Not So Deep Dutch?

On yesterday's episode of "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind," Sarah Weinman posted The Gender Divide, Part I: Why I Don't Like Elmore Leonard. She writes:

...In theory, I should be a fan of [Leonard's]—his books are dialogue-heavy, which I like; his stories move fast, another thing I really like, and his characters are full of interesting quirks and are often unapologetic about their moral ambiguity—again, something I dig. So why don’t I respond to Dutch’s books? It could be that I’ve tried the wrong ones (I’ve read RUM PUNCH, some of FREAKY DEAKY and less of MAXIMUM BOB along with a few of the stories in WHEN THE WOMEN CAME OUT TO DANCE) but the answer came to me as I watched an episode of the late, lamented “Karen Sisco,” (which is, of course, based on several of Leonard’s novels, including OUT OF SIGHT). As played by Carla Gugino, Sisco comes across as reasonably sympathetic, a gun-slinging Federal Marshal who loves her daddy and still acts like a woman, not a guy in a skirt. She has flaws, and Gugino injected her with a good mixture of humor and cynicism that, at least, worked for me. But as written by Leonard, the subtlety of Sisco is lacking, and I know less about her than when I started. Somehow, she—and many of Leonard’s characters—come across as less human. That somehow, Leonard is so into giving his characters cool things to say and weird tics that he forgets that the parts have to add up to an appreciable sum. That the reader has to be engaged in some form or another.

I'm not curious enough to analyze male/female reading tastes, but I did comment:

I've only read a few Leonards and am ambivalent about them. Most of the time I like Leonard's command of the language, but his theories on story (Don't use adjectives, don't describe the weather, etc.) don't always work on the page. A main concern for him is the sound of his writing, but at times the characters sound like one author talking to himself.

This problem is more noticeable with Robert B. Parker, who either doesn't have the skill or the inclination to mask his authorial presence better. Parker claims not to read much fiction "except Dutch Leonard," and his worst books show the same predictable patterns of banter and theme that I see when Leonard coasts.

For example, I completely believed GET SHORTY, but Leonard's more recent PAGAN BABIES--though set in the turmoil of Rwanda--was more or less the same story of a hard guy trying to pass as not hard.

Leonard and Parker will tell you stories--regardless of period, setting, and other nuances--are about larger themes: people interacting, love, death, redemption...I suspect they go to this spiel when they actually coasted through writing a book and can't talk more specifically about the story therein.

Freshness, or at least the appearance of freshness, is a big draw for me. Leonard is great at his pet themes and Parker is great at his, but I don't know...When I pick up a new book, I want to read something new. If one author covers the same ground too often, I move on to a new author.

Like Sarah, I'm a fan of sharp dialogue and stories that move well. While I can only stand Hemingwayesque minimalism for so long, the same goes for introspection. Too much of the former sounds impossibly slick; too much of the latter leaves a character with no blanks (to be filled as readers see fit).