Re: RARA-AVIS: Bogie's/Paperjacks

From: Mario Taboada ( matrxtech@yahoo.com)
Date: 07 Dec 2001


<<HIGH NOON AT MIDNIGHT features Avallone's private eye Ed Noon but it also has Gary Cooper as a major character and there are aliens and...well, it is one of the most surreal things I have ever read. No one should have published it. I can't imagine anyone not rejecting it. But the Palmers had the guts to buy it and publish it. Is it a work of great literary merit? No. But it is more interesting, fascinating really, than 90 percent of the crap that is published. The Palmers recognized that and made the great leap.>>

I agree. Whatever his faults, Avallone did not lack personality. That's what I find lacking in the 90% sector: books that are read (if you can make it through the end, which isn't always) and then donated to the Salvation Army, leaving no memory of human contact(which is what literature is about). I am talking about fiction, but the same applies, in a lesser degree, to nonfiction (though you can argue that, for example, a self-help book tries to convey some instructions rather than make human contact. But enough of that. Fiction isn't about conveying information.)

And with that horrendous cacophony of parentheses (Strunk, White, Fowler, CMoS, shut up this once) I conclude this screed, screech. I'll be off the list while resting up for a couple of months. I wish you all a good break and a great next year.

And to our leader, Captain Bill, the praise that is due for creating and then skillfully steering a friendly, knowledgeable and incorruptible forum.

Best regards,

MrT

=====
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