I'm not going to go into a blow by blow description of this Brilliant Novel. Simply put, who am I to comment on writing of this quality. I have long felt that Robert Parker is if not the most underrated writer of the 20th Century then certainly one of the ones at the head of the list. And the quality of writing and thinking encountered in this novel clearly represents some of the best of his impressive body of work! What other writer alive today could sum up an entire year (or more) of a character's life with a chapter consisting of only one or two pages? And get away with it!
Sadly, I fear that many who read this guy fail utterly to grasp the depth of his writing, the breadth of his wisdom, the grasp of his mind. Like a great actor who makes the mistake of playing the same sort of character one too many times, Parker let himself be sucked into the detective genre to the extent that many of those reading him got into the bad habit of speed reading their way through his books with only a chuckle here and there at the many witty moments that were the hallmark of the dialog between his well drawn characters.
Big mistake!
Robert Parker was a man of incredible depth, with an understanding of the human condition that many of today's novelists so sadly lack. The kind of guy Steinbeck would have loved, and Hemmingway would have feared. Reading him I am often put in mind of Raymond Carver one of the greatest short story writers of all time. Like Carver, Parker misses nothing as life unfolds before him and his command of seemingly unimportant detail brings his sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books alive in a way seldom encountered today.
When I heard Robert Parker had died I felt a huge empty hole instantly develop within my life. In some very real sense I felt I'd lost a friend though I never met him. Lost many friends, actually, as Spenser, Susan, Hawk, and all his other memorable characters died with him. He was that good! And better!
I will forever wish I'd shared my admiration for his work with him before he died...
Sadly, I fear that many who read this guy fail utterly to grasp the depth of his writing, the breadth of his wisdom, the grasp of his mind. Like a great actor who makes the mistake of playing the same sort of character one too many times, Parker let himself be sucked into the detective genre to the extent that many of those reading him got into the bad habit of speed reading their way through his books with only a chuckle here and there at the many witty moments that were the hallmark of the dialog between his well drawn characters.
Big mistake!
Robert Parker was a man of incredible depth, with an understanding of the human condition that many of today's novelists so sadly lack. The kind of guy Steinbeck would have loved, and Hemmingway would have feared. Reading him I am often put in mind of Raymond Carver one of the greatest short story writers of all time. Like Carver, Parker misses nothing as life unfolds before him and his command of seemingly unimportant detail brings his sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books alive in a way seldom encountered today.
When I heard Robert Parker had died I felt a huge empty hole instantly develop within my life. In some very real sense I felt I'd lost a friend though I never met him. Lost many friends, actually, as Spenser, Susan, Hawk, and all his other memorable characters died with him. He was that good! And better!
I will forever wish I'd shared my admiration for his work with him before he died...
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