Kevin asked:
"Burke is major politically correct? You've just got to
explain that one."
Although the question was addressed to Miker, I thought I'd
jump in. I can't read the Burke novels. I read the first and
it was more than enough for me; I tried to begin the second,
but had to put it down. And this was one of the reasons. As
admirable as Vachss's work against the exploitation of
children is in real life, and as much as I mostly applaud his
politics, the Burke books become agit-prop -- all about the
empowerment of abused children and revenge fantasies against
evil abusers. He makes Spillane look subtle in his political
agenda, although Vachss is mostly on the left, even with his
biblical retribution. I guess self-righteous violence is not
limited to any one political position.
However, the real reason I don't read the Burke books is
because I can't take the writing -- it is so overblown. First
of all, Burke's "I'm a loner bad guy in the revenge ode of
Mike Hammer" stance is so hypocritical. Every three pages he
moans/brags about being a loner with no ties to drag him
down, but he has a surrogate family as tight as any in PI
fiction, including the women PIs. And that family is so
carefully liberally composed to represent the oppressed. On
top of that, if I had had to hear about how he trained his
dog one more time I was going to scream. An editor needs to
trim the redundancies.
That said, I think his non-Burke work is great. Shella is a
classic novel which addresses all of his concerns, but makes
its point through getting you to almost empathize with a
pretty scary character, not through hitting you over the
head, but through getting you inside him, getting you to
understand his warped motivations. Even as you deplore the
character, you wish the situations that helped mold him could
be eradicated. And his short work in Bad Blood is
terrific.
Still haven't figured out how he could dedicate a book to
Iceberg Slim, though. With his strict anti-exploitation
stance, how could he endorse Slim's glorification of
predatory pimps?
Mark
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