---
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote:
> Doug wrote:
>
> "I wouldn't include Derek Raymond or Jack
O'Connell,
> both of whom I like
> immensely but are too "anti-realistic" to
properly
> fit into an "epic"
> class."
>
> It's been a long time since my intro to lit
classes
> (and I didn't pay
> that much attention when I was taking them), but
why
> are
> "anti-realistic" and "epic" mutually
exclusive?
> (I'm not being snarky,
> I'm actually interested in this idea.)
I'm thinking of "epic" in the sense of a big roiling long
story that's "realistic" in a mainstream novel
welcoming-to-the-reader kind of way. Ambitious big fat
novels, the kind they used to make into mini-series, back
when TV made mini-series. SHOGUN, CENTENNIAL, that kind of
stuff. (I'm currently on an Irwin Shaw kick, and THE YOUNG
LIONS would certainly fit.)
Both O'Connell and Raymond are too intellectualized, too
formally skewed IMO for those kind of primal pleasures. Like
I said, you might stretch a point and squeeze O'Connell in --
he bears a similar relationship to this sort of thing,
though, that David Lynch bore to traditional TV cop dramas
with TWIN PEAKS.
THE GODFATHER would definitely fit, though I don't really
consider it hardboiled, just a big fat novel about crime.
Still, you could say that about THE DETECTIVE, too.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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