<Snip from thoughtful look at Oates on Cain>
> Ironically, Madden dedicates the book to Cain,
"twenty minute egg
> of the hard-boiled writers." I say ironically,
because if Madden admired
> Cain, Oates seems to despise him--or to be more
exact, she showers
> contempt on those who like him. She says he is vulgar
and sleazy,
> appealing to a readership with shallow and "perverse"
desire for social
> justice. These readers demand the death of the hero
whose violence they
> have vicariously enjoyed--
<snip>
Well, I, for one, am proud to be shallow and perverse.
Seriously -- almost seriously -- this moral ambiguity, which
she
finds so repellent, is one of the elements of our culture
which I
think HB literature can deal with very well.
Our view of violence embraces the same matrix of fear
and
fascination as does our view of death.
We both abhor violence, romanticize it, condemn it in others
and
use it to further or own goals. (Sometimes all at
once).
Fred
Please note new addresses below:
------------------------
Down on Ponce by Fred Willard
fwillard@bellsouth.net
http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/~fwillard
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