Further to the crime fic / lit fic debate of last week, in which it was argued that John Banville (right) demeans crime writing and its writers by admitting that he writes quicker as Benjamin Black than John Banville, the man himself had a right-to-reply piece in The Guardian yesterday. To wit: “A sheep should not venture into a pen of wolves. Not the least of the reasons I agreed to attend the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing festival 2009 in Harrogate was that the name charmed me. Also it was a chance to revisit Yorkshire, a part of the world I greatly like, if only for the rough poetry of the common speech there - for instance, on the train from Leeds to Harrogate a woman in the seat behind me was speaking of a fickle friend and said: "She coomes on lak a dyin' swan and then puffs oop."Well said, that man. “I prefer to think of Benjamin B. as lording it among aristocrats …” Nice.
“My event was a public interview with Mark Lawson, an expert conductor of the third degree; also on stage was that fine writer Reginald Hill. We had a large and attentive audience, consisting mostly of fans of Reg, I suspect. During the hour-long conversation I described my differing work methods as John Banville and Benjamin Black, saying how the former writes painfully slowly while the latter is fluent and fast. I am told that many in the audience took offence at this, imagining, I presume, that I was making a disparaging comparison between my "literary" books and my crime fiction. I also made a joke - limp, I admit - to the effect that I fully expected Black to win the Nobel prize; this has been blogged as my saying that I expected to win it. Imagine a weary sigh.
“Another blogger did a survey among attendees. One of them, Ruth Dudley Edwards, a good writer who should have known better, allowed herself to be quoted as saying that I was slumming it as Benjamin Black. The inevitable implication of this is that Dudley Edwards considers crime writers to be slum dwellers. I prefer to think of Benjamin B. as lording it among aristocrats such as Georges Simenon, James M Cain, and my much-missed friend, the lavishly talented, late Donald Westlake, aka Richard Stark.
“I deplore the apartheid that has been imposed on fiction writing, so that in shops the "crime books" are segregated from the "proper" novels. Of course, there are bad crime novels, many of which seem to have been written with the blunt end of a burnt stick, but the same is true of so-called literary fiction. The distinction between good writing and bad is the only one worth making. I revel in the challenge of crafting my crime books, trying to make something new in an old convention - for is that not what any artist does? Baa.”
As for Ruth Dudley Edwards and the ‘slumming it’ bit, and on the basis that she wasn’t being ironic, or quoted out of context – what’s so wrong with the idea that John Banville is slumming it as Benjamin Black? I find the idea that Banville is writing from an ivory tower and Benny Blanco in a tenement slum very appealing, actually; it puts me in mind of Chandler’s take on Hammett, that he took murder out of the drawing room and dropped it back in the alley, where it belonged. To me the crime novel – and I make the distinction between crime novel and mystery novel, or thriller – belongs in the slums, its sewers thronged with rats made mad by poverty and poisons and doomed to drown, sooner or later, in the endless flow of shit.
A very broad generalisation, I know, and it very probably says more about me than I’m willing to examine too closely that that’s not only my idea of a good time, but a metaphor for life itself and the universe at large.
John Banville says he’s not slumming it, and good enough for me. In the long run, though, it’s a moot point. He’ll be judged by the books, not on his attitude or what he did or didn’t say. And it’d be a shame if some kind of inverted snobbery were to deny him a fair hearing.
John Banville’s THE INFINITIES is published on September 4.
4 comments:
Among slums or aritocrats, fine by me, they're both full of great characters. It's that awful middle-brow, middle-class I have no time for.
And sadly so much of what's being foisted on us as 'literature' these days is just educated middle-brow, full of empty spaces where we can imagine there might be depth. It looks good but it doesn't last, sort of like Ikea furniture.
Of course, I have a lot of complaints about "mystery" novels, too. Mostly that the crime is too often just a convenience for the detective and the story and there's no real attempt at understanding "crime" in the books.
That extract confirms what I've always believed: the problem isn't that John Banville thinks he's slumming it, it's that every time he talks about it, his delivery gives the impression that he does. That's the third or fourth time I've seen an extract of Banvo Black on that particular subject and, every time, he's unwittingly come across as superior when referring to his Banville writing.
Hard to blame him, I suppose but it still irritates me - especially when I know he doesn't intend it.
John - "I have a lot of complaints about "mystery" novels, too. Mostly that the crime is too often just a convenience for the detective and the story and there's no real attempt at understanding "crime" in the books."
Correct and true, squire.
Bob? If I could write like Banville, you'd better believe I'd come across superior, and there'd be nothing unwitting about it.
Cheers, Dec
I can see where people may think Banville implies he's slumming, but there's another way to look at it. It may be perfectly reasonable for Black to write faster than Banville. Black is, to a great extent, telling a story. His primary responsibility is to create a good story; how deep it is can be left open to speculation, as the crime novel can still be successful, both as a story and as literature, if the story succeeds. Banville, on the other hand, may feel the need not just to write well, but to consider the implication of everything he says, and or how he says it. Personally, I think too much can be made of this, but, assuming Banville does look at his "literary" writing as carrying more implied weight, it makes sense it would take Banvillelonger to write than it takes Black.
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