a.n.smith (ansmith@netdoor.com)
Fri, 31 Dec 1999 17:31:48 -0600
On Ellroy:
> > author whose total contribution to the genre
was to point out, by
example,
> > its failures.
The more I think about it, this is an interesting line. I
know it's said from the point of view of someone who doesn't
like the guy, but I can say the same thing as a fan. We read
in the early work that JE did work in the more conventional
way with characters and dialogue before. And it was
effective, as we see from the collective admiration for Black
Dahlia. But the conscious decision afterward to write
differently, to "scat sing" the prose, to write sentences
that are purposefully bad from a craft point of view, bad
dialogue, little to no description of the physical world,
yeah, he's failing by example. But I believe it takes people
like him to shake up the way we put words together on paper
so that our attention is gotten. I think it's
innovative.
Of course, for those opposed, Jackson Pollock just spilled
paint on the floor, too.
Neil Smith
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