Lawrence Block Appreciation Thread

Cafe Society
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I’ve never seen a Block thread anywhere and I just *know * there are bound to be a few fans around here. I’m sure there’s been Block threads before, but you can always have another.

So, what happens on a Block appreciation thread? First I guess I name my favourite books. In chronological order:

Eight Million Ways
Sacred Ginmill
Slaughterhouse
Tombstones
Everybody Dies

Does anybody else think A Ticket to the Boneyard sucks just a bit?

Then I want to ask the question - when’s the next one? The last one I got was Hope to Die. That seems a long time ago now…2001 in fact…

Then there’s a name your favourite character possibility. I haven’t really got one except maybe that albino who always drinks vodka in one of two bars.

Anyhow, I hope that’s enough to get some responses.

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Block amazes me, because he has such a wide variety of styles. The Bernie Burglar books, for instance, compared to the Scudder books (before the character went on the wagon), compared to the Tanner books compared to…

I disliked the recent Small Town immensely. Yes, it was a different style, I just don’t like that type.

I think When the Sacred Ginmill Closes is one of the greats of American Literature.

Lawrence Block does have an email list, with news of what’s going on for his fans. I’ve got most of his books in hardcover, autographed.

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Lawrence Block! Hurrah! I love all of the Burglar stories; Bernie Rhodenbarr has to be one of the best characters ever in crime fiction. Particular favourites have to be The Burglar In The Library and The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart. I love the way he manages to cheerfully send up the conventions of the genres, while gleefully indulging in them. Oh, and The Burglar In The Rye is a must for anyone who liked The Catcher In The Rye.

Other than that, I’ve only read a few of the Matthew Scudder novels. I know exactly what you mean by his ability to write in completely different styles - most of the Scudder novels I’ve quite liked, but they are a little formulaic for my tastes: recovering alcoholic detective from James Lee Burke, beautiful and horny Jewish partner from Robert B Parker, streetwise and chameleonic black sidekick from ditto. They also seem to have a nasty undercurrent of sexual violence that I can’t quite get to grips with: women always seem to end up anally raped and murdered.

Haven’t read any of the other series - any recommendations?

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It’s been a long time since I read any of hsi books. I read about four of them in a row and was struck specifically by When the Sacred Ginmill Closes as a wonderfully evocoative, personal mystery.

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Old thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=143104

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Must say I get a bit irritated by authors who have found a formula I like, and then insist on trying to do other stuff. They’re not thinking about me, are they? It seems to be a particular failing of people who invent a detective. Conan Doyle writing romantic novels, Rex Stout branching out with some some other detective … I wish they’d stick to the knitting that people like. Same on opening one of these Burglar books…I’ve got this irritated thought at the back of my mind that he’s denying me another Scudder, and so I never get into it.

Anyhow, I am interested to see that the Sacred Ginmill is so popular, though I have a slight preference for Eight Million Ways to Die myself.

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When I was just out of college, I had a voracious appetite for mysteries and Lawrence Block soon became a favorite. While the Bernie books are great fun, the Matt Scudder series always felt more satisfying, mainly because I think Block’s strengths as a writer lie in the way he develops his characters, not the mechanics of his plotting. Too many of the Burglar books wind up a silly, convoluted mess.

That being said, I’ve often daydreamed of a Donald Westlake/Lawrence Block collaboration in which John Dortmunder and Bernie Rhodenbarr stumble into each other while bulgarizing the same house. :slight_smile:

Heathen! Actually, this was the first Scudder book I read, so I have fond memories of it. But it’s interesting how Block kept re-working the “righteous avenger” role with Sudder- in Boneyard, it seemed almost a clinical decision on Matt’s part, whereas in Slaughterhouse, Block choreographs it like an opera. By the time of Tombstones, though, it just felt like he was repeating himself. I was glad he scaled it back to a simpler urban drama in Devil Knows You’re Dead.

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Didn’t Dortmunder once get into a job with some Eastern Europeans? Were they Bulgarian? :dubious:

That said, I think such a book would be great, even though I do prefer Block’s Scudder books to either of the other series.

I’ve seen a cover blurb quoting a review that puts Block up with Hammett and Chandler. That might be an exaggeration, but not by much.

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My first exposure to Block was Hit Man, which I picked up as airplane reading before a long trip. I loved this collection of clever, interlinked, O. Henry-like short stories about a hired killer who, despite being unabashedly amoral, seems to kill only people who richly deserve to be whacked.

I moved on to the Scudders, the Tanners, and the Rhodenbarrs, and enjoyed them all, although I have to say I liked Bernie best. I’m disappointed that Block hasn’t written more of them.

But “disappointment” doesn’t begin to express my feelings about Hit Man 2. After such a great beginning, it is by far the worst thing of his I’ve ever read. It looks like he tried to churn it out in a weekend after drinking too much on Friday night. Take my advice and give it a miss.

But let’s not be negative. I’ve really enjoyed 95% of all the Block I’ve read.

It’s getting late, so I’ll just toss out a couple of things I’ve long felt about Block and his work.

First, is there any other writer who has been so badly served by Hollywood? I haven’t seen the film of 8 Million Ways to Die, but apparently it’s not very well regarded. And I watched about 10 minutes of Burglar and practically had to go to the toilet to wretch. It is truly awful. Whoopi Goldberg as Bernie Rhodenbarr? Uggh.

He’s written so much, and only these two crummy films have been made? Very unfair.

Second, am I the only one who’s wished that there was a story in which Bernie bumped into Matthew, or vice versa? There they both are, wandering around Manhattan, and they’ve never met. It’s not that big a place, after all.

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Please, please, please tell me that you only imagined this in a malarial dream and that no-one really cast Whoopi Goldberg as Bernie Rhodenbarr. Please?

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I like the Scudder books, but now that he’s been sober a while, he’s a bit of a self-righteous prick. Which happens to a lot of people once they’ve been sober for a while, but it’s still annoying to read.

To draw comparisons between Elaine and Susan Silverman isn’t entirely fair. Elaine is more self-reliant and not nearly as dependent on Matt as Susan is on Spenser. In the later Spenser novels, Susan has become pretty whiny, IMO. Elaine could never be that whiny.

More later.

Robin

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I didn’t like Hope to Die very much. It just didn’t have that Scudder feel to me - it seemed forced. I wonder if Block is tired of them. About 2/3 of the way through Everybody Dies, I decided it was going to be the last, that everybody was going to die.

The Rodenbarr books are fun to read, but I really have a feel for Scudder and the other characters. They grow and change - some good changes and some bad, but always real changes.

Put me on the list of those who think Small Town stunk on ice.

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It’s awful to say it, but I think Scudder became less interesting as a character when he got on the wagon. The Scudder stories all have a very, very dark undertone and slightly nasty taste; when he was drinking, he (the character) shared that dark undertone, and seemed integrated with that world. He could use it to his own (good) ends – like planting evidence, say – but he was definitely part of the nastiness of the world.

Some of that comes through in the newer books, when Scudder is sober, but it’s often forced and seems misplaced. In the newer books, he tends to be the agency that metes out justice, and so becomes some sort of superhero/vigilante. In the older books, he manipulated the system to get justice, and was on the same level as the bad guys (if you follow me.)

I thought the end of A Long Line of Dead Men, where Scudder gets the bad guy in a private form of solitary confinement, an isolated log cabin up in nowheresville, where someone will bring him food but otherwise he’s trapped there forever was just silly. I mean, that’s a wish-fantasy world that seems completely incompatible with the Scudder-universe.

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Sorry, it’s true.

15

Another thing I’ve been meaning to ask about Block: has he gone through a period of drunkenness and sobriety like Scudder? Reading the books, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that that part is autobiographical.

Anyone know?

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When he was asked at a book signing, he smiled and said that Alcoholics Anonymous was anonymous.

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This has been on the stove for a while, I believe.

Harrison Ford as Scudder. I could definitely see it. And Scott Frank (Dead Again, Get Shorty) doing the screenplay, you could do worse!

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I’m enjoying gradually working my way through Block’s big-ass volume of collected short stories.

And he has two or three books about writing that make for interesting reading whether or not you’re a writer.

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My favorite story of Block’s is “When This Man Dies.”
Donald Westlake recently wrote a straight thriller, Money for Nothing, based around the same idea. Brilliant.