RE: RARA-AVIS: Final Words on Ellroy

Levin, Doug (DLEVIN@DIRECTIMPACT.COM)
Wed, 20 May 1998 17:01:54 -0400 I briefly respond to Diane Trap below:
>
>> Ellroy is nostalgic, as we have noted, but he is also something of a
>> sentimentalist, I think. Perhaps the combination of hard action and
>> sentimental ethos give his writing its charm.
>>
>> Doug
>
>Can you give an example of why you consider him a sentimentalist,
>or his sentimental ethos? I've never heard "sentimental" and
>"Ellroy" in the same sentence before--I'm not saying I disagree,
>or that I will disagree, but I'd just like to hear more of your
>reasoning.
>
> -----Diane Trap
> trap@rhett.libs.uga.edu

My comments are a little off the cuff, but it strikes me that a sort of
uniformity of emotion drives Ellroy's characters. Think, for instance,
of Spade Hearns' years of yearning for Lorna (in "Torch Number"); his
deep reaction to the song that has united them; his pursuit of her as
motivation and excuse for, say, sticking a loaded gun in someone's mouth
and pulling the trigger. I think the mode works well for Ellroy and
that sentiment is important. It is also possible, I suppose, to mount a
critique of sentimentalism via Ellroy. Does sentiment excuse or permit
certain actions, mask other conditions, etc.? But such a line of
argument might require me to dust off some old books that I don't own
(the best critique of sentimentality that I can think of off the top of
my head appears in Ann Douglas' _The Feminization of American Culture_).
I guess I might be saying that Ellroy is less hard than he appears, and
perhaps his outlook is relatively normative. But maybe I'm just full of
it...

Doug
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