Word: gardners
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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ERIE STANLEY GARDNER...
They used to laugh at his early efforts in the Black Mask offices. One story, The Shrieking Skeleton, was marked up as the lead piece for an issue, just to give the editor a good scare. The art of suspense did not come easily to Erie Stanley Gardner. He never did learn much about writing character, not to speak of description. But he became a master plotter and one of the most prolific and successful authors who ever lived; 82 Perry Mason novels, which have sold over 300 million copies, are only part of his output (over the years...
...Gardner's organization is baffling, at least his style is endearing. The sense of mythic wonder that fills his books Grendel and Jason and Medea is present here in the form of vignettes and metaphors; and even when he rattles on about the good and the true, Gardner never pontificates, never becomes self-righteous. Even when what he says sounds like it would suit a preacher among the unbaptized, his manner remains that of the elderly raconteur, sitting by the fire with a mug of ale and a pipe...
...Indeed, Gardner is at his best when he's telling a story. At one point in On Moral Fictionhe leaves the aesthetic debate for a moment and begins a simple fable, to illustrate a point. The effect startles; we suddenly realize what Gardner could be doing all this time--telling stories, like Grendel...
...Moral Fiction is worth reading, if only to learn what one of the finest contemporary novelists has to say about his colleagues. One can take from it these insights, a few anecdotes, and perhaps a sense of Gardner himself. But, as Gardner repeats, only art--not criticism--can embody the eternal verities, those elusive ideas of "Beauty, Truth and Goodness." On Moral Fictionfails because Gardner valiantly tries to write non-fiction about abstract concepts. But, he himself agrees, fiction alone can do justice to them...