>Willeford distilled a life times experience into his
books and
>particularly the Hoke books. What makes them so scary,
so real is the
>off-hand violence, the sudden casual nature of
violence and how it can
>change our lives - small act of malice visited on us
by people and
>situations we have never encountered before. Take
Junior Frenger
>killing the Hare Krishna by breaking his finger, Troy
Ludons comment
>that "I'm what the shrinks call a criminal psychopath.
What that means
>is, I know the difference between right and wrong, but
I don't give a
>shit", the events surrounding Stanley Sinkiewicz being
accused of
>molesting a child (the same guy who goes round killing
neighbourhood
>dogs), the eruption of violence in "The Way We Die
Now", all
>`everyday' in not just their ordinariness but in the
lulling, neutral
>way Willeford tells them.
Junior, Troy, and Stanley are all, to the man,
unbelievable.
Troy could not seduce a Stanley in a thousand years. Stanley
had 30
years of conformity ingrained in him, and Troy's unconvincing
speeches
could not have undone Stanley's conventional corporate and
family
conditioning. That Troy was a liar of huge proportions was
telegraphed
as obvious. A man of average intelligence, Stanley, would
have seen
straight through him. Stanley wasn't an idiot and I didn't
perceive him
a gull -- still he fell for Troy's crock, and it is this that
makes it
absurd.
I suppose its conceivable that a man could be killed by a
broken finger.
I've never studied aikido or hopkido or kung fu or any of
that crap. But
come on! It's highly, highly, unbelievably, absurdly
possible. Stealing
someone's teeth? Funny, yes, but in human history how many
times has
this happened? Three?
>Willeford wrote that "I had a hunch that madness was a
predominant
>theme and normal condition for Americans living in the
second half of
>this century". This was about his 1963 paranoid
classic, "The Machine
>In Ward Eleven" and was over twenty years before he
wrote the Hoke
>books. Even then he knew what he was saying.
Willeford's hunch was a stupid one. See, this is flat out
ridiculous.
"Madness was a prominent theme and normal condition for
Americans" just
makes me want to guffaw so hard I embarrassingly cut a big
fart. I want
to bust out in (maniacal) laughter. It makes me doubt
Willeford's sanity
for telling such an absurd lie.
>Willeford said n an interview (quoted in Crimetime 9,
pg. 36)
>that; "A good half of the men you deal with in the
Army are
>psychopaths. There's a pretty heft overlap between the
military
>population and the prison population, so I knew plenty
of guys like
>Junior in `Miami Blues' and Troy in
`Sideswipe'...[when they finish
>their tour]..they just can't turn it off and go to
work n a 7-11. If
>you're good with weapons or something in the Army,
you're naturally
>gonna do something with weapons when you get out,
whether it's being
>a cop or a criminal".
This is total horseshit. Soldiers are not psychopaths and the
ones that
are are mustered out rapidamente. Sure, there's always going
to be the
slippery one that stays in and causes some ruckus or
calamity, but they
are the exceptions. Half are psychos? Get out of town. About
the only
ex-soldiers interested in becoming cops are the ones who were
MPs in the
service.
Self-disclosure: I own guns. Lots of them. I belong to a gun
club and
I'm something of a pistolero. .22, 9mm, .357 mag., and .45
auto. No, I
don't think of my guns as my dick, thank you very much.
>Willeford's theme - well one of them - is the sexually
obsessive man,
>the competitive man, the intelligent man who must
prove himself better
>then others. This is a man who cannot live quietly and
is all to real.
>He is a man who chooses to do bad and there are many
like them.
I'll take Peter's word for this.
>Willeford is a great writer because he tells his story
without
>us realising he is doing so.
I thought Willeford was transparent.
He became critically acclaimed in his
>life time and had the respect of his peers. He was
just breaking into
>the big time when he died. His novels are imperfect
but all the time
>they showed great improvement. What could have been.
The fact that he
>wrote for the pulps - and his books were cheap -
shouldn't hide this
>fact. There was nothing minor about them. Nor, for
that matter, have
>his books anything to do with `magic realism' - a
completely
>unconvincing description of anything let alone
Willeford. Reality in
>abundance but magic implies fantasy or sleight of hand
- with
>Willeford what you see is what you get.
If I ever get down on my knees for an author, would someone
please slap
me or jab me with a heroin-charged hypodermic? Thank you in
advance.
>On a final note: should Ned go? Well, Ned, I've
e-mailed you about
>what I felt to be an unnecessarily OTT response to my
e-mail in which
>I questioned your point of view.
I have one e-mail from you -- one which you sent me after you
wrote this
message to the list. You sent your previous message to the
list.
We should stick to the list rules and
>e-mail people direct with our quibbles and not bother
the good people
>of this list with them. But Ned, you didn't answer my
question - if
>the Hoke books are `minor' in the genre (whoops,
there's that word
>again) then which books are `major'? This needs an
answer because your
>statement "they are minor" implies there is something
`major' - or
>didn't you intend it to actually make sense?
I respectfully decline to name these "major" books . . . or
make sense.
-- Ned Fleming # # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.