Jason,
Thank you for taking my post out of context. To be precise I
mentioned Hammett, Thomnpson, and Cain, and I didn't state
that writers today should do this, but that it if the above
writers could do it than it can be done. I also discussed my
own internal struggle with this - whether using profanities
is the easy way out and just displaying a lack of skill or
whether it makes the writing more natural. And hypotheticals
like "My guess is that Thompson and Cain, and especially
Goodis, would have loved to use more natural street language
but simply couldn't" is kind of ridiculous (or should I say
"fucking" ridiculous). Actually, everything I've read about
Thompson would contradict that statement - he was kind of an
old fashioned guy who couldn't understand Stanley Kubrick not
wearing a suit to work. Did Willeford use profanities in his
writing? I've read a lot of his works, and that doesn't stand
out. Going to have to double check on that.
Btw. I've seldom (if ever) found Hammett's writing/dialogue
awkward, but I've found many current writers who try to use
street language sounding awkward and unnatural.
Won't get into The Pulp Fiction question since I love that
movie, and besides I wasn't talking about movies, but really
talking about my own internal struggle on the issue. So don't
take offense - I'm not saying what you should do or implying
any lack of skill on your part, but more questioning out loud
what I should be doing.
-Dave Z.
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "crimeflix"
<jmks100@a...> wrote:
>
> A poster the other day talked about how Thompson,
Cain, Chandler,
etc
> wrote excellent tough prose without cursing, so
writers today
should
> do the same...This really doesn't make sense to me
at all. Of
course
> it's possible to write tough without cursing but
writers in
the '50s
> were constrained by the times. My guess is that
Thompson and Cain,
> and especially Goodis, would have loved to use more
natural street
> language but simply couldn't--their publishers
wouldn't have all
owed
> it. Good writing usually overcomes this but
sometimes the lack of
> profanities in writers for that era sticks out for
me. I love
> Highsmith, for example, but sometimes her writing
seems awkard to
me
> when she writes something like "he cursed" without
letting us know
> what the curse is...IMHO, George V. Higgins really
opened up the
> language of crime fiction with the The Friends of
Eddie Coyle, and
> later Willeford and Leonard picked up the
torch...Today, I think,
> crime writers have much more freedom of language the
50's pulp
> writers, and this is a good thing....Similarly, the
language in
crime
> films has evolved. Think Double Indemnity vs. Pulp
Fiction?
Because
> Double Indemnity was effective without cursing that
means that
Pulp
> Fiction should've had no cursing because Double
Indemnity was a
> classic? Sorry, but that just doesn't hold up for
me.....
> J
> http://www.jasonstarr.com
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