Hi Mark,
I haven't read Lansdale and
O'Connell, but now I will. I suppose that the reason I hammer
at GP so much is that I see him as someone of enormous talent
who indulges himself as a writer, the Thomas Wolff disease or
"Every word I write is so cool it all belongs in the book." I
believe that poor pacing is lethal (and not very
forgivable).
GP's poor plotting skills don't tear
me up too much for the same reason that Chandler's didn't. I
wish that he was better at story building (and I think he is
improving) but the guy draws great characters and uses
language so well, that the weakness of the stories is much
easier for me to take than
"the look how "now" I am" author talk.
I hear you and Maura regarding the
list making, but I think that a writer who chooses
redundancy, and the piling on of extraneous detail (if that
is what he's doing) as metaphors for his "social placement"
is riding a lame horse. It may identify him as a down
brother, but it doesn't do anything for the quality of the
work.
My love/hate affair with Robert Crais
has less to do with his list making than with the lists he
chooses to make. Elvis Cole as Peter Pan wears thin for me
pretty quickly. He is sooooooooooooooooooo sensitive.
Thanks for the great
conversation.
Jim
Blue
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 09 Feb 2000 EST