Rambling on my mind...
Mario wrote:
> What I don't like about Kevin's rhetoric is that it would lead to
> throwing out talented practitioners who have not invented a genre or
> a subgenre but till and cultivate their own parcel and do so
> exceedingly well.
Not to dis your "rhetoric," Mario, but NOWHERE did I rail against
talented people working in a pre-existing genre.
Why would I? That's more or less the whole point of THE THRILLING
DETECTIVE WEB SITE, and of most of my posts. I WANT talented people to
work in the genres I love. And I try to ENCOURAGE those who show
promise by singing their praise when warranted and publishing their
stories.
How that would lead to "talented" practitioners who work in a genre
being "thrown out" is beyond me.
Lord knows publishing is not a level playing field, but I really try
to make sure my little bit of turf is as fair as I can make it.
Granted, I draw the line at making excuses for inferior work. I think
constructive criticism is more useful than bubble-headed, empty praise.
But hey, that's me.
I'm also not big on people who claim they're inventing a whole new sub-
sub-genre -- or usie the "I was only joking" defence -- when they fall
short of their goals and get called for their excesses and lousy
writing.
But thanks for taking the time to single me out for my rhetoric. And
its dire consequences.
> I realize I got somewhat off-track. To be continued.
No doubt.
* * * *
And Jeff wrote:
> . . . said a man who's read everything by Jim Thompson, which should
> be a prerequisite to belonging to the list.
But do we have to pretend to like it? All of it? Even the crappy
stuff? Like Cain, Thompson was a very uneven writer, and the Grade Z
paperback publishers he worked for in the latter half of his career
(when he was drunk on his ass half the time) weren't exactly big on
editing.
How far should this Thompson fixation go? Do we also then have to
stomach every bit of bad Thompson inflicted on us by pretentious, name-
dropping wannabes?
Or can we just pretend to like it, without actually having to read it?
* * * *
As for "fuck," I have no idea what the fuck Kerry was talking about...
Oh, wait, I do. It's summed up in his last line:
> Of course, the characters in the books you read may not have said
> "fuck" very well.
That's the crux, right there. It's not the word "fuck" or the nail gun
body piercings and incest orgies and pool cue nostril insertions and
steering wheel pissing or whatever Gitmo-ready fantasy is "in" this
week that bothers me, so much as the disconnect between action and
character. So little thought is given to character in some of the
stuff I see that their actions and dialogue come off as shallow and
pointless as the characters that perpetuate them.
Give me a believable character, though, create a viable world, and I
can believe almost anything that happens.
Mark, here's an EXAMPLE.
PET SEMETARY by Stephen King, arguably his best book. Were it not for
the finely rendered home life of the nuclear family in the early pages
(the breakfast table squabbles over cereal between siblings are note-
perfect), I'd probably have had a very hard time buying into the rest
of it, which concerns haunted burial grounds and the resurrection of
the dead.
Which reminds me: when's King going to do a REAL crime story? He's
done a few shorts, but THE COLORADO KID was actually more a story
about stories than anything else. People who love a good literary
joke, like me, or like to use the word "post" a lot (and aren't
fencing salesmen) should get a big kick out of it.
Or flat out hate it. It's that kind of book. We covered it at our
mystery reading group when it first came out, and the reaction was
decidedly mixed. But everyone read it through right to the final GOTCHA!
Charles, take a bow.
Kevin Burton Smith
Editor/Founder
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
"Wasting your time on the web since 1998."
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