Re: RARA-AVIS: Stirring up trouble: Drowning and Connelly

Curt Sampson (cjs@portal.ca)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:03:30 -0800 (PST) On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Levin, Doug wrote:

> I've read
> the first fifty pages of _Drowning Pool_. It seems competent to me,
> with some good dialogue and descriptions. At the same time, it often
> seems badly stagey and contrived....

The whole book itself, in terms of plotting, didn't really do a
lot for me until I read it to the end, and then it all made sense
and felt a lot better. I think that's a part of MacDonald's
stylistic failure (or lack of incredible success, anyway); there's
a level between the one-off lines, which can be quite good, and
the interlocking puzzle of the whole plot, that he doesn't do well
enough to be considered brilliant. It's as if he's showing the
wrong pieces of the puzzle, or bringing them forth in an uninteresting
order.

cjs

Curt Sampson cjs@portal.ca Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc. Through infinite mist, software reverberates
Vancouver, BC (604) 257-9400 In code possess'd of invisible folly.

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