C is for Continuous Catastrophes: Cussler

What I read: Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler.

If you are a fan, the below review is mostly negative but ends nicely. By all reckonings, Cussler was a generous and lovely man.

I got through two chapters and gave up.

To be fair, Clive Cussler writes a type of story that doesn't interest me (it doesn't offend me--it simply doesn't interest me). An Alpha male runs around saving people and bedding women. In the meantime, he solves international/political/military problems. The books are story-oriented rather than character or plot-oriented. So instead of the narrative being the result of characters' internal or external choices OR the result of a model arc, such as a mystery or romance, the narrative is a series of events: this happens, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens.

I never have been able to read The Da Vinci Code, not because it offends me (although I think silly history is, well, silly history) but because it is this type of novel. In general, the opening action sequence for this type of novel fails to  hook me. I don't care about the characters; I don't care if the world is ending; I don't care if there's a conspiracy going on somewhere. (I can usually watch this type of movie, by the way; I just can't read the books.)

I'm also not a fan of Cussler's writing style--see below. 

2023: I determined to try Cussler again and got about three pages into Trojan Odyssey--after I skipped the Trojan War stuff, which was amazingly tedious (says this fan of ancient history), and started Chapter 1.

I then went looking for a non-Dirk Pitt series. I discovered that Cussler wrote a great many books with a great many people. 

Here is where things got interesting. My main problem with Cussler's writing is not just how "tell"-oriented it is but how humorless it is. I don't mean that characters don't tease and make jokes. I mean, the people are so...joyless and bland. 

His co-writers, however, are able to create basic characterizations and effuse them with interest and a twinkle in the eye. 

Here's a comparison. First, Cussler:

Summer Pitt...ignored [the shark], concentrating on her study of the Coral Reefs inside Navidad Bank seventy miles northeast of the Dominican Republic...Summer loved the sea...She often imagined herself as a mermaid...Summer knew the [eels] looked frightening only because that was their method of breathing...Summer roamed over the old wreck, carried by mild current, looking down and trying to picture the people who had once trod her decks. She sensed a spiritual sensation. It was as if she was flying over a haunted graveyard whose inhabitants were speaking to her from the past...Curious and with an ample supply of air in reserve, she swam over to the entrance of the cavern and peered into the gloom..Through the mask, Summer's gray eyes mirrored skeptical interest. --Trojan Odyssey: A Dirk Pitt Novel

Setting aside a few modifier issues, I come away with no clear idea of Summer's personality. Although the above passage covers 10 pages, I learned little more about Summer than that she is very pretty, even if the "baggy dry suit" hides her features. 

I don't require biographical information or deep thoughts from a text. Just some sense of the character's overall attitudes, voice, or perspective. Summer is a hard worker--I think. At one point, she stops "concentrating" and looks about "casually." But let us allow that she works hard. Is she the Temperance Brennan type of hard worker? Or the Patrick Jane type? She loves the sea, and the text implies that she is imaginative but other bits of the text imply that she takes an only-the-facts-please approach. 

Summer comes across, frankly, as a young woman written by a man who likes to write about adventurous men but is trying to broaden his character list, so he created his usual adventurer and gave that adventurer "girlish" characteristics.

Here is a passage from one of Cussler's co-writers:

Sam Fargo...glanced over at his wife, who stood up to her waist in oozing back mud. Her bright yellow chest waders complemented her lustrous auburn hair. She sensed his gaze, turned to him, pursed his lips, and blew a wisp of hair from her cheek. "And what are you smiling at, Fargo?" she said. 

When she'd first donned the waders, he'd made the mistake of suggesting she looked like the Gorton's Fisherman, which had earned him a withering stare. He'd hastily added "sexy" to the description, but to little effect. --Spartan Gold by Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood

Within one page, I know that Remi, the wife, is, yes yes, lovely, but also a straight-shooter who has a decent relationship with her husband. And Fargo is a relatively relaxed guy who sometimes puts his foot in his mouth. 

The difference in style is noticeable, even if the co-writer keeps within the genre and outline established by Cussler.

Clive Cussler, who died in 2020, wrote over 30 books. And at least two were made into movies. Nothing I write here will hurt his sales. I say, "Congrats, man!"

In any case, Cussler proves one of my fundamental beliefs: there may be better and best ways of writing. In the end, writers and readers gravitate to what they prefer. Not all adventure writers are the same. Not all adventure readers are the same. Not all adventure books have to be the same.

That's a lot of room on those shelves!