At 05:32 PM 25/11/2002 -0800, you wrote
>Let me quote Kerry Schooley from a few days ago for
you then:
>
>"Something like 150 million killed in the past
century. Yet we prosper and
>keep counting. I can't think of another author who so
effectively catches
>these amoral, hysterical times. I don't care if he
(Ellroy) is an asshole."
>
>Sounds like someone describing Ellroy as either
transcendent or literary,
>to me. Of course you could split hairs and say that
you don't see either
>of those words in what is said, but I was responding
to the entirety of
>the post from which I cut and pasted the above
statement.
It's flattering to be quoted, but you might stop attributing
your subsequent misinterpretations to me, then using me as
straw-dog in your circular arguments.
I can only guess at what you mean by "literary", other than
that as a negative attribute for genre fiction. But hardboil
or noir is unquestionably a literary form. Ellroy does not
transcend the genre. He doesn't need to. From Hammett to
Chandler to MacDonald to Mosley and Ellroy the genre has
always been about the individual, as everyman, trying to find
and maintain moral values in an amoral and corrupt world. As
for whether this is one of the "great themes of the twentieth
century", I don't encounter it much beyond our genre. That's
why I like hardboiled fiction.
It does seem to me that your objection is to the amount of
profanity and the universal corruption depicted in Ellroy's
books. Not enough recognition of the good people in this
world who do things for entirely altruistic reasons. I'll not
debate the state of the world with you, but I do think that
this is not an idea consistent with this genre; that what's
needed for the world to be right are more positive role
models. Or maybe more sit-com Fonzies, tough guys with hearts
of gold. Spade and Marlow were lone knights, but their
motivation was anything but altruism. The dick works for
money, by definition.
As for the profanity, you're not the first to determine merit
by counting the number of bad words used, but it seems a
superficial meter at best.
Kerry
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Literary events Calendar (South Ont.) http://www.lit-electric.com
The evil men do lives after them http://www.murderoutthere.com
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