Talk:Alistair MacLean
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[edit] Captured and tortured claim
According to the biography of Alistair MacLean published about 1990,MacLean's stories (in his private life) about being captured and tortured by the Japanese were nothing more than the ravings of an alcoholic. The Royal Navy has no record of any of the ships that MacLean served on during World War Two as having been sunk. [00:58, 26 September 2003 203.98.50.21]
- If you can give a precise source (ie, the author and title of the book), it would be worth mentioning that in the article. We could say something along the lines of "he claimed to have been captured and tortured by the Japanese, but so-and-so's biography casts serious doubt on this". --Camembert [01:08, 26 September 2003]
- There's a book called "Alistair MacLean: A Biography of a Master Storyteller" by Jack Webster that apparently is the one you mean. Webster was/is also a Scot. I think it was published by a minor house but it is apparently available through Amazon or used-book outlets. Hayford Peirce 05:07, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I have been helpfully informed of the cite for this (page 191 of the Webster biography) and have amended the article accordingly. Wasted Time R 16:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Female characters in Guns of Navarone
For Hell's sake, there are NO female characters in "Guns of Navarone". Maybe there are some in film. But the author of this note has made a grave error. I don't have the time to correct that article, but somebody should. [Serial K] [17:36, 19 February 2006 80.221.18.26]
Perhaps you should reread the novel and the book I recall females in both although they played minor roles, I will add page references from the novels shortly (KingPodda) [04:03, 17 March 2006 70.250.118.132]
[edit] Literary Criticism
Since this article contains a goodly bit of lit crit, I have added my own observations to some of the descriptions of the novels and literary techniques sections. Black Max 03:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)Black Max
- Unfortunately your additions to the "four periods" text include a number of errors. The first period has only one Communist- or Cold War- themed work, so your lumping them together in those terms is faulty. And MacLean himself acknowledged that The Last Frontier's greater philosophical ambition was poorly received. I don't know what you mean by melodrama here - WP's definition is a "work in which plot and action are emphasised in comparison to the more character-driven emphasis within a drama," which seems to describe all of MacLean's efforts equally. Satan Bug and Fear is the Key are in the second period, not the third. In the last period, there's no consensus that each novel is worse than the preceeding one; Partisans and San Andreas, for example, are both thought to be (minor) improvements over some before them. Finally, this kind of descriptive breakdown only works if written smoothly; incorporating all sorts of exceptions and asides, as you did, renders it incoherent. Wasted Time R 14:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- Also, in this and your other edits, you overstate the importance of Communism in MacLean's work. How many books really have "a high-ranking Communist government official"? Only a few at most. Communism as an ideology is probably only touched on in The Last Frontier and a bit in The Satan Bug. For the most part, to MacLean both Communism and the Cold War were little more than a big, surrounding MacGuffin into which to set his plots. Wasted Time R 14:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Notes - Females as Damsels in Distress
Are all MacLean's female characters merely damsels in distress? I have not read all of his books, but that's certainly not true of the women in the early books. Mary and Heidi in Where Eagles Dare and the daughter in The Secret Ways are interesting, capable, and expert. Others, if not professional, are nonetheless interestingly (if briefly) characterized and even admirable. But the third sentence of the note seems to imply that MacLean only used his female characters as plot devices, and didn't bother to characterize them realistically if at all. At the very least it needs a phrase to indicate if it's describing the later efforts alone.
It is possible that this note arises simply from the overall decline in MacLeans' quality; women's characterization suffered, but so did everyone else's. If that's the case, perhaps the note (or the third sentence) should be removed entirely. Additionally, both it and the note on villains immediately afterward are opinion and not fact. - Nuranar 16:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Plot of Goodbye California copied by 1978 Superman film
The theme of causing a massive quake in California was anticipated in one of MacLean's book.s 16:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)Enda80
[edit] Daviot
Although MacLean grew up in Daviot, it was Daviot in Invernesshire. The Daviot here links to a Daviot in Aberdeenshire, a different village. Creekman (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Caravan Vaccares.JPG
Image:Caravan Vaccares.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 03:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Notes on Books
One of the notes is about the romantic interest in the books and says that "exceptions to the little-romance rule include one novel where the protagonist is rewarded for his labors by winning the love of the beautiful daughter of a millionaire." This is wrong, because:
- in Seawitch the two main characters are involved with Lord Worth's daughters;
- in The Golden Rendezvous Johnny Carter and Miss Beresford;
- in Floodgate Peter van Effen and Annemarie Meijer;
The rest of that point, regarding the past and the death of the protagonists' love interest, is also not true. RISadler (talk) 15:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think this note ought to be removed completely. The "little-romance rule" isn't much of a rule anyway, since I thought of nine exceptions immediately. (Others I can't remember well enough.) If there are no objections, I will remove it shortly, and possibly tweak the "short on romance" statement under "Style of Writing" to be consistent. Nuranar (talk) 15:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
