RARA-AVIS: No, Daly just writes badly

michael david sharp (msharp@umich.edu)
Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:54:56 -0500 (EST) This argument in favor of Daly doesn't really hold water. My students are
hardly intersted in pretension or profundity (not similar things at all,
by the way). They love fast-paced entertainment and are in fact resistant
to writers who look like they're trying really hard to be artistes. Daly
is patently unreadable to many (incl. myself), not bec. it's just fun and
not serious, but bec. it's wooden and laden w/ awkward, labored diction --
Daly is trying So Hard to demonstrate his knowledge of underground lingo
that his writing comes across as Precisely pretentious (though not
profound) and mechanical (hardly a good combination). Hammett is pulp
fiction, Chandler is pulp fiction, Whitfield, Cain, Davis, ALL pulp
fiction. Not all pulp fiction is of a piece. That my kids think Daly sucks
does not mean they're looking for Grand Ideas; it just means they know
good writing when they see it (and when they don't). M-

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael D. Sharp Email: msharp@umich.edu
Department of English Lang. and Lit. Phone: (313) 761-8776
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Fax: (313) 763-3128

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Greg Swan wrote:

> I love reading Carroll John Daly. I don't think I want to take the time to
> launch a spirited academic defense of his work, though. That's probably the
> point. Not a lot of pretention or even profundity there . . . just some
> enjoyable pulp writing. Bellem or even Edgar Rice Burroughs can be
> similarly destroyed, but are also fun reads. Perhaps this sort of fiction
> might rate a little higher in a class devoted to understanding and analyzing
> pulp writing.
>
> Greg
> swan@poboxes.com
>
> michael david sharp wrote:
> >
> > Dennis --
> > I rather liked your interpretation, wrong or not.
> >
> > Spent yesterday trying (w/ my students) to figure out the popularity of
> > Carroll John Daly. Editor of Black Mask Boys (William F. Nolan) trashes
> > him even as he asserts his place at the origin of the hardboiled
> > phenomenon. My kids absolutely (and hilariously) tore Daly apart. Of
> > course they'd just started reading Maltese Falcon, which can make even
> > competent writing look hack by comparison. M-
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Michael D. Sharp Email: msharp@umich.edu
> > Department of English Lang. and Lit. Phone: (313) 761-8776
> > University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Fax: (313) 763-3128
> >
> > On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, DCardKJHS wrote:
> >
> > > Hell's Bells! I should have had the good sense to use the reference sources
> > > at my command before popping off with my semi-plausible off the top of my head
> > > explanation of this particular usage of "johnson". Apologies to all who
> > > thought I sounded like a snickering schoolboy uttering "nasties" in class.
> > > Dennis
> > > #
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> >
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