anyone out there like magic? well, i do. and i'm gonna do a magic trick for your pleasure. watch how i turn david's examples of why stark is a bad writer (from his review of the score) into proof that stark is, in fact, a very good writer. here's davey-boy: Richard Stark—at least in The Score—is not really what I would call a very good writer. And Richard Stark's editor is not what I would call a very good editor. Witness this passage:"The prowl car was a Ford, two years old, painted light green and white, with Police written in large letters on the doors and hood and trunk. The dashboard lights were green, and there was a small red dot of light, like a ruby, on the radio."I don't know about you, but I am kind of disappointed that Stark didn't tell us whether the upholstery was contrast stitched or whether the heater vents were set to floor or bi-level. (Before you start second-guessing, none of the details Stark reports RE: the police car is relevant to anything in the book. For instance, the small red dot of light does not later blind a would-be assassin—or some other comparable hijinks. These used car ads are just written up by Stark, inserted into the text, and never referred to again.)it's not uncommon for the third-person authorial voice to mirror the tone or world-view of its protagonist: consider philip roth's furious and erudite diatribes or coetzee's spare, sterile prose. such is stark: his lead character is a sociopath, a man only out for himself, a man with no patience for anything not directly related to 'the job', a man who cares more about any minute detail related to said job than anything 'normal' people would consider of significantly greater import. one is immediately struck, when reading stark, at how lightly he treats murder. a character we've followed for 200 pgs is shot and it'll read something like this: "Two shots were fired at Smith. It was the last thing he ever saw." stark never describes death/murder in more than a single banal sentence, never any blood and guts, never any falling or flailing about the room, never any existential quandaries... nothing. zilch. yet, he does describe police cars and motel rooms and certain articles of clothing, as david illustrates, in excessive detail. why? because, as davey-boy would have us believe, he's a bad writer? because he has a bad editor? nope. the answer is simple: because only things which are directly related to the job matter to parker... and, by extension, to the narrator. offing a cop or a double-crosser is the dramatic and moral equivalent of choosing the right sack to stuff money in or picking out the right getaway car: and just as once that car's function has been fulfilled it is forgotten, once a man walks away and/or dies it's as if he's never existed. the police car, through the eyes of a criminal sociopath about to do a job, is a key object in his moral universe: certainly more than the passage from life to death of a being with less significance than a housefly. and it's an effective strategy: adopting the protagonist's sociopathic temperament & obsessive-compulsive habits into a minimalist, OCD, sociopathic authorial voice and prose style creates an unsettling tension tantamount to linking audience POV with a 'bad guy' in a movie. in psycho hitchcock delighted in killing off marian crane (janet leigh) at the mid-point in that he knew the audience must latch on to the closest thing it had: norman bates. similarly, stark's gotta take a perverse pleasure in forcing us not only to watch stark in action, but to see the world through his eyes... which provides a nice transition to david's other complaint: There is really no psychological depth in this book whatsoever. People merely do things and say things.i agree. and it's an incredibly effective strategy. parker (and by extension, stark) ain't too interested in human psychology in the traditionally literary sense (that is, the picking up and dropping of 'important' clues and hints to signify this trait or that pathology or this action, etc.): both writer and his protagonist are keen observers, but see things solely through the lens of 'how does this affect the job.' check it: Psychology Today: Do you have any formal interest in psychology?Werner Herzog: I loathe psychology as one of the major faults of our civilization nowadays. There’s something not right about this amount of introspection. I can only give you a metaphor: When you move into an apartment, you cannot start to illuminate every last corner with neon light. If there are no dark corners or hidden niches, your house becomes uninhabitable. Human beings who are trying to self-reflect and explore their innermost being to the last corner become uninhabitable people.herzog and stark employ similar tools for a common purpose: rather than attempt to create narrative works to dig deep at what exactly makes people tick, they prefer to show human behavior in extreme conditions and leave it to the reader/viewer to tease out what she may. we dig this.as does stark. the parker series is peppered with characters (much like david) frustrated with parker's seeming lack of depth. from the green eagle score: "Everyone has emotions. We all have them - you, me, everyone. Even this man Parker. Perhaps he has them bottled up more than most people, that's all."She shook her head. "I can't imagine him ever feeling emotions. I can't imagine him crying. Or even laughing." "Seems to me, you've turned this man into some sort of myth figure, something bigger than life." ultimately, stark writes process novels much as bresson creates process films. they work toward different ends, of course, (bresson strives for a kind of spiritual transcendence through process while stark's goals are significantly more earthbound) but they're the same in many respects, foremost being that they both find a kind of powerfully sacred quality to 'process'. and it's like crack for certain readers. when stark writes the following of parker: "The part of him that took pleasure in professionalism, in craft, was already half involved in this project, anxious to find out the rest of the details."he could just as easily be writing about his readers. all of us who've blasted through a good chunk of this series are as obsessed with the craft of thievery as is parker; we find it even more interesting than the money, the tough guys, the dames, the criminal argot, the double-crossings, etc... aight.so there, davey-boy. ball's in your court.
Easily one of the best novels in the series thus far. I've enjoyed the character exploration that has become more frequent as the series goes on, and since one of the central characters is a psychiatrist in 'The Green Eagle Score,' more time is spent on the inner workings of the players. The interplay of the recent novels and the previous novels shows just how well-crafted Westlake's characters are, and I've especially enjoyed getting to know Parker better. Or, more accurately, getting to know more of why he behaves as he does. Sometimes, as his character is revealed, I wonder if the novels wouldn't benefit from different sequencing. But they are crime novels at heart, and it's clear that Westlake wanted to prove Parker's capabilities as a thief from the outset to justify his ongoing involvement in heists as a leader and veteran. From there, deeper access to his character is just further enrichment as a protagonist. This is the only novel thus far where we didn't get the full details of the heist, but only learned of the specifics as they unfolded. I liked that I was trying to analyze the job myself and stack my own plan against Parker's. I especially liked that I didn't get the 'Agatha Christie' twist, where the crucial device can't possibly be known by anyone except the author. In fact, as we get to know Parker and how he operates, the narrator gives us the information Parker only wishes he had: we get to see the complications coming and foresee how the 'perfect' plan will get derailed. This to me is one of the things that hooks me in these novels. Even though Parker plans for everything, and we trust that he is more than capable, not everything can go perfectly, and since the reader is almost complicit in the complications, it makes everything that much more believable.
What do You think about The Green Eagle Score (1967)?
No money is safe when Parker is around. Not even if it belongs to the U.S. military.Parker is lounging at a resort in Puerto Rico with his new gal pal, Claire, when he is approached by another professional thief named Marty Fusco who just got out of prison. Fusco wants to bring Parker in to plan a job stealing the cash payroll from an Air Force base. While Parker initially dismisses the idea of stealing the pay of 5000 armed men, he agrees to go to New York state and check out the set-up. The situation is odd with Fusco working with an inside man who is shacked up with his ex-wife, but the ever resourceful Parker sees an opportunity and starts working up a scheme to make off with the loot. As always, there’s complications waiting to screw up Parker’s well-laid plans.It’s getting hard to come up with anything new to say about these Parker novels. It’s the same basic formula. Parker gets approached to plan a robbery. There are issues with the people involved and/or the set-up. Parker comes up with a plan. Parker recruits people and gathers equipment. Parker executes the robbery. Some twists occurs that screws up Parker’s getaway. Parker has to improvise. Parker may or may not get away with the swag.You’d think that this would get boring and repetitive, especially since Parker is just a relentless stealing machine without conscience or empathy. Even getting a steady girlfriend hasn’t changed him so this is a series where the main character shows absolutely no growth from the first book to the last. Yet Stark’s (a/k/a Westlake’s) writing still sucks a reader in immediately with it’s portrait of the blunt and relentless Parker steamrolling over anyone or anything between him and completing the job. This edition also features an interesting introduction by another great mystery writer, Dennis Lehane, that examines why Parker is so unique and important to crime fiction.
—Kemper
In this Parker novel he joins up with some other crooks to rob an Upstate New York Air Force base of it's payroll cash. I'd never heard of the AFB before, and I don't think there is another one besides Plattsburgh anywhere near the real towns mentioned in the book, so I'm going to believe that the book takes place in the shitty town where I went to college! Near the end of the book Parker drives into downtown Saratoga Springs and ditches a car there in front of a parking meter. I don't think Saratoga Springs ever had parking meters, but who cares. This is two places where I've had to spend years of my life mentioned in one Parker novel!! Isn't that exciting? Yes, I knew you would all think so.
—Greg
The great thing about this series, other than the fantastic main character, is the new angles Westlake works in. Every books something different creeps in that he's never used before. Here, it's that one of the gang's girl is seeing a psychiatrist, telling him everything about the job. Wondering how her selling out Parker without even knowing she's doing it is going to play is a genius device that really works well. The caper goes pear-shaped, as you'd expect, but the fallout is beautifully managed, creating a doomed but riveting second half to the book. Top stuff.
—V.
