Re: RARA-AVIS: The Moving Target

From: marianne.macdonald@lineone.net
Date: 02 Apr 2001


>So shoot me.
If you insist, but first let me urge you to get counselling.
????

I guess it's a matter of taste. I have to admit that I think the concept of a Rolls turned into a pickup is a hoot - the snobbish, rich, European upper-class icon reshaped into the American blue-collar icon, emblematic of McGee's 'fallen' condition and social attitudes; the fact that it's a little unlikely didn't bother me. Fiction is fiction. (But then I admit that a book I had published a few years ago ended with the witch riding off to Walpurgisnacht celebrations on a Harley Davidson, so clearly I am quite, quite mad.)

I suppose that the attitude to life and politics is sympathetic enough that it doesn't bother me as a narrative viewpoint. Perhaps this Macdonald also babbles. Con brio.

>eccentric only for eccentricity's sake
Probably eccentricity is allowed to the extent that it contributes to the whole. (Though in more practical terms here, eccentricity good, inhuman, smug self-confidence bad, as Inspector Lestrade keeps reminding us.) In McGee's case, his own damaged-goods personality seems to resemble and in many cases precede that of an awful lot of PIs, and in recent years police detectives too; it lengthens the odds against them, gives them more complex motivations, complicates the plot... Yes.

I'll try another couple and see how I feel then.

Marianne

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