At 07:04 AM 7/19/00 -0700, you wrote:
>No offense, but I think this is just plain
silly.
>FAREWELL, MY LOVELY is a good book period --
whether
>it's the first edition, or a battered paperback,
or
>the LOA edition, or written on grocery bags
with
>crayon. To focus on anything else is really to
focus
>on ornamental stuff, nothing important.
I think you've carried this argument ad absurdem. A novel
written on grocery bags with crayon would be impossible to
read comfortably. Format does matter to the reading
experience. For example, many of us old-timers find it
difficult to read e-texts. When I receive a soft copy of a
document that I must read, I print it, giving great mirth to
my younger co-workers, who have no trouble reading large
chunks of text on-line and consider my inability a sign of
creeping senility.
Changing the format may not change the novel, but if it
changes the comfort level of the reader, then it does change
the experience. Myself, I like old HBs and PBs and pulps.
I've discovered that it's fairly easy to find used HB
reprints (G&D, AL Burt, et al) of ERB or Sax Rohmer or
even Hammet and Chandler for about the price of a new PB. I
always buy these, even if I have the paperback. And when I
read the book, I usually dig out the HB, because I prefer
reading this old worn book, imagining myself as part of the
chain of readers who've done so over the years. The novel
doesn't change, but I do.
One of my goals is to collect all of the Argosy mags of the
'30s (I'm 80% there) and then start reading them one a week,
giving me an experience similar to the original subscribers,
who had to wait till next week to read the next installment
of the Earl Stanley Garner or Max Brand serial. I suspect
that somewhere along the way my discipline will break down
and I'll not wait till next week, which will change how I
experience this fiction. But that's my plan.
Ray
>Once I scrape together the cash I'm getting the
LOA
>editions myself. They're durable, sturdy volumes
that
>bear up under use. I'm particularly interested in
the
>first of the Polito-edited volumes: if I
remember
>right that one has THIEVES LIKE US, a book I've
been
>long searching for.
>
>doug
>---
Sllichtman@aol.com wrote:
> > Am I the only one who doesn't think its as much
fun
> > to read Chandler and
> > Hammett in the very august packaging of the
LOA?
> > Same is true for the works
> > included in the Polito-edited noir volumes.
Much as
> > I appreciate their
> > inclusion in the LOA as validation of these
works as
> > literature worthy of the
> > best the U.S. has to offer, I think there's
an
> > aesthetic disconnect in
> > reading these works in that format.
> >
> > Just my $0.02.
>
>
>=====
>Doug Bassett
>
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
>
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