THE BIG SLEEP–DOES CRAFTMANSHIP MATTER?

THE BIG SLEEP–DOES CRAFTSMANSHIP MATTER? The Financial Times article about THE BIG SLEEP that I posted on yesterday draws the lesson that “in classic crime fiction the character of the detective is more important than any mystery he or she might solve.” I disagree. If an interesting detective is what mattered, it is hard to see how there would be so many Hercule Poirot stories. In fact, Ross McDonald, one of the masters, considered his detective, Lew Archer to be simply a story-telling device. The genre works because it presents a world where we can have certain knowledge. Raymond Chandler is not, I think, as good a craftsman as some other writers of detective stories, but he valued craftsmanship. He concluded the book with classical confrontation and explanation scenes. The movie left them out, and yet the movie was a great success. I will be giving my theory as to why this is so.