RARA-AVIS: Re: RARA-AVIS Digest V4 #279

From: Sally Jane Driscoll ( renza9@yahoo.com)
Date: 04 May 2002


> Men make lists,anally retentive
> men make lists

[sigh] I guess I should be saving up for that sex change.

George, on James Lee Burke, you're right. I like his plots, settings, characters, but there's something about his style that impedes me from experiencing his story. The problem is similar to Oates and even Greeley. There are types of writers stylistically--no, it's not really stylistic, but whatever style comes from. Some writers are telling you, "Look at these strange people," and that to me is Oates. As far I can tell, that kind of storyteller is analytical and is presenting the results of the analysis. It's more sociology than fiction. Some writers are saying, "Look at me, I'm being a writer." IMHO Burke falls somewhere between these two. The best kind of writer says,
"Enter the experience." He's not telling you about these characters in a story, he's living the characters in the story, and inviting you to live them, too.

Cheers,

Sally into the I'm trying to get a handle on what you mean by "expressing his/herself." It would seem to me that he may be guilty of the sin you're naming here, so I'm wondering if you have an opinion on him.

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com

--
# 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 : 04 May 2002 EDT