> I didn't quite remember the book the same way, but
your summary's great! I
found Bruen's clipped yet literary style refreshingly
original, and he made me wanted > to go out and read all
the books he mentioned, at least the ones I haven't already.
Some of the violence was unnecessarily graphic, in my
opinion.
Karin, I'm never really sure what the phrase 'unnecessarily
graphic' means but as someone who uses a fair amount of
graphic violence in his own books, I'd appreciate some
clarification. 'Unnecessary' to me suggests that the violence
is pleonastic. In other words, the book would be exactly the
same with the violence removed or the level of violence toned
down. I don't see that at all. I think it would be a
different book, one that pulled its punches and wasn't
written from the heart. It would be a book that patronized
its readers by pretending to be something it wasn't. In a
short interview on Duane Swierczynksi's blog, Bruen mentions
the violence in his books as something he won't compromise
on:
http://secretdead.blogspot.com/2005/03/secret-dead-blog-interview-ken-bruen.
html He also mentions that he doesn't (and won't) do scenery.
I've definitely read several books that were unnecessarily
scenic. But as I said before, different strokes. Lots of
people like scenery and it's no more or less real than
violence. Choice is a good thing, right? If you take away
what's
'unnecessary' you may well end up with vanilla. And that's
not noir. Wrong colour.
Al
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 Mar 2005 EST