--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Lindenmuth" <blindenmuth@...> wrote:
>
> Forgot the link: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html
>
I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, but this type of criticism is worthless, in my opinion. A work is a whole, not a collection of tricks. This applies to literature, music, art, etc. What bothers me the most is the underlying assumption that there is something called "good writing", a canonical way to write great stuff. That is ludicrous in the face of history. People have written in all kinds of ways. Dickens was criticized viciously but people read him massively and still do... Cervantes, the same. He's repetitive, he forgets the names of some of the characters, he interpolates extraneous stories, etc. etc. People still read him, they accept him.
Speaking personally, the impact of a Cormac McCarthy novel is visceral and is felt, not intellectualized. Much of the best hardboiled literature that we discuss here works similarly. So maybe Chandler's stories lack structure, sometimes it's not clear who did what or why... does it matter?
Best,
mrt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 13 Jul 2009 EDT