rara-avis@icomm.ca wrote:
> Kevin, then Jess replies:
>
> > Doesn't Marlowe at one point say something like
"He snarled and
> > called me something nasty." Would that sentence
really have been
> > better if Chandler had written: "He called me a
motherfucking
> > asshole."
>
> Perhaps not, but I think Marlowe would have liked to
have used
> stronger language than he was allowed to by his
editors and the mores
> of the time.
> Maybe. But in terms of impact, Marlowe's summary
implies that what
> the character said wasn't worth quoting. It wasn't
dramatically
> important or the character wasn't significant enough
to be quoted.
> Kevin is setting up good aesthetic grounds for
evaluating language,
> seems to me.
I'm afraid I don't see how that follows. I don't think,
either, that Chandler felt that the character's words weren't
worth quoting, so much as feeling constrained by The Rules.
And even if the character wasn't significant enough to be
quoted, I don't see how that establishes aesthetic grounds
for evaluating language.
Of course, the problem is that overuse of obscenities and
vulgarities of all stripes have defanged them, so that where
once a "Damn" was shocking and carried a punch, now authors
have to use combinations of thirteenletterwords to even
approach the same level of shock--and it still doesn't
work.
jess
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