Re: RARA-AVIS: nightmare alley

From: WordRunner@aol.com
Date: 12 Jul 2002


In a message dated 7/12/02 10:00:06 AM, billha47@hotmail.com writes:

<< I too wouldn't defend polemic passages if they don't arise from the reality and characters portrayed. But as in Grapes of Wrath or other "mainstream" titles, anger or crime arises in part from social conditions. >>

    This is really a discussion about good writing and poor writing. If it comes off as a narrative stopping polemic, it's bad writing, just as it is when a writer can't resist sticking in extraneous information regarding any other topic. The politics and social commentary in all of the writing of George Pelecanos, and George Higgins and Walter Mosely and Manuel Ramos (and in Dennis Lehane's "A Drink Before The War") is woven through the story because it is part of the story. Some folks never even notice that it is there.

                                        Jim Blue

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