At 03:37 PM 12/12/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Ellroy was, he admits, a minor league punk, a B&E
wanker at best, miles
>removed from the corrupt cops he so lovingly
portrays. Most of his
>knowledge of the crime he writes about (and he's also
admitted this, even
>in that puffpiece "documentary" I saw) is from books
and newspapers and
>"third-hand, fourth-hand" gossip. Hell, a lot of the
stuff he writes
>about, Ellroy was still sniffing his own diapers when
it took place.
>
>>In the same way that Hammett's experience as
a
>>Pink contributed to the credibility of his
stories (yes, they're fiction,
>>but do they have the ring of truth?), Ellroy's
experience as a lowlife
>>contributes to the veracity of his stories. This
implies that genre themes
>>have shifted in the decades between these two
writers.
>
>Uh, I'm not sure about the veracity of Ellroy's
stories -- a lot of his
>stuff rings hollow to me. He writes a good story, but
too often they're so
>overbearingly overwrought that they seem, to me
anyway, closer to high
>opera than true crime. As for veracity, while it
makes a good PR note,
>even Hammett's P.I. experience, even back then, never
made his stories
>that much more believable than, say, the work of
Raoul Whitfield or
>Chandler. Experience is always good, but imagination
and empathy (and good
>writing) can easily match it.
It's not an "either/or" kind of thing. See your own statement
above.
>Uh, no. Chandler often goes on about the
institutionalized corruption of
>his day, just as surely as Ellroy does. Only Chandler
takes a lot fewer
>pages to tell it, and Marlowe tries to keep his head
above water. Ellroy
>dives right in.
Fine by me.
>But that's not new. The only thing new Ellroy brings
to it (besides his
>own style, which is sometimes formidable, and
sometimes just silly) is a
>willingness to wallow and revel in it. It doesn't
make him a more
>realistic writer -- just one with a different point
of view.
Not so much realistic as relevant.
>I dunno. I think there are still some people left
with some decency in
>them. I think I saw one just last week. Portraying
everything as corrupt
>isn't reality, it's cynicism. And a lazy, shuttered
cynicism at that. Most
>of us are both good AND bad.
And the good in us (because surely when you speak of decent
people you're speaking of us) means we aspire to redemption.
The bad so pervasive that redemption is seldom achieved.
That, I think, is Ellroy's point of view.
Anyway, I'm not going 'round this circle again. I've said my
piece. I'm going to stop now. I swear I am. Anybody got a
source for a good back-scratcher?
Kerry
------------------------------------------------------
Literary events Calendar (South Ont.) http://www.lit-electric.com
The evil men do lives after them http://www.murderoutthere.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 : 12 Dec 2002 EST