Recently a few people, two to be exact, have discovered those posts and enjoyed them enough to leave comments. Things like, "Keep them coming.." That was all the prompt that I needed to take another look at Travis. The first thing that slapped me in the face when I read #1, posted in December 2013, was this statement -
So, that was number one in what will be at least a 21 blog series. What do you think?
Few people thought anything at all about it and using that as the reason, I only wrote 4 blogs and I discontinued the series. Frankly, I was shocked when I read that. I don't consider myself a quitter. I was mulling over that contradiction and wondering what to do about when I got an idea - finish the series. Start now. Write "The Philosophy of Travis McGee #5" and go from there. My next thought was start with a philosophic quote from the 5th book, A Deadly Shade of Gold. So I reloaded the book on my Kindle and began rereading book number 5 and quickly came to my first highlight, on page 8:
"A McGee never gives up."
If I still needed a sign (and I didn't) there it was. So here we go again.
Bert Carson
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #1
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #1
Travis McGee is a character who was created by John D. MacDonald. Travis appeared in twenty-one novels, copyrighted from 1964 - 1986. Recently John D's work has been converted into eBooks and is available in that format at all popular eBook sales outlets. Most are also available in audio book format, and they are all still in print in paperback.
Caleb Pirtle, with a casual comment, introduced me to the works of John D. and within hours of making the recommendation, I was up to my neck in in The Deep Blue Good-By, the first in the Travis McGee series. Today I'm half way through number five, A Deadly Shade of Gold.
I'm reading the books on my Kindle, and when I'm driving, I listen to the the Audible version. On the the Kindle, a passage which has been highlighted is noted and annotated with the number of people who have highlighted it. Early in the first book, I realized that I'd never seen so many highlighted passages in a novel, any novel. And the passages that are highlighted are, generally, serious observations made by Travis McGee, who tells the stories in the first-person voice.
Caleb Pirtle, with a casual comment, introduced me to the works of John D. and within hours of making the recommendation, I was up to my neck in in The Deep Blue Good-By, the first in the Travis McGee series. Today I'm half way through number five, A Deadly Shade of Gold.
I'm reading the books on my Kindle, and when I'm driving, I listen to the the Audible version. On the the Kindle, a passage which has been highlighted is noted and annotated with the number of people who have highlighted it. Early in the first book, I realized that I'd never seen so many highlighted passages in a novel, any novel. And the passages that are highlighted are, generally, serious observations made by Travis McGee, who tells the stories in the first-person voice.
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| John D. MacDonald |
After noting a number of such passages, a thought budded and grew in my mind - write a series of blogs centered on what I consider to be the
most powerful of McGee's observations. I don't mean trite McGee observations that MacDonald added for color, like, "Don't sit on the front row at the ballet."
I'm talking about comments of substance. Things that you can put in the back of your mind and roll in, inhale, breathe deeply of, and more than likely find that you agree with totally. Things like:
"I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it," which, here at the beginning of another Christmas season, jumped off the page like it was lit in flashing neon.
So why bother with a series of blogs about the wisdom of a "pulp fiction" writer? Because, good writers, the best ones, put everything they have into their books. No matter the genre, or length of story, or even the relevance of the topic, the essence of the storyteller is there, and in the case of John D. MacDonald, speaking as Travis McGee, and I find it worth considering, pondering, expanding, and understanding.
So, that was number one in what will be at least a 21 blog series. What do you think?
most powerful of McGee's observations. I don't mean trite McGee observations that MacDonald added for color, like, "Don't sit on the front row at the ballet."
I'm talking about comments of substance. Things that you can put in the back of your mind and roll in, inhale, breathe deeply of, and more than likely find that you agree with totally. Things like:
"I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it," which, here at the beginning of another Christmas season, jumped off the page like it was lit in flashing neon.
So why bother with a series of blogs about the wisdom of a "pulp fiction" writer? Because, good writers, the best ones, put everything they have into their books. No matter the genre, or length of story, or even the relevance of the topic, the essence of the storyteller is there, and in the case of John D. MacDonald, speaking as Travis McGee, and I find it worth considering, pondering, expanding, and understanding.
So, that was number one in what will be at least a 21 blog series. What do you think?
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #2
And then along comes McGee. Travis McGee, the creation, or extension or John D. MacDonald, sometimes its hard to tell which, who doesn't come close to fitting the mold. He's not a detective, or even a private detective. Travis is a salvage specialist. That works this way (from Deep Blue Good Bye):
"Trav, honey?"
"Mmm?"
"Were you kidding me that time we talked about... about what you do for a living?"
"What did I say?"
"It sounded sort of strange, but I guess I believed you. You said if X has something valuable and Y comes along and takes it away from him, and there is absolutely no way in the world X can ever get it back, then you come along and make a deal with X to get it back, and keep half. Then you just... live on that until it starts to run out. Is that the way it is, really?"
"It's a simplification, Chook, but reasonably accurate."
Travis McGee is not a detective or private detective. But what he isn't is not the major difference between McGee and the rest of the pack. It is what he is that makes the difference. He is a man willing to examine his life, his motives, his fears, yep, fears. Not something serial heroes are known for.
And then there's the point of this post. Casual sex. McGee is not interested in it, turns it down, and in each of the six books I've read so far, he explains why - in this excerpt from Bright Orange For The Shroud, Travis tells how he feels about sex and why -
"I was awake for a little while in the first gray of the false dawn, and heard the lovers. It was a sound so faint it was not actually a sound, more a rhythm sensed. It is a bed rhythm, strangely akin to a heartbeat, though softer. Whum-fa, whum-fa, whum-fa. As eternal, clinical, inevitable as the slow gallop of the heart itself. And as basic to the race, reaching from percale back to the pallet of dried grasses in the cave corner. A sound clean and true, a nastiness only to all those unfortunates who carry through their narrow days their own little hidden pools of nastiness, ready to spill it upon anything so real it frightens them.
Heard even in its most shoddy context, as through the papery walls of a convention motel, this life-beat could be diminished not to evil but to a kind of pathos, because then it was an attempt at affirmation between strangers, a way to try to stop all the clocks, a way to try to say: I live.
The billions upon billions of lives which have come and gone, and that small fraction now walking the world, came of this life-pulse, and to deny it dignity would be to diminish the blood and need and purpose of the race, make us all bawdy clowns, thrusting and bumping away in a ludicrous heat, shared by our own instinct."
McGee's philosophy is true, honest, and pertinent. MacDonald's writing is the best I've ever read. That's why I've fallen for Travis McGee, and his creator, John D. MacDonald, and if it's alright with you, I'll continue to share McGee's philosophy from time to time.
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #3
John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee has an opinion on everything, and since they pretty much mesh perfectly with mine, I've decided to share them occasionally. The sharing will be in no particular order or regard for subject matter.
Being a Virgo, I'd normally put them at least in book order, however, thanks to Amazon/Audible and whispersync for voice, I won't be doing that. You see, I often listen to the Travis McGee stories while driving. If a tidbit of wisdom comes though my headset while my body is moving down a highway at 70+ miles per hour, the chance of me highlighting the gem are pretty slim. However, I can, and will, pull my trusty pocket notebook out, prop it on the steering wheel, and make a cryptic note like - Orange Chpt 8 - which means (to me) Bright Orange for the Shroud, Chapter 8, has a noteworthy McGee bit of wisdom. Then when I'm I'm sitting still (not in the car), I'll open my notebook, find the note, open the referenced book, and find (in this particular case) near the end of Chapter 8:
"People take you at the value you put on yourself. That makes it easy for them. All you do is blend in. Accept the customs of every new tribe. And you try not to say too much because then you sound as if you were selling something. And you might contradict yourself. Sweetie, everybody in this wide world is so constantly, continuously concerned with the impact he's making, he just doesn't have the time to wonder too much about the next guy."
That's McGee, explaining to a friend how he could easily insinuate himself into a group of strangers at a country club. It's also McGee explaining to his millions of readers that the value you place on yourself is the value the world places on you. That is wisdom, and it isn't the wisdom you expect from a serial pulp hero. I think of it as the Travis McGee Wisdom Bonus. I find them delightful, and I love to share the delight I find in life.
I hope you find them delightful also.
For today's Travis McGee bit of philosophy, I've decided to return to The Deep Blue - Good-by, book one in the Travis McGee series.
When I went to Amazon.com to com to get the link to the book I noticed, as I do every time I go for one of the McGee books on Amazon, following the title of the book is this statement: John D. MacDonald Author - Lee Child Introduction.
I'm really tickled that the publisher decided to re-release the books, and in most cases, add the whispersync for voice option, but, to have Lee Child introduce them is akin to having Jimmy Swaggart introduceJesus of Nazareth. Come on Random House, give us a break.
For the stand alone John D. MacDonald novels, Random House employed Dean Koontz for the introduction. Of the two, Koontz or Childs, my preference is Koontz, however, the previous analogy applies equally to Koontz or Childs when they are used to introduce a MacDonald book.
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #4
A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel. And the cute little things they say, and their dainty little squeals of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.
That isn't what you'd expect from a pulp novelist, so we must either redefine pulp novelist or own the obvious, John D. MacDonald wasn't one of them.
And, here is a bonus, from David Geherin's out of print biography, John D. MacDonald -
During those for first four months of effort, I wrote about 800,000 words of unsalabe manuscript, all in short-story form. That is the classic example of learning by doing. Had I done a novel a year. It would have taken me ten years to acquire the precision and facility I acquired in four months. I could guess that I spent eighty hours a week at the typewriter. I kept twenty-five to thirty stories in the mail at all times, sending each of them out to an average of ten potential markets before retiring them.
I thought you got up in the morning and went to work and worked till lunch and then went back to work until the day was over - with good business habits, as in any other job.
It wasn't until my habit patterns were firmly embedded that I discovered that writers tend to work a couple of hours and then to brood about it the rest of the day... The thing to do is to do it.
MacDonald's work habits weren't the only thing that goes against what we've come to expect from writers. I'll be sharing more of those unconventional traits in this Wisdom of Travis McGee Series. I trust you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy finding and sharing them.
When I went to Amazon.com to com to get the link to the book I noticed, as I do every time I go for one of the McGee books on Amazon, following the title of the book is this statement: John D. MacDonald Author - Lee Child Introduction.
I'm really tickled that the publisher decided to re-release the books, and in most cases, add the whispersync for voice option, but, to have Lee Child introduce them is akin to having Jimmy Swaggart introduceJesus of Nazareth. Come on Random House, give us a break.
For the stand alone John D. MacDonald novels, Random House employed Dean Koontz for the introduction. Of the two, Koontz or Childs, my preference is Koontz, however, the previous analogy applies equally to Koontz or Childs when they are used to introduce a MacDonald book.
The Philosophy of Travis McGee #4
For today's Travis McGee bit of philosophy, I've decided to return to The Deep Blue - Good-by, book one in the Travis McGee series.
When I went to Amazon.com to com to get the link to the book I noticed, as I do every time I go for one of the McGee books on Amazon, following the title of the book is this statement: John D. MacDonald Author - Lee Child Introduction.
I'm really tickled that the publisher decided to re-release the books, and in most cases, add the whispersync for voice option, but, to have Lee Child introduce them is akin to having Jimmy Swaggart introduceJesus of Nazareth. Come on Random House, give us a break.
For the stand alone John D. MacDonald novels, Random House employed Dean Koontz for the introduction. Of the two, Koontz or Childs, my preference is Koontz, however, the previous analogy applies equally to Koontz or Childs when they are used to introduce a MacDonald book.
Now for the wisdom of McGee -
A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel. And the cute little things they say, and their dainty little squeals of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.
That isn't what you'd expect from a pulp novelist, so we must either redefine pulp novelist or own the obvious, John D. MacDonald wasn't one of them.
When I went to Amazon.com to com to get the link to the book I noticed, as I do every time I go for one of the McGee books on Amazon, following the title of the book is this statement: John D. MacDonald Author - Lee Child Introduction.
I'm really tickled that the publisher decided to re-release the books, and in most cases, add the whispersync for voice option, but, to have Lee Child introduce them is akin to having Jimmy Swaggart introduceJesus of Nazareth. Come on Random House, give us a break.
For the stand alone John D. MacDonald novels, Random House employed Dean Koontz for the introduction. Of the two, Koontz or Childs, my preference is Koontz, however, the previous analogy applies equally to Koontz or Childs when they are used to introduce a MacDonald book.
Now for the wisdom of McGee -
A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel. And the cute little things they say, and their dainty little squeals of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.
That isn't what you'd expect from a pulp novelist, so we must either redefine pulp novelist or own the obvious, John D. MacDonald wasn't one of them.
A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel. And the cute little things they say, and their dainty little squeals of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.
That isn't what you'd expect from a pulp novelist, so we must either redefine pulp novelist or own the obvious, John D. MacDonald wasn't one of them.
And, here is a bonus, from David Geherin's out of print biography, John D. MacDonald -
John D. McDonald on writing:
During those for first four months of effort, I wrote about 800,000 words of unsalabe manuscript, all in short-story form. That is the classic example of learning by doing. Had I done a novel a year. It would have taken me ten years to acquire the precision and facility I acquired in four months. I could guess that I spent eighty hours a week at the typewriter. I kept twenty-five to thirty stories in the mail at all times, sending each of them out to an average of ten potential markets before retiring them.
I thought you got up in the morning and went to work and worked till lunch and then went back to work until the day was over - with good business habits, as in any other job.
It wasn't until my habit patterns were firmly embedded that I discovered that writers tend to work a couple of hours and then to brood about it the rest of the day... The thing to do is to do it.
MacDonald's work habits weren't the only thing that goes against what we've come to expect from writers. I'll be sharing more of those unconventional traits in this Wisdom of Travis McGee Series. I trust you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy finding and sharing them.
