SECOND RATE THE GREAT

by James Lincoln Warren

What do you call a restaurant that gets three stars out of four, the term paper that gets a B, the novel that climbs as high as Number 11 on the bestseller list? How do you describe the near miss, how do you characterize the act of creativity that is almost perfect, but not quite?

You say that it is excellent rather than superior, or that is is extremely good rather than the best. In short, you are saying that it is not quite in the front rank, but still worthy of consideration. But that which fails of the front rank must needs be considered as belonging to a following rank, a lower order. If being in the front rank is first rate, then being in the next rank means second rate.

And calling something — or someone — second rate is an insult.

This has always puzzled me. Not everybody can aspire to be first rate, to walk among the gods as an equal. Very few of us can even aspire to walk among mere heroes. Why then, do we take umbrage at being identified as second or even third rate?

In the days of sail, a warship was rated according to how many guns it mounted. A first rate had over 100 guns, a second rate 90 to 100, third and fourth rates between 64 and 80, and fifth and sixth rates from 28 to 60 guns. All of these ships were commanded by post Captains, i.e., naval officers of the rank of Captain rather than commanding officers of ships who were Captain only by courtesy. Generally speaking, the more senior the Captain, the more weight in metal he could throw (have more guns, viz., command larger ships). But the dashing heroics were usually reserved for the fifth and sixth rates, the frigates. These were the throughbreds of the sea, the ships that undertook independent cruises and gathered glory for their officers and crews. Many a Captain regretted moving up to a ponderous ship of the line in turn with the promotion cycle, for if they were now more visible to their superiors, they were certainly less independent under the hawklike scrutiny of the admirals commanding the fleet.

The point is simply that being not of the highest rank is nothing to feel insulted over. I once mentioned to a friend of mine that I never expect to win an Edgar, only to find out he was on the Short Story Committee that year. (Talk about embarrassing.) Well, I don’t. It doesn’t seem to me that the kind of story I write is the kind of stroy that wins Edgars. I don’t do surprise endings and ironic twists. The solution to the crime is rarely shockingly revelatory. But I consider them well written and entertaining, and frankly, that’s my yardstick. And that’s all right with me — winning an Edgar would be great, but I don’t write stories with the object in view of obtaining one.

I was extremely fortunate to have a story of mine included in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense, AHMM’s golden anniversary anthology.

Just look at the names on the cover: Donald E. Westlake, Charles Willeford, Evan Hunter, Lawrence Block, and so forth.

Now that’s what I call first rate. My little story is running with the big dogs. But it would be foolish to assume that because it was included in the anthology among so many luminaries that I am one of them myself.

Nothing I write is intended to change the reader’s life. Nothing I write is intended to sweep the reader off his feet with the subtle and powerful beauty of its language. Nothing I write is intended to haunt the reader or make the reader question his own ethical being. Nothing I write is meant to dramatically change the world.

If I touch a reader’s heart, that’s wonderful. If I compose a felicitous or even quotable turn of phrase, that’s a big bonus. If the reader thinks about the nature of justice even fleetingly, that’s a positive event. If something I write helps someone perceive the world in a different way, that is more than I ever expected.

I’m writing to entertain, to engage the reader for a few minutes and make him not regret using his time reading an invention of mine instead of doing something else. Nothing more. But as I see it, that’s a pretty high calling. When you take someone’s time, you are taking something that can never be given back. You have to be responsible when you do.

I’m not William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Lev Tolstoy, or Charles Dickens. I’m not Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, or Raymond Chandler. I’m not even in the third tier, or the fourth. I never will be. Maybe I’m somewhere along the line of sixth rate. A frigate Captain.

Being sixth rate is actually something to feel rather proud of.