----- Original Message ----- From: "Robison Michael R CNIN"
<
Robison_M@crane.navy.mil>
> As far as skipping certain ones, I've read the Rabe
and Thomp-
> son essays in MURDER OFF THE RACK, and it's comments
on some of
> them being VERY bad has made me leery. I'm a really
big fan of
> Hemingway, but I've never made it thru ACROSS THE
RIVER AND INTO
> THE TREES, and I ain't losing no sleep over it,
either. ;-)
I've just finished Goodis's NIGHT SQUAD - which is reputed to
be one of his weaker efforts. I've come to discover that once
I've read and enjoyed three or four novels by a given writer,
I'll enjoy the majority (probably all) of his work. Maybe
it's a kind of lack of expectation on my part. That's
certainly the case here. I just wanted to read some Goodis
and NIGHT SQUAD is quintessential Goodis. Who else would get
away with a totally sane protagonist conversing with his
police badge, or use a tie to symbolise a woman? The tie is
fairly subtle, and it uses Goodis's favourite trick:
colour.
This is how Goodis's tie works:
Step 1: associate woman (Lita) with colour (green) "dark
green eyes",
"green silk halter" Step 2: reinforce association by having
Lita's husband compare a similarly coloured object (car) to a
woman: "a six-passenger custom-made sedan, dark green", "He
stepped back, inspected his work and said to the car, "You
doll. You sweetheart."" Step 3: Lita is now firmly associated
with the colour green. For the protagonist, who fancies her,
this is what it was leading up to: "There were four neckties
dangling from a nail on the inside of the closet door. He
reached for the dark green one, got it under the shirt
collar, started to tie it, and then realised what colour it
was. You don't want that colour, he told himself. He pulled
off the dark green tie and put it back on the nail. For some
moments he stood looking at it. What's all this see-saw
routine? he wondered, and tried to back away from it,
thinking, It's just that you don't like that colour - He
snatched the dark green tie and quickly slipped it under his
collar and knotted it."
How can you not love it?
Al
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