>Sorry for annoying you, Paul -- it wasn't my
intent.
Oh, sure it was, Kev. What else are friends for? (And I can
probably round up hundreds of DotL-heads willing to testify
to your agent-provocateur instincts.)
I would, just to drag this on a bit longer, point out that
metaphor and simile are legit literary devices that can be
used effectively within a bare-bones narrative style.
Chandler was a master at it, and Ross MacD only slightly
behind. Poeticism doesn't soften a story, but merely adds
texture.
The distinguishing trait of the style of writing I consider
HB (or American Naturalism, if we want to get terribly Ivy
about it) is a straight-ahead sort of storytelling which may
be EMBELLISHED by such poeticism, but which is never SOFTENED
by the sort of overqualification (and narrative hesitancy)
that automatically comes with the overuse of adjectives and
adverbs or irrelevant flights of God-am-I-a-great-writer
fancy, something for which I assume you would not indict
either Ray C. or Ross M.
The sort of thing, in other words, that is a given in most
modern European writing.
I think it comes from a difference in the way that different
societies view what language is -- convenient but unimportant
tool, or defining cultural treasure -- but that's a personal
take and I've not the time to write a thesis on it.
Well, yet anyway.
How it stands at the moment is, I stand by my statement that
HB is uniquely American.
I also found it interesting, BTW, that so many respondents to
my original post cited the popularity of American HB (Wade
Miller, et al) across the pond. Well, duh. I never said that
Euros didn't READ HB, merely that they weren't very good at
producing same. PB
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