I've been having trouble writing this column. I wanted to be able to answer the question above with "No."
I want to enjoy the books I read. I make an awful lot of allowances for the times in which a book is written, sometimes finding it fascinating based on the time in which it was written. Even if I don't agree with the mores reflected, I like to read them based on what they tell us about the culture of the time and place in which the book was set.
I once read a book by Leslie Charteris (The Saint series) written in the early 1930s which referred to the madman running Germany. I once found an economics text from the 1920s, pre-dating Keynes. There are all kinds of neat treasures in historical books, even if aspects of how they are written seem offensive to contemporary mores and sensibilities. It's also fascinating to see what would have been considered progressive at the time, and to try to understand what the author was trying to achieve in that regard as well.
Which is to say, I consider myself to have a reasonably high tolerance for the odd bit of casual discrimination or stereotyping. Not that I think it should be left unexamined, or that authors should always be given a pass based on the era in which they are writing, but it's not usually sufficient reason for me to want to abandon an author or discard some of the lessons available with the offending statement.
The Shell Scott novels by Richard S. Prather I tend to find fun. I don't give a lot of weight to the political opinions expressed therein, because most of the books are so far over the top it's hard to tell which is intended as a real opinion and which is satiric commentary. One of the Shell Scott novels featured an election between two candidates, one of whom supported adding fluoride to water and the other who did not. It gave the narrator (Shell) an opportunity to rail against government intervention and the nanny state in a libertarian diatribe. Read in these times, it's so difficult to understand the objection to fluorinated water, that it's interesting as a historical piece to think there were once strongly diverging views. Whether Shell's views reflected those of the author is more difficult to tell. When he rails against communists, is that the ex-marine character speaking, or a reflection on the late 50's era in which it was written, expressing a genuine concern in the populace? One reason I find Prather interesting is that the political commentary of his books seems on the far right side of the spectrum... but Shell isn't held up as anyone's example of an informed or intelligent political commentator.
Similarly, the Shell Scott novels tend to be cavalierly chauvinistic. Shell Scott characterizes every woman he meets based on her physical attractiveness, and often gets proven correct if he distrusts a woman because she's not as attractive. He solves the case and saves the day, always without help from women, and usually coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress who then falls into his arms and into his bed, to be forgotten by the next novel. He is an avid reader and supporter of Playboy magazine, and considers that he supports feminism by advocating that women free themselves of their girdles. As indicated, it's over the top, written in what seems to be tongue in cheek, an elevation of the escapist fantasy of private detective novels taken to such an extreme that a reader can't help but recognize the implicit silliness of the fantasy.
From time to time, I've read Shell Scott novels that had a line or two that rubbed me the wrong way. In one (Joker in the Deck) a character refers to a certain group of people as "pigs" (women in a women only bar). The character is not otherwise depicted in a favourable light, so I couldn't say it necessarily reflected the author's views or those of the main character. In one short story, Shell solves the mystery of a serial killer by intuiting that the murderous appetites of a male serial killer would be the same as those of a homosexual female serial killer. It's not well written, it's offensive in a number of ways, but it's a short story, and perhaps Prather was trying something different that didn't quite work.
In one of the last of the Shell Scott novels (I think it was Shellshock, but haven't read it in a while, so hesitate to confirm), Shell hops into bed with a woman, in a manner where it is not at all clear that he has her consent, and in the context of the book she calls him on it, and makes him recognize the wrongful element of what he was doing... but in my recollection, Shell says sorry, they carry on and still end up in bed together at the end. My discomfort with that was the suggestion that this line was included because times had changed (Shellshock being written some 15 years after the previous Shell Scott novel), and the implicit commentary is that what would have been acceptable 20 years ago isn't now. I didn't like that at all. I think the more appropriate view would be that it was never acceptable, but the fantasy element of the private detective (ex-marine, black belt, one man office, drives a corvette) who hands women a line and they line up to fall into bed with him would have been better highlighted as a fantasy, in his own head or otherwise, without suggesting that he's cavalier about getting the consent of women. If that were the element of satire, well, I'm not sure there's a way to handle it with humour or taste in a way that gets the correct message across, but if there is, I don't think Mr. Prather possessed the capability to do so.
In any event, I recently read Dead Heat (1963), and was upset, disappointed and angry with the sentence that ruined the novel for me, and makes me question my previous enjoyment of Shell Scott. It's another Shell Scott novel, and I think it is written to be light and fun. I had picked it up because I recalled other Richard S. Prather novels took a similar view of con men to that which I saw in Take Down and I wanted to comment further on the issue.
Read While Walking: Take Down: Spoilers for the Ending
In short, yes there is a con man, and yes, the view of con men is treated in a similar fashion to my conclusion, but in the end I couldn't analyze that aspect, because I couldn't let go of the one sentence. I tried to find fun at the end, since arguably the whole book is written for the sake of a pun. One character calls herself Nell Duden, and adopts the nickname "Doody". I'm tempted to say the one sentence that ruined the novel is the last, after Doody orders Shell to volunteer again. "A word to the wise is efficient: I saw my Doody, and I did it."
It's a pun, it's kind of offensive in tone, and it seems like a large part of the novel is part of a set up for a fairly weak pun, but by the time I got to the end, I wasn't even in the mood to give a good groan.
I think I may be off the Shell Scott novels as a result of the one sentence, because I can't away rationalize it away by any means. I can't begin to rationalize it based on the era (the book was written in 1963), since I think the statement would sound wrong no matter what era the novel was written or set in. Whether it's classified as in-character observation versus authorial commentary it doesn't work, as satire or anything else. If accepted as in-character observation, it sets up all of Shell's adventures with women in an extremely uncomfortable light. If it's authorial commentary, that's probably even worse.
The line bothered me, and yes, it ruined the book for me. I need to acknowledge that one sentence also probably ruined (or seriously damaged) the author and character for me as well. For those interested in the sentence, I'll include the paragraph for context:
"Well, sex. It's a funny thing: here in the U.S. of A. s-e-x is like the purloined letter in reverse -- we know it's right there in plain sight, but pretend not to see it. Everywhere you look: boing -- something sexy. Movies, books, magazines, Madison Avenue, billboards, television commercials -- wow, television. In two hours of twisting the dial you can see more nude and seminude tomatoes, and even potatoes, showering, tubbing, rubbing, shampooing, wiggling, smelling, smoking, puckering, and doing practically every ring-a-ding- 'ing' you can think of, and for what purpose? What else? To get raped, of course. That is the only possible conclusion a balanced mind could draw from all this feverish preparation."
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