The Moving Target

I have been on a Ross Macdonald binge. Perhaps if I had more capacity as a literary critic I would know why I am reading so much of him and why I find his novels so affecting. It's certainly not the plots, which seem almost incidental to the depiction of character, just a loose structure to covey to the reader the inevitable unravelling of everyone's universally unhappy fate. All the characters are on the long or the quick slide into emotional trauma and chaos, bitter, resigned aloneness or death. After just one Archer novel the reader cannot harbor any illusions about happy endings, not for the novel, Archer or whichever sad person surives to struggle through another day. So what is it all about? Depicting reality. Samuel Johnson said something to the effect of "nothing last long or holds true other than the just representation of human nature." Macdonald lasts I believe because he paints the dark American reality of searching, questing, dreaming for that elusive score. He seems to suggest that until we can realize that the "score" itself is not worth a hill of beans there is little hope. But his novels are also full of a great many scam artists who pretend that they have learned that but really haven't a clue. Most of them are quasi-religious con men or women. So perhaps Macdonald wants us to realize that neither he nor Archer know what to substitute for that lust for the "score." So they just bumble along trying to do less harm than good, just as alone at the end as at the beginning but with a little more circulation on them and a little less faith that there is a way out other than arriving at the finish line with as few illusions as possible.

I enjoy ross MacDonald because the plots are sufficiently complicated, but nonetheless logical. Throughout, the story and background are credible. They are all I look for in an interesting entertainment.

When listing the greats of Noir detective fiction, Macdonald seems all too often to be left off the list. The Moving Target, with its introduction of the wonderful Lew Archer character, is a good place to begin with his writing and one of the best in the series. The Moving Target explores a wide variety of relationships that turn poisonous-- husband and wife, brother and sister, lovers both requited and unrequited, employer and servant, and lawyers and the law. Originally said to have been titled "The Snatch" (vetoed for obvious reasons), it tells the story of the kidnapping of an eccentric oil millionaire named Ralph Sampson. Lew Archer is hired to help get him back, but he quickly begins to wonder if anyone wants Sampson to return. While all the characters are interesting, the addicted jazz pianist Betty Fraley is particularly complex and well-drawn. A very good read.

The literary private detective novel reached its zenith with the creation of Lew Archer, the last legitimate heir to the Chandler/Marlowe tradition. This first novel in the series is still close enough to the 1940s roots of the genre to evoke the peak period of noir fiction, and introduces some of the best writing ever to grace a mystery story. Later novels in this series, which extended into the 1970s, variably fell victim to then-trendy ideas about psychiatry that mar their realism and temper the otherwise shrewd and sympathetic voice of Lew Archer. The early books still display all the virtuosity of good writing with tight plots and a believable narrator. Kenneth Millar, who wrote under the pseudonym Ross MacDonald, has produced some of the best similes in English, and they pop up like gems in the early books. In "The Moving Target", film fans will recognize the plot from "Harper", which cast Paul Newman in the starring role. (He insisted on changing the hero's name for the movie, apparently because he doesn't like to play characters whose names start with "A"). But the narrative voice is what makes these novels something special, and that just doesn't translate to the screen. This is a great novel masquerading as a mystery.

The Moving Target, originally published in 1949, is Ross MacDonald's first Lew Archer novel. While Archer's character has yet to fully blossom, most of MacDonald's typical story devices are represented; an interconnected trail of escalating violence, innocent youth, duel identities and a twist ending that makes you rethink the entire novel.Who kidnapped wealthy alcoholic Ralph Samson? Was it the cult leader Samson mysteriously gifted his mountain reteat to? His bitter cripppled wife? Or perhaps his youthful pilot or aging lawyer trapped in a love triangle with Sampson's daughter. It's up to Archer to find out, and take a few beatings on the way.