A Series of Unfortunate Events

I've mentioned occasionally in previous blog entries my dissatisfaction with novel series. Publishers generally like them because they create a recognisable brand and thus an opportunity to build a readership--which of course generates sales. Some writers, perhaps, enjoy writing them because much of the imaginative spadework is already done, as well as providing a steady income. (Other writers can soon come to feel straightjacketed by them, of course).

The most dangerous series are the open-ended ones, where the writer is encouraged to go on and on, until ultimately they weary the reader's patience. Where the writer has a clear arc in mind--a trilogy, say--there is less peril; and where the identity of the protagonist changes from novel to novel (Jack Vance's Alastor series, for example*) it's easier to maintain freshness.

The format that lends itself most readily to hackwork is the open-ended, same protagonist (OESP) approach--for instance, Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels, or Agatha Christie's Poirot. It's truly depressing to see an original idea and likeable protagonist rot on the vine, like Scarpetta. Poirot, being almost devoid of characterisation from the outset, has actually worn rather better.

This is brought to mind as I read Philip Kerr's If the Dead Rise Not, his sixth Bernie Gunther mystery, about a Marlowesque private eye trudging the mean streets of 1930s Berlin. It's a great idea, and Gunther is an engaging character; but I'm sensing that we're getting to the end of the road here. I don't know the nature of Kerr's contract, but it might be time to let Gunther slip quietly into the sunset.

Some writers can break the rules, and give us an OESP series which doesn't fall off in quality. Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels are perhaps the best example, and Ian Rankin's Rebus books pack a bigger punch at the end of the series than at the beginning. In each of these, the protagonist grows and changes over the series, and at first I thought that was perhaps the defining characteristic of successful OESPs. But Scarpetta changes too (albeit in melodramatic and rather unconvincing ways). And another of the archetypally successful OESPs, Richard Stark's Parker series, has a protagonist who really doesn't change at all across a long series of novels: Parker is still the same amoral bastard in 2007 as he was in 1960. Success is not about character growth, then.

Instead, I think what makes an OESP tolerable beyond about three or four novels is authorial voice. O'Brian and Stark are highly contrasting writers, but each can nail and maintain a compelling voice to which the reader wants to listen again and again. (Although Stark 'lost' the Parker voice for 20 years, before seamlessly picking up again in the late '90s). Kerr's Gunther novels have a distinctive voice, but in a narrow register and perhaps excessively reminiscent of Chandler, which is perhaps why we're seeing the series lose energy.

Two of my favourite Macmillan New Writers, LC Tyler and Brian McGilloway, also specialise in the OESP. In both cases I anticipate enjoying their work for some time to come: Tyler's addictively dark Herring novels fuse, as I've said in the past, Wodehouse and Calvino, a niche not richly populated; and McGilloway gives us not only a unique setting but prose of almost invisible excellence.

The success of writers like O'Brian, Stark, Tyler and McGilloway shows that the format can be artisically as well as commercially satisfying--but anyone who wants to embark on the same route should think, too, of those writers who lack the deftness to bring it off. And you may love your protagonist now--but will you be able to say the same in twenty years?

*is it immodest on my own blog to mention Mondia here?

Also reads books

Having wearied my readers' patience with maps, maps and more maps over the past couple of weeks, it's with some relief that ::Acquired Taste returns to the business of books today. I've read a couple of crackers over the past week, and I like to share...

The first was the recent Macmillan New Writing title The Incendiary's Trail, by James McCreet. This Victorian melodrama owes much to Poe and Holmes, but also to Dickens in its depiction of the seedy underside of London life. The plot is lively and enjoyably lurid, with vividly-drawn characters. Reviews I've read of the book have not been especially favourable--many comment on the overly intrusive authorial voice with dismay. In this, though, McCreet is merely being true to 19th century sensation novels he clearly admires, and the device allows him to play some interesting games with the reader. Modern readers have become used to unobstrusive third person narratives, but done well, the engaged third person can be a treat. There is a second novel in the works and I look forward to reading it.

Even better was A Quiet Flame, the fifth in Philip Kerr's series of novels about the career of Bernie Gunther, the German private detective we first met in 1930s Berlin. Gunther now finds himself, courtesy of an unwilling spell in the SS, in post-war Argentina under an assumed name. Co-opted into the Argentine secret police, he finds his new home all too similar to the one he fled. Kerr handles the dark themes of the period with skill, and the Marloweque Gunther makes enough of a connection with the reader to avoid charges of stereotyping. Kerr has a problem in extending the series in that, for a tough guy, Gunther is now getting old (internal evidence suggests he's in his mid-50s). Much of A Quiet Flame is told in flashback to 1930s Berlin, and the sixth novel in the series seems to employ the same device. Much as I enjoy these novels, I do hope that Kerr remembers to quit while he's ahead. Regular readers will expect me to mention Patricia Cornwell here, and I like to oblige my readership...

Meanwhile, I have had an Amazon splurge and treated myself to two eagerly-anticipated works: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (always a sucker for the Tudors) and the latest Macmillan New Writing release, Ryan David Jahn's Acts of Violence. Mantel has a bestseller by virtue of winning the Booker Prize, but the buzz around Acts of Violence gives us hope that this could be the first MNW title to join it.

Recent Reading

A couple of weeks ago it was my birthday, a subject generally of even less interest to you than it is to me. What's good about birthdays, though, is that I normally get some new reading material (I really am very easy to buy for).

I haven't yet read Philip Kerr's The One from the Other, a continuation of his dark exploration of mid-century Berlin (although my dip into the prologue looks very promising). I have, however, read Bernard Cornwell's Azincourt, a fictional recreation of Henry IV's finest hour.

I find Cornwell immensely frustrating. He has all the gifts of a first-rate historical action novelist, but equally a series of vices which only become worse over the time. No-one does the carnage and chaos of the battlefield better (and Agincourt sees him at his best), and his research is impeccable. Less enjoyable is his characterisation, where not for the first time he falls back on some hoary stereotypes: the chippy young maverick, the foul-mouthed hard-but-fair commander, the quiet but strong heroine, the charismatic but cruel villain. All this is perfectly serviceable, but because Cornwell is capable of better (I have good memories of his King Arthur trilogy which I don't want to spoil by re-reading) my irascibility is roused. Bernard joins his namesake Patricia on the list of writers who have exhausted both their muse and my patience.

Luckily I have plenty (far too much, in fact) to read. Time to treat myself to something fresher!

The Serendipitous Discovery

...or why Amazon needs the High Street bookshop

I spent some time browsing round Waterstones in Guildford yesterday, knowing I had a couple of hours or so to kill. It's an entirely different experience to trying to cram a visit into a lunch hour you didn't really have time to take in the first place. Mooching around the shelves gives the kind of opportunity to discover new writers in a way that Amazon, for all its "customers who shopped for Seven Habits of Highly Effective People also bought Who Moved My Cheese?" can never fully replicate.

So let's say you were writing a noir detective novel, you know the kind of thing - a former cop with battered integrity, a beautiful but dangerous woman, the police as corrupt as the criminals. Where would you set something like that? First answer, because you know the cliches and you read Chandler, Hammett, Ellroy, is Los Angeles. Unless you love to be derivative, you'll probably move beyond that. How about, instead, 1930s Berlin? Perfect, no? That's where Philip Kerr has set March Violets, the first of a series of novels about Bernhard Gunther, a private investigator trying to make a living as the Nazis consolidate their grip on Germany. As Gunther wryly observes, there's no shortage of missing persons cases, as long as you take commissions from Jews.

As the subject matter suggests, this may tread a well-worn thriller path but the setting means it's hardly light entertainment. In the 60 pages I've read so far, Kerr has got inside the mind of the Reich, and particularly the ordinary Germans, in that peculiarly intimate way which novels can do better than straight history books. He has a nice way with the one-liner and brings the tawdriness of the period into sharp focus. This is a writer whose stories I want to read.

But here's my morally grubby compromise, my own noir moment. Having spent an hour reading the book on the soft seats at Waterstones, I didn't buy it. Seventeen quid for a paperback! (Admittedly a trilogy). Instead, I went home and bought it on Amazon for a tenner. (In my defence I should say I did buy three other books, rather more reasonably priced, in the shop instead). In this instance, Waterstones did OK - if every browser bought three books they'd be laughing - Amazon prospered too, as did four writers. And Penguin, the publisher, badged the trilogy as "Berlin Noir", an obvious title but one that got me take it off the shelf, so full marks to their marketing people.

If I were Waterstones I'd be worried that price-sensitive customers will always buy their books elsewhere (hence the ubiquity of the 3-f0r-2 table) but Amazon, equally, will surely realise that without bookshops acting as their physical showroom, their own commercial prospects will be damaged. Shoppers in Waterstones will buy books they didn't know they wanted, but on Amazon most purchases will still be consumers looking for a particular title. They may be in competition, but their markets are subtly different.

Meanwhile, as a I wait the "2 to 3 business days" for SuperSaver shipping (you didn't think I'd pay postage, did you?), I can reflect on my ethics as an "Amazon Tart".