tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post6561141176206444365..comments2024-03-28T10:31:55.774-07:00Comments on The Passing Tramp: Death Aplenty: Service of All the Dead (1979), by Colin DexterThe Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-69040860905542674422016-09-18T09:26:12.085-07:002016-09-18T09:26:12.085-07:00I think generally the adaptations did make improve...I think generally the adaptations did make improvements when they needed it, especially with Morse himself. Maybe some people simply see the plot as ingenious, but I was just so unconvinced by motivations. You really have to swallow a lot, it seems to me.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-4955099933815990652016-09-16T06:01:40.878-07:002016-09-16T06:01:40.878-07:00Did you prefer the TV adaptation by Julian Mitchel...Did you prefer the TV adaptation by Julian Mitchell? I like it a lot myself (and remember it better than the novel I now realise). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-70410082247647195522016-09-12T01:01:58.158-07:002016-09-12T01:01:58.158-07:00I have to admit there it seemed simply a reflectio...I have to admit there it seemed simply a reflection of the character. I didn't really feel the writing about gays was reflecting negative attitudes on the part of Dexter. The view that young women naturally gravitate sexually to middle-aged men does seem to pop up in the books with some frequency, and generally I have found Dexter more convincing when he writes about men rather than women. A lot of his writing about women seems to me masculine wish fulfillment like what we see in a great number of vintage hard-boiled mysteries. It does make it seem to me that Dexter is writing more for a male audience than a female one (also with all the loving depictions of attractive women's breasts). Maybe we will get some more opinions.<br /><br />But if you overlook those quirks Dexter can write a really smoothly told story, though sometimes his plots can really stretch credibility, more so than a lot of true Golden Age mysteries, despite the slagging they got from people like Chandler.<br /><br />The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-88176790134140553942016-09-11T09:58:25.240-07:002016-09-11T09:58:25.240-07:00This is the one Dexter novel I'd attempted to ...This is the one Dexter novel I'd attempted to read; he certainly writes well, but I was turned off by the portrayal of women and by an early scene where a father of a preteen son uses the term "homosexual" to mean "pedophile." I suppose that is of "the times", but Ruth Rendell and Reg Hill were writing gay characters sympathetically in the 70s, and even the more conservative PD James wasn't equating them with child molesters. In retrospect, I wonder now whether Dexter had intended for that prejudice to be only the father character's, and maybe I'd been overhasty in abandoning it. Kacperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15219607289740142139noreply@blogger.com