Re: RARA-AVIS: welcome back to mrT

From: Mario Taboada ( matrxtech@yahoo.com)
Date: 09 Apr 2002


<<good to see you back.>>

Thanks.

<<did you read faulkner's "the bear"? whoops! i guess thats not hardboiled so its not discussable here. _as i lay dying_ is my favorite faulkner.>>

I went and read everything by him, including his short stories, which this time seemed even better.

<<i searched the archives after i read cormac mccarthy's _blood meridian_ and noticed that you had commented on him. i guess i'm going to read _child of god_ next. incest, rape, and murder. oh boy! my favorites! i think i'll avoid that trilogy work. it sounded like it got a bit sentimental and
"lonesome dovish" to me. i'll pass on that.>>

Sentimental? It's ultrahardboiled stuff, from beginning to end. I don't think there's a tougher book out there than
_All the Pretty Horses_. In this case, it's great literature, in no small part, *because* of its extreme hardboiledness. And it's not fictional in the sense that there are lots of brutes like that in this country and in every country.

A point worth making, a conjecture worth making, is that, had Jim Thompson and David Goodis been masters of language
(like Cormac), their books would undoubtedly be celebrated even by the critics who despise the genres. Goodis and Thompson, Thomson and Thompson I almost said, excuse I have kids who read that stuff, hit on a lot of material very similar to Faulkner's, O'Connor's and McCarthy's. I think they should be grouped with them, under Tough Literature with Devious and Tortuously Flawed (and Doomed) Guys, or something short, sweet and academic like that.

By the way, you can find several of McCarthy's books, including the trilogy, in the bargain bins at large bookstores. I saw them recently down in Tennessee. The hardcovers must be out of print, so they're getting rid of them.

Best,

MrT

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