Thanks for the interesting discussion on language yesterday.
I'm going to revisit Faulkner and James (and probably Oates)
because of it. As a fledgling suspense (moving towards noir)
writer myself, I'm searching for that medium between language
and storytelling. Lately I've been ping-pang-ponging between
Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Chandler, and Ken Bruen to the tune
of eight books in the last week. The differences
stylistically are amazing.
One line from yesterday that rings for me:
Mario wrote:
"The particular magic of Faulkner, his invention of giving
you the information in very little bits, of never telling
what he's going to do, of working from inside out as if in a
spiral (in the novels), etc., was quickly grasped as what it
was: a major innovation."
For me, this is the essence of suspense. Who is the best
current writer in this regard? Who spins out the best web of
suspense this side of Spiderman?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Nov 2007 EST