> even if I believed he's doing what you say he's
doing, ("intruding the
> postmodern on the neo-realistic world") after the
first fifty or so
> iterations, I'd have to say "OKAY. I"VE GOT IT. GET
ON WITH THE STORY!
I
> believe that one of the first, and few, obligations
of the fiction writer,
> and especially the hard-boiled crime writer, is to
tell a fast, lean tale.
> George P. can do that; he just chooses (often) not
to do it, and I think
the
> other stuff becomes mannered, author speak, and gets
in the way of his
story,
> a mistake Hammett never made.
Ouch. And I think this shows an unfortunate case of someone
who never, ever wants the genre to change ever. (If I'm
wrong, I apologize, but it is the impression I received from
the post). At least in storytelling style. I was EXCITED to
see GP doing this in the books. Times change, ways to tell a
story change. The brands and music and things you call
"mannered" are, to me, nice side trips that make the books
more interesting than the stories do alone. I've been taught
to go into writing a story with a few ideas, thoughts, but
then to let the characters surprise me, and let the story go
where it goes. Then, in revision, fine tune and polish and
make the story that happened work. With George Pelecanos,
it's here, it works. He's extending Elmore Leonard's work,
which usually just goes unexpected places because of how the
characters reveal themselves, and due to the chaotic, un-lean
world we live in. Same with James Crumley. To see that as a
mistake is to place a rigid standard on what should be
considered good writing (accounting for personal taste, you
might not like it, but that makes his style bad?). As for
comparing it to Hammett, let's remember that Hammett was
writing seventy years ago. And I'm not diminishing his
achievement, as I do love Hammett's work enormously, but how
about comparing Hammett to Poe, then? I think it would be
just as unfair as comparing Hammett to Pelecanos. It's much
more interesting to track the evolution of the genre rather
than say "Anything outside these lines doesn't work."
Neil Smith
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