Woe the American genre writers of days of yore, forced to be contented with handsome paychecks that were uncoupled from the respect afforded their “serious” counterparts, often their lessers. In our time, perhaps things have swung too far in the other direction, with comic-book heroes, zombies and the such more highly valued than ever. It sure feels like a bubble. Maybe those in the future will strike the right balance.
The opening of a 1958 BBC conversation between two masters of genre, Ian Fleming, birther of Bond, and Raymond Chandler, dark poet of Los Angeles:
“Ian Fleming:
Well, the first thing, really, is to define what we’re supposed to be talking about. I think the title of what we’re supposed to be talking about is English and American thrillers. What is a thriller? To my mind of course, you don’t write thrillers and I do.
Raymond Chandler:
I do too.
Ian Fleming:
I don’t call yours thrillers. Yours are novels.
Raymond Chandler:
A lot of people call them thrillers.
Ian Fleming:
I know. I think it’s wrong.
Raymond Chandler:
Oh, well I . . .
Ian Fleming:
I mean, you write novels of suspense like Simenon does and like Eric Ambler does perhaps, but in which violence is the background, just as love might be in the background of the ordinary or the straight kind of novel . . .
Raymond Chandler:
Well, in America, a thriller, or a mystery story as we call them, is slightly below the salt.
Ian Fleming:
Yes, thriller writing is very below the salt really . . .
Raymond Chandler:
You can write a long, very lousy historical novel full of sex and it can be a bestseller and be treated respectfully. But a very good thriller writer, who writes far, far better, just gets a little paragraph of course.
Ian Fleming:
Yes, I know. That’s very true.
Raymond Chandler:
Mostly. There’s no attempt to judge him as a writer.”•
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The audio version: