Mario wrote:
"One can only speculate as to the "realism" of a story. How
can a typical reader know?"
I've often thought this about prison novels. For instance,
the cover of Mitchell Smith's Stone City excerpted a review
that said something like it was one of the most realistic
depictions of prison ever written. And I thought, how would
the reviewer know unless he had been to prison? Now assuming
he hadn't, his standard of the realism was based on other
things he had read, just like mine is. And Stone City did
seem to corroborate the impression of other books I'd read,
both fiction and nonfiction from Eddie Bunker, Jack Henry
Abbott, etc, but what carried the book was its consistency of
treatment, of both actions and psychology. That's what gave
the book its apparent verisimilitude.
On the other hand, a lot was made of the fact that Platoon
was directed by an actual Viet Nam vet. Did that make it more
realistic than other films on that war (sorry, police
action)? Not being a vet myself, I have no direct knowledge,
but I found the movie far too literary and steeped in
heavyhanded symbolism to take seriously as realism. Young
impressionable soldier is torn between following the good
leader and the bad. And scar aside, in Stone's world, you
knew which one was good because he smoked dope. Please.
Mark
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