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Steven Philip Jones - The Clive Cussler Adventures: A Critical Review

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Steven Philip Jones The Clive Cussler Adventures: A Critical Review
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The author of more than 50 books--125 million copies in print--Clive Cussler is the current grandmaster of adventure literature. Dirk Pitt, the sea-loving protagonist of 22 of Cusslers novels, remains among the most popular and influential adventure series heroes of the past half-century. This first critical review of Cusslers work features an overview of Pitt and the supporting characters and other heroes, an examination of Cusslers themes and influences, a review of his most important adventures, such asRaise the Titanic!andIceberg, and a look at adaptations of his work in other media. Cussler joins the pantheon of such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, and this overdue volume demonstrates that beneath Cusslers immense popularity lies a literary depth that well merits scholarly attention.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-1521-9

2014 Steven Philip Jones. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover Titanic illustration iStock/Thinkstock

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

For Clive Cussler

For the inspiration,

With respect and gratitude on

Dirk Pitts fiftieth anniversary

and

For Sarah Jane,

for looking over my shoulder

while I was writing,

I miss you

When you speak of those who comment on popular fiction, speak gently. They are childish in their enthusiasms, these commentators . They search earnestly, stumbling from volume to volume, seeking to understand what is of dubious importance. Accident guides their minds as much as design.Robert Sampson, Yesterdays Faces: Glory Figures, p. 163

Foreword by Mike Grell

Whos your favorite author?

The person being asked that question was my favorite author, Mickey Spillane. His answer sent me straight to the bookstore.

Clive Cussler.

Spillane, a master yarn-spinner who loved intricate plots and carefully crafted mysteries that challenged the reader to follow all the clues, went on to rave about Cusslers masterwork Raise the Titanic! and said that Dirk Pitt was a far more interesting character than James Bond. This from the man who created the ultimate hard-boiled private eye, Mike Hammer, and knew good storytelling. He also said he couldnt figure out how Hollywood had managed to make such a terrible movie out of such a wonderful book as Raise the Titanic! (I have to agree with him there, but its Hollywoods nature to attempt to improve on something unique, running it through the formula grinder until its indistinguishable from anything else thats gone through the process.)

Mind you, the movie came out in 1980 and the book was written in 1976, nine years before the final resting place of the Titanic was discovered. Despite what we now know to be the actual condition of the wreck, which would make it virtually impossible to actually raise it, Cusslers novel stands as a masterpiece of storytelling, rich in character and crafted with an experts hand. Long before James Cameron wrote and directed Titanic (1997), Cussler crafted a riveting tale about the people who sailed aboard the doomed vessel and the modern-day effort to retrieve something locked away in a safe thats at the bottom of the sea. Sound familiar?

I think it was Agatha Christie who said, When you read a book, you get ten percent plot, twenty percent characterization and seventy percent whatever the writer knows best. And Clive Cussler knows his stuff, and lives it. Whether its classic automobiles or underwater adventure, hes been there, done that. Dirk Pitts National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) became reality through Cusslers patronage and has become a major player in underwater research and exploration. In 2000, after more than a decade of searching, NUMA recovered the sunken wreck of the CSS Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in battle. NUMA has since gone on to discover a number of wrecks, long lost in the depths.

Clive Cusslers claim of being an instinctual writer rather than a cerebral one is something I can relate to. Clearly, hes writing like I do for an audience of one: himself. Hes writing the kind of story hed like to read, rich in historical detail and great characters, filled with complex intertwined plotlines and bold action set against the backdrop of exotic international and undersea locations. It just so happens that millions of readers are looking for the same thing.

With over 125 million copies sold, Id say they found it.

Mike Grell, creator of Jon Sable, Freelance, has been one of Americas most popular and influential adventure writers and artists. His credits include drawing the Tarzan newspaper strip, creating the original comic book series The Warlord, and writing and drawing the graphic novels Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters (DC Comics) and James Bond: Permission to Die (Eclipse Comics).

Preface

Negative Evidence of Scholarly Production

Man, they just dont get it.Johnny Cash (Live at San Quentin)

There is a scene in Herman Melvilles Moby-Dick (1851) where the harpooner Queequeg nearly has his hand bitten off by a dead shark hauled onto the Pequod. Queequeg no care what god made him shark wedder Feejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one damn Injin. It was not until September of that year, after reading Nathaniel Hawthornes 1846 short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, followed by several days visiting Hawthorne, that Melville changed Moby-Dick from a whaling adventure to a work of literature.

But what if Melville had not changed Moby-Dick? How would he have written the shark scene with Queequeg?

There is no way to know for sure, but in the words of D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterleys Lover, The Rocking-Horse Winner), Melville was rather a tiresome New Englander of the ethical mystical-transcendentalist sort the solemn ass even in humour, so it seems probable that the scene would have been more journalistic. In any case, in most adventure stories a shark is not an ironic symbol. It is a test or challenge that a hero must circumvent or conquer to reach a reward, in this case finding and cutting whales. If a hero wants those whales then he will have to come and get them, but in adventure stories rewards never come without some kind of trial. Here be dragons, but if the hero conquers the threat of the sharks and reaches the reward then he and the members of his society will be better off for it.

Sometimes only a thin line separates literature from popular or light fiction. Sometimes the difference only comes down to intent and execution. Literature, such as Moby-Dick, is like a Romanesque cathedral, while popular fiction is like a prairie church. A considerable amount of time, skill and coordination is required to build a cathedral, but the result can be an impressive creation infused with influences from artisans, down through the centuries, to impress a certain reaction in visitors. Prairie churches are simpler by purpose and design, but you had better know which end of a hammer to hold if you want to create something that not only functions as a church but can stand up to sun, wind, rain, snow, hail and the occasional twister. In comparison, literature, such as Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Ernest Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea (1952) and Alain-Fourniers Le Grand Meaulnes (1913), stir the senses by provoking pleasant or unpleasant reactions and contemplations through characters, plots and settings hardy enough to bear the burden of representing ideas and ideals, whereas popular fiction delights and amuses,

Neither is superior. Both serve important purposes.

That said, popular fiction tends to be what its name implies, popular, but many critics rarely consider sales success when deciding what to review. These critics moon over the most obscure literature if it shivers with that ecstasy of multi-level interpersonal interactions and awareness shifts from one mode of desperation to the next, of the past 50 years, Dirk Pitt, special projects director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a federal bureau that oversees marine conservation as well as the salvage and preservation of historical maritime vessels.

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