Kevin, then Jess replies:
>
> > Doesn't Marlowe at one point say something like
"He snarled and
> > called me something nasty." Would that sentence
really have been
> > better if Chandler had written: "He called me a
motherfucking
> > asshole."
>
> Perhaps not, but I think Marlowe would have liked to
have used
> stronger language than he was allowed to by his
editors and the mores
> of the time.
Maybe. But in terms of impact, Marlowe's summary implies that
what the character said wasn't worth quoting. It wasn't
dramatically important or the character wasn't significant
enough to be quoted. Kevin is setting up good aesthetic
grounds for evaluating language, seems to me.
Bill Hagen
billha@ionet.net
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