If it was a snake it woulda bit me

[scarfman]

First, go back and reread this entry. You know what, this one too. [Edit Links now corrected so they're not accidentally the same link.] I'll wait.

You back? Hypertext is great, innit? Anyway.

I'm rereading M*A*S*H Mania, most likely because redneckgaijin brought it to mind, and because among our multiple-move-disorganized bookshelves it was near the front. There are two kinds of sequels to M*A*S*H.

Richard Hooker alone (or, I've occasionally read, with a ghost writer) wrote M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H Goes to Maine, and M*A*S*H Mania. These are episodic tales of madcap medical mayhem with quasi-technical surgery scenes. M*A*S*H is set in the Korean War, and was published in the sixties. The other two are set in Hooker's beloved rural Maine as Hawkeye and his three army bunkmates - Trapper John, Duke and Spearchucker - practice surgery together from the 50s through the mid-70s; Maine and Mania were published at either end of the 70s respectively.

Richard Hooker and William E. Butterworth (a pseudonym for W.E.B. Griffin, or vice versa) co-wrote about a half-dozen novels published and set in the mid-to-late-70s. Some readers question whether Hooker was really involved in them but at least one has a quasi-technical surgery scene. They're all titled M*A*S*H Goes To [some exotic location, often overseas], and are all non-episodic farces featuring mistaken identities, intercontinental airliner chases, and contemporary public figures made to look foolish. Hawkeye and Trapper John appear in each of them, and all feature reunions with past personnel or patients of the 4077th: Hot Lips (now Reverend Mother Emeritus Margaret Houlihan Wauchauf Wilson, R.N., Lt. Col., USA Ret., of the God Is Love In All Forms Christian Church, Inc.) and Father Mulcahy (now an archibishop and the Pope's chess and beer buddy) appear in most. Henry Blake, a career officer in the novels, is a general and C.O. of Walter Reed Army Hospital. Radar is CEO of his own fast-food empire. Frank Burns is still a small doctor in a small town. There are also reunions with such not-developed-for-television characters as the Painless Pole, as well as veterans or ex-patients of the 4077th created just for the sequel novels.

So I'm rereading M*A*S*H Mania today, and it comes to me that if my prose shows the influence of an articulate, educated writer from Maine, is it more likely the one I've only been reading for a year and a half or the one I've been reading all my life? Finestkind.

Comments

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

(1) Did you mean for both "read first" links to go to the same place? Just want to make sure it was an intentional "keep idiot busy" joke.

(2) It's worth noting, re: the Butterworth novels, that quite often Hawkeye's and Trapper John's presence in the story at all was purely incidental; in a couple they could have been omitted altogether with no loss to the plot. The prime movers of the plot were either parodies of actual persons (esp. the very Yiddish Secretary of State) or two characters apparently created by Butterworth, Horsey de la Cheveaux and Boris Korsky-Rimsakov. Where Hooker's versions of the Swampmen won out more through outwitting the opposition or playing upon its stupidity, Butterworth's plots depended heavily on blackmail and/or the immense wealth and influence of certain people who just happened to be good chums with Hawkeye Pierce.

(3) I can only wonder how Hooker might have done, had he ever attempted a single novel-length story by himself, instead of the strings of short stories which comprise his three books.

[scarfman]

(1) No. Second link fixed now.

(2) I recall noticing Hawkeye's and Trapper John's prominence does recede as the series goes on. Not enough that I stopped buying them before they stopped coming out. The thing you notice about their methods adds fuel to the suggestions that Hooker had less to do with these novels than Butterworth, which in turn suggests that the emphasis on the new characters comes from the writer who created them doing most of the writing.

(3) Not everyone can come up with plots that'll sustain a novel. I know.