idea of it. I think it’s one of the many tools that make the books so good. But, of course, it’s the way the information is integrated that makes it work.
So yes, if I’m right about what it means, Ithink Elmore Leonard is a realistic writer.
Jones just likes getting a rise out of us. It’s working. ;-D
I’ll agree with the ‘realist’ aspect of Elmore’s work. Hell yeah, I learn a lot about the real world by reading his stuff. Normally I don’t find myself questioning facts and dates when I read EL books (or fiction in general), but I sure did when I read The Hot Kid. I’ve mentioned this before. It seemed like every other page early in the book made reference to certain dates in history, when things were invented, the number of years back when Louly was a little girl, etc. that just didn’t jive with my 6th grade education. It was something I hadn’t experience yet with an EL book. I wasn’t that skeptical that I went back and verified all the facts (I trust they are right), but it really made me think more critically as I read on.
As for someone having an assistant, what do I care? I can see hot shot writers like Elmore having someone research stuff for them. Others, it isn’t their style. Michael Crichton’s State of Fear had boatloads of global warming references (actual documented references) most of which I wouldn’t be surprized he dug up himself. Still, he probably had a team of helpers verifying things for him too. I guess my point is, it doesn’t matter to me how a fiction writer gets his facts, or that he presents them at all. You can bet when Elmore talks about a squad room, it’s going to be pretty realistic, or when John Irving talks about tattoo artists in Amsterdam, he’s going to paint a realistic picture.
I knew McFetridge would come & rescue this thread. I’m sorry if others thought it was addressed only to him.
What I admire most is not the factual accuracy (what specialised knowledge do you need to write GoldCoast?) but the way Elmore never has his characters do anything unnatural (leaving Touch aside for the moment) or implausible. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m going through some of Michael Connelly’s books at the moment, & everywhere in his books you find that the plot revolves around some improbable take on human behavior. An FBI serial-killer-profiler turns out to be a serial killer psycho himself, for example. I can’t understand how someone who knows nothing of psychos & sociopaths (compare Teddy in Glitz) can set out to write books about them; about what is normal & what is abnormal human behavior. More familiar examples of implausibility will be known to readers of The Da Vinci Code (I know you’re out there).
And it’s not just that Elmore is better than these people, that he uses these tricks less often; it’s that he never uses them. No-one in an Elmore Leonard story ever behaves in an unnatural, implausible way. Not even the coyote.
Elmore has a researcher because he doesn’t have the time or desire to chase down facts; go to the library or use the Internet. He first hired me 26 years ago to help with cop research for Split Images and I’ve worked on every project since.
Elmore used to go to the library himself but would always get distracted. He found it easier to have somebody go for him. In my introduction to the Complete Westerns, I write about the kind of research Elmore himself did then. Elmore had a few reference books about the West and Indians and Arizona Highways magazine and that was basically enough. It’s the casual authority with which he places information in the story that is the key.
Now, there is a ton of information out there for anybody to grab and be vetted. I have to decide what gets on his desk for examination. This includes books, library materials, Internet, location photography and interviews.
Whether Elmore uses a verifiable fact, especially in his recent historical novels, depends sometimes on a particular beat or the rythmn of a scene. He is a fiction writer and will never be chained to facts. If they don’t serve him they may get the heave-ho just like proper usage.
No-one in an Elmore Leonard story ever behaves in an unnatural, implausible way. Not even the coyote.
This is the genuis of Elmore Leonard, it’s what reading fiction is all about for me. And the characters are diverse. Not many writers have so many people from different classes, educated and not, so many black and white and native characters. It’s pretty shocking (or not at all maybe) to see those books on the award winning lists and realize how few of the characters, never mind the writers, are anything but middle-class white people. Elmore Leonard has always risen above the silly “appropriation of voice” arguments by doing exactly what djones says, not using any of those tricks and having all the characters act in natural, plausible ways.
I’ve heard tha Elmore Leonard got some flack in the 70’s for his female characters, which I think is a lot of crap because his characters are real (I don’t think I’ve ever heard this about his black or white trash characters, but who knows).
It’s amazing how rare it is to find books that present the world the way we actually see it.
I started this thread a while ago & just got reviled for my trouble. Now, on the ‘Good guys & bad guys’ thread, it seems like there’s a need to talk seriously about this Realism business after all, try & find a way on agreeing about it.
So: does ‘Realism’ mean one thing or can it mean different kinds of things for different people? Put that way, it’s pretty obvious it can.
Imagine a very strict idea of Realism. You have a novel, a story, & you can rewrite it in such a way that it could be a newspaper article - or series of articles - without anyone thinking it was improbable or impossibly bizzarre.
Then a much more broad idea of Realism. Anything can happen, however impossible, as long as all the characters behave in a manner consistent with how they’ve been laid out by the storyteller. Thus Superman can see through objects & fly, but only if he finds a phone kiosk to change his costume in first, and he always has to beware of kryptonite.
I think the strict version is too narrow. If this rule applied, then no-one who considered themself a realist author would ever write anything. Nevertheless, I think most of Elmore’s stories are realist in this strict sense. I really do. Imagine all the things that happen in his work. Then imagine newspaper accounts of them. Doesn’t seem weird, does it?
But I still feel I’ve established that there’s an enormous range - between the broad & the strict versions - of Realism. Personally I can accept pretty much anything that happens in a story as long as it conforms to the broad rule of realism. Which makes me think that perhaps my feeling about Elmore’s stories, that most of them could appear in the newspaper, is the result mainly of the fact that he’s pretty much my favorite writer. And I bet a lot of other members of this forum are in the same position. We think Elmore’s realist because we like him.
Which isn’t a very good basis for deciding what ‘Realism’ means. And anyway, how can an author who wrote Get Shorty be considered a ‘Realist’ writer? (Although we really ought to decide what ‘Realism’ is first)
Which isn’t a very good basis for deciding what ‘Realism’ means. And anyway, how can an author who wrote Get Shorty be considered a ‘Realist’ writer? (Although we really ought to decide what ‘Realism’ is first)
Okay, we could try. The newspaper article vs. Superman is a good place to start. The characters - and the world they live in - being consistent is also a good place to start.
But, I think, we also have to believe that the characters aren’t those incredibly rare exceptions, those freaks of nature that come along once in a while, maybe just often enough for people to say, “It could happen.” That whole truth is stranger than fiction. I don’t want strange. So, those newspaper articles about the guy in Germany who kills his neighnour and then eats his flesh, okay, maybe it really happened, maybe it’s real, but it sure isn’t common. Now, some civil war re-enactors on both sides of the law in casino territory in Mississippi is probably fairly common. Certainly drugs get sold there everyday, there are hookers and probably sometimes guys get shot. There are even high divers.
(although, I gotta say, I worked for a B movie producer for a few years, a guy who made rip-offs of the Police Academy movies, so I guess B isn’t right, D maybe, and he made Get Shorty very realistic for me - certainly in the way he believed he could get hold of the right project and get into the big leagues).
But sure, I think Elmore’s books are realistic because I like them. It’s a bit of a chicken-egg argument, though.
The Egg comes first
by a hundred million years
or more
if it seems real
it is realistic
The Ubermensh
vs Superman
Newspapers
vs Literature
“The first is unreadable
the latter unread”
