I've snipped the above because, like everyone else, I've
already seen it
quoted four times in the digest. However, in referring to it,
I can't
see that it's such a hatchet job on Chandler. It seems quite
balanced
and restrained: perhaps those who don't like the piece
are
mis-reading/mis-taking a lack of 'gush' for ... well, for a
failure to
do whatever it is those who don't like it feels it fails to
do ?
[still with me?]
BTW, Mario, I'd be glad to take up your offer: please mail me
the piece
from the NYTROB.
I just re-read the opening of her piece in _Tough Guy Writers
of the
Thirties_, on James M. Cain's novels. I recall there was some
critical
comments on the list about this essay: but this doesn't seem
so bad to
me either. Maybe I should withhold judgement until I've read
it all the
way through?
There was a piece by JCO in last Saturday's Guardian. [I
don't think the
Guardian weekly and Guardian Internation Edition carry all
the 'filler'
stuff that the UK edition has]. It was re-printed from
Granta--a rather
pretentious UK 'literary magazine'.
The gist of it is, JCO and some other middle-class types
assemble to be
shown around a prison. They are warned against making
eye-contact or
verbal communication with any of the inmates. Inside, someone
catches
JCO's eye and she smiles. Then she feels really bad inside
and despises
the guards for not being sensitive to her difficulty. If I
recollect
correctly, some of the prisoners began shouting--calling JCO
a
'cunt'--or perhaps she was thinking this, I don't recall to
clearly
(it's over a week, already). The piece ends with her getting
back into
her car.
The reader begins by feeling some sympathy to her
predicament, but ends
up feeling she's a rather silly middle-class cow.
Beats me why she went in the first place.
What did she expect: to learn something about 'punishment',
'humanity'?
herself, or what?
Still, I suppose it earns her a few quid and provides some
eye-fodder
for others of that ilk.
The piece on the prison visit was apparently reprinted to
mark her 60th
birthday. Many happy returns Joyce.
ED
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