RARA-AVIS: Woolrich's FRIGHT

From: harry.lerner@mail.mcgill.ca
Date: 14 Feb 2008


Reading FRIGHT I find a number of passages seem very desolate and hopeless. For example, while Preston is on his honeymoon he deeply laments some recent actions of his. The couple of very brief chapters that deal with this are quite sparse in words but very expressive in their desolation. I wonder if this scene could be taken as good example of what Ross MacDonald once said as part of a talk he gave in 1954 at the University of Michigan. He was referring to Poe when he paraphrased Carlos Williams by saying that Poe was faced with "...the task of forging a means to express his sensibility, to objectify and artistically ameliorate the sense of guilt and horror which he perceived in himself and suffered, perhaps in poetic anticipation, for his society." Does this ring at all true in light of the insights we have been given on this list lately regarding Woolrich as a person and an author?

Best, Harry



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