Re: RARA-AVIS: Shame the Devil

From: Michael Robison ( zspider@gte.net)
Date: 08 Mar 2002


hi paul,

i've read _shame the devil_ and _sweet forever_. i liked _sweet forever_ best. and yes, i did think the character development in shame the devil was a bit nonstandard. just being picky but if i recall, although the robbery occurred at a pizza place, it was actually a supposedly high-dollar illegal gambling pickup that the criminals were going for. and i didn't find either book pedestrian or boring, but there's no accounting for personal taste.

my suggestion is for you to try _sweet forever_, and if that doesn't do it for you, move on to other writers. there's no shortage of them out there. thats for sure.

good luck, miker

----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Miller" < phm@midsouth.rr.com> To: < rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 3:52 PM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Shame the Devil

> I'm reading Shame the Devil by Pelecanos. The robbers have a change of car
> ready after the job and two more cars waiting in a garage. This seems like
> peperation for a big score like a bank job and not a robbery of a pizza
> joint. It just doesn't fit at all to me. This is my first Pelecanos and I
> must say I am disappointed so far. The book is fast paced at first but
then
> slows down in endless getting to know different characters. The
> characterization is poor with cardboard people that seem like characters
in
> a book, they just don't come alive. Sometimes less is more and something
a
> character says or does can let you see that character for what they are
> better than fact fact fact about a person. For instance in Faulkner's
> Sanctuary we know little about Popeye yet very soon we come to an awful
> knowledge of him from action and a few words and he threatens to come off
> the page. After the first few pages this novel becomes pedestrian,
> uninspired and down right boring. Is all Pelecanos like this?
>
> --
> # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
> # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version.
> # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
>

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca.  This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 08 Mar 2002 EST