Books

Books

7/12/17: Progressive versus Static Series

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A murdered potato with a sad potato and two cops

Edgar Allan Poe has often been credited with inventing the mystery genre but it gained worldwide acclaim with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Poe’s mysteries, and Conan Doyle’s as well, featured distinct episodes in the life of an unchanging detective. Holmes made Conan Doyle (a physician) both rich and famous. The series ultimately grew to encompass four novels and 56 short stories. It was essentially a static series, in that little in the character’s life and circumstances changed from one story to another. As the series grew, Conan Doyle added detail. Holmes had enemies, Moriarty chief among them, who appeared in recurring fashion. He picked up a brother and some few episodes of his childhood were revealed. Still, Holmes remained as he had begun: enigmatic, mysterious and unchanging. The template was adopted by many others. Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe. There was Lew Archer and Sam Spade, Travis McGee, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and many, many others. People liked the characters and they liked the mystery. They liked immersing themselves into worlds so different from their own. There was a certain comfort in knowing that at the end of the day, the bad guys would lose, the good guys would win, good meal, a stiff drink and a good night’s sleep were the inevitable end to the hero’s day.

But tastes changed. Prior to the 1950’s, the average individual, even in the industrialized West, rarely traveled more than fifty miles from the place of his birth. Television did not become widespread until well after World War II. The world became saturated with entertainment. People grew jaded, then bored. They wanted more from their heroes. They wanted to empathize. They wanted them to have a life and they wanted to vicariously immerse themselves in that life. They wanted the stakes to matter. Today, the format of a series such as Hercule Poirot is generally considered retro and unsatisfactory, if not downright boring. People want a hero whose actions and inventions have a larger meaning, possibly to the world at large but certainly to the heroes themselves. The progressive series was born. What are the most popular such series today? John Sandford and the Lucas Davenport books come to mind. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser. Lawrence Block and Matthew Scudder. Sara Paretsky and V. I. Warshawsky. Sue Grafton and Kinsey Milhone. Many others. The point is that these characters change, maybe slowly, but they do change over the course of the series. They accumulate spouses or at least significant others. They are injured and the injuries leave scars that haunt them from book to book. They change jobs. They get rich or they get poor. They grow old.

There are some weird and usually unsatisfactory hybrids. Spenser, for instance, started with The Godwulf Manuscript, in 1973. Spenser was depicted as fully mature. I seem to recall that his age was given as 37. Over the course of the 40 years prior to his death, Parker wrote 40 novels in the series. Spencer accumulated a girlfriend, Brenda Loring, who lasted for a few books. He became friends with Hawk, at first awkwardly and with suspicion. He gained a huge cast of supporting characters, such as Vinnie Morris, Cholo, Teddy Sap, Frank Belsing, Martin Quirk and others. He gained a second girlfriend, Susan Silverman, who started out as a High School guidance counselor and ultimately morphed into a Harvard trained clinical psychologist. Spenser loses Susan, who finds his ardent love too stifling, and then he gets her back. The two drift through time, eating gourmet meals, interacting with the events of the day, yet somehow never growing old. Spenser was a soldier in Korea. He fought Jersey Joe Walcott for the title. Yet by the time Parker died, Spenser, Hawk and Susan were still good looking, still tough, athletic, dangerous and still, somehow, early middle age. But they did change over the course of the series, at least until they reached a satisfactory place. The reader knows a lot about their lives. The reader can empathize with the characters.

The Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais started out as a Spenser clone. Elvis fought in Vietnam. His best friend and partner is a mercenary ex-cop named Joe Pike. Over the first ten or so books, Elvis gets a girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, a lawyer. Then the two break-up, though they are still apparently in love, because Lucy cannot stand Elvis’ violent life. As with Spenser, they seem not to age. Now, episode follows episode and the characters have ceased to grow and change, and my affection for the series, which was once one of my favorites, has largely vanished.

Marvel beat DC, some years back, because their characters had lives, strange lives but still, they were lives. We could appreciate the daily travails of  Peter Parker or Tony Stark’s Byronic angst or Bruce Banner’s constant misery over his inner beast. They were more interesting characters than Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, and DC was in trouble…until they figured out the formula and gave their characters lives of their own.

In the end, all series have a beginning and today, at least, most have an end, or if they don’t actually end, an ending can be perceived in the distance. Growth, age, change; these are the things that the reader relates to and wants to see.

Books

7/4/17: What I Like

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Imperial Ship

It has been said that the process of writing is also the process of determining what we think about a subject. I long ago came to the conclusion that the process of growing up is also the process of fixing on our preferences, what we like–not what we should like, not what we are supposed to like, but what we actually do like.

The intelligentsia, of which I sometimes feel like a rogue member (considering my academic background), has tastes (or perhaps it would be wiser to say professes to have tastes) that are not common, low, coarse or crass. It is considered sophisticated to assume the fallen nature of mankind, the futility of action and the world weary sense that all is transience doomed to decay. But where’s the fun in that?

Occasionally a piece of literature, a movie or a play will manage to blend the tropes of high art with the tastes of the common man, and manage to escape the shackles of the Commentariat. Films such as The Lord of the Rings, The Godfather or a few of the Batman series come to mind. Still, this is rare. The tastes of the critics are rarely those of the majority of the audience.

I figured out what I liked a long time ago. I want some action, but not too much. I want the plot to go somewhere worth going. I want the conflict to be meaningful, both to the protagonist and to his world at large, some tragedy is okay so long as there is triumph as well, and most of all, I want a protagonist that I can cheer for, admire and respect. Does this mean that the common man just won’t do? Not really, because the common man is often far more heroic than his intellectual betters give him credit for.

I was on a panel at a science fiction convention a few years ago when one of the panelists said that, “There are two types of science fiction stories: superman stories and non-superman stories.” I immediately realized that he was absolutely correct, maybe not literally but pretty close, and I also realized that I like superman stories. If the protagonist is not at least highly competent, or does not become so during the course of the book, I have trouble getting into the story. I like a focus that can carry me along to a satisfying, if not always happy conclusion. I think most people do.

Books

6/20/17: The Banality of Plot

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a classic image from Hamlet

Years ago, when I was just starting to write seriously, one of the first books that I read on writing was “Writing to Sell,” by Scott Meredith. Scott Meredith founded the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, at one time the largest such agency in the world. Before he became a world famous agent, however, he was a writer, and his insights on how to write and how to sell, were definitely worth the price of the book. He focused a lot on plot.

To me, the most valuable piece of information in “Writing to Sell” was the “plot skeleton,” a schema to which all successful stories, and all successful novels, must conform. To wit: you start with a protagonist for whom the reader can feel sympathy. The protagonist has a problem that he or she must solve. The protagonist’s efforts to solve the problem fail, often making the problem even worse. Finally, when all seems lost, the protagonist solves the problem, or comes to a realization that the problem was not worth solving in the first place. An example of this might be the man who is obsessed with making money, but who realizes in the end that what he really needed was the love of a good woman; or the man who is obsessed with the beautiful, dangerous woman and who realizes in the end that the girl next door was the one he wanted all along.

Years ago, when I was in college, I happened to walking along the halls of the English Department when I overheard one of the professors, a well known poet in his own right, make a comment to one of his colleagues about the “banality of plot.” The comment bewildered me, but now that I am a writer, I understand what he meant. Real life has no plot. Things happen for no reason whatsoever. Real life does not make much of a story, not an entertaining one, at least. Plot is artificial. Plots have to make sense. Real life does not make sense.

Books

6/18/17: Genre versus Mainstream

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a shelf full of classic literature

I go to a lot of science fiction conventions, and at all of these conventions, there are numerous panel discussions of topics that are hopefully interesting to fans of the genre. One of the more common is, “Is Science Fiction Literature?” To science fiction fans, and hopefully the writers as well, the obvious answer is “Yes,” but since the topic is so commonly discussed and debated, I suspect there is a fair amount of insecurity among those who write science fiction for a living and those who read it for enjoyment.

Personally, I have a rather jaded view of the whole question. As an English major at an Ivy League school, I was required to read a lot of great books. The classroom discussions tended to focus more on how the book illuminated both the author’s mind and the times in which the book was written–a combination of psychoanalysis and sociology–than on the book itself. Though a lowly undergraduate, I nevertheless held to the conviction that it should have been the other way around.

Later in life, I became good friends with the Vice-Chairman of the English Department at the University where I worked. I once remarked to her that one of the things that turned me off about so many of my classes was the fact that never, in any class that I attended, did one of my professors ever discuss what made a book “good.” She seemed surprised by my statement, and then said that she herself would never dream of discussing such a thing. My decision, made so long ago, to not bother seeking an advanced degree in the Humanities was thereby confirmed.

So what does make a book “good?” The basics of good writing are the same no matter the genre: plot, theme, characterization, style. Many writers often considered great were lacking in style. Theodore Dreiser comes immediately to mind. And one can argue whether or not Finnegan’s Wake, for instance, had any plot at all, but it is rare for a “good” book to be seriously lacking in any of these characteristics.

Genre writing: science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, romance, westerns, thrillers, are all regarded by the commentariat as somehow inferior to what is often referred to as “mainstream,” or literary fiction. So far as I am concerned, this is no more nor less than intellectual snobbery–a distinction without a difference. If it has an engrossing plot, characters that come alive, themes and ideas that resonate with the reader and reflect real issues, and if the style at least provides clarity and does not distract from all the rest of it, then it’s worth reading. A good book is a good book.

Books

6/16/17: Robert I. Katz: An Introduction

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A distant galaxy, symbolizing the aspirations of the author

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings! And welcome to the first post of my website, robertikatz.com, devoted to the works of Robert I. Katz, physician, pundit and author.

I graduated, many years ago, from Columbia, with a degree in English, but not liking the job prospects for English majors at the time, I went on to Medical School. I’ve always loved to read and I always wanted to write. I’ve had a successful career as an academic physician, rising to Professor and Vice-Chairman for Administration, Department of Anesthesiology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, and later, Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Florida and Chief, Anesthesiology Service, North Florida/South Georgia, Veterans Healthy System…but my first love has always been books.

To date, I have had four novels published, one science fiction (Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future), and the three books of the Kurtz and Barent mystery series (Surgical Risk, The Anatomy Lesson and Seizure), plus three science fiction short stories. The four novels and the longest story (To the Ends of the Earth in the Deep Blue Sea) have recently been made available for purchase on Kindle.

All of my books have received excellent reviews from such publications as Science Fiction Chronicle, Infinity Plus, Mystery Scene Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Midwest Book Review and many others.

Between 2010 and 2016, my job changed and I had little time to focus on writing. Happily, that circumstance has now changed again, and I’m setting out to re-dedicate myself to my writing career.

After watching the birth and then the explosive growth of the digital age and the opportunities that are now available, I’ve decided to do what so many of my colleagues have done and venture into the world of the independent writer, and publish my books and stories under my own name.

Wish me luck…

Books

6/17/17: News That Stays News

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Entrance to the Shakespeare and Company bookstore

 

I graduated from Columbia with a degree in English in 1974. While I was there, I read an essay on J. R. R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings by a professor in the English Department. The last words of the essay were, “The Lord of the Rings lives, but on borrowed time.” The professor did not think much of the Lord of the Rings. Her problems with the book were the standard: lack of realism, characterizations that were hardly subtle, good and evil depicted in black and white, the minor role that women played in the narrative. It’s now over forty years later, however, and The Lord of the Rings is still being read, more popular than ever.

When I was in 12th Grade, I remember one young woman stating that the books we were reading lacked relevance. She wanted to read Soul on Ice instead of Shakespeare. It’s now more than forty years later, and Soul on Ice is little more than an historical curiosity, a relic of the 1960’s. If literature is news that stays news, Soul on Ice has not made the grade.

Some years ago, I read on essay by Gore Vidal on Tarzan of the Apes. Vidal grudgingly stated that, “In action, Tarzan is excellent.” Aside from that, he had little good to say about the book. And yet, Tarzan was published in 1914. I doubt that it ever occurred to Gore Vidal that Edgar Rice Burroughs was and is a much more important, much more influential writer than himself. Very little that Gore Vidal wrote is still being read, not by a very wide audience, at least, but generations have read and loved the exploits of Tarzan and John Carter.

Again, if literature is news that stays news, sometimes we don’t know until many years later exactly what books and stories are going to achieve that status. So I say, don’t worry about it. Read what you enjoy. It’s a question that only our grandchildren will be able to answer.