Re: RARA-AVIS: GOD IS A BULLET

From: Joy Matkowski ( jmatkowski1@comcast.net)
Date: 08 Jul 2004


You've persuaded me, miker, to order a copy. Thanks! Joy

Michael Robison
> A lot of people deplored his style as excessive,
> garish, and childish. I liked the way Teran ran
> freewheeling with the language. I thought he invoked
> powerful visual images. Some of the more outrageous
> similes and metaphors I took to be tongue-in-cheek
> humor that served as counter-balance to the horrific
> subject.
>
> A lot of people thought the characters thin and
> unconvincing. I thought the characters were
> forcefully drawn and that Teran convincingly evolved
> the two main characters, Case and Bob, through the
> novel.
>
> A lot of people thought the plot was flat. I thought
> it was a powerful, moving, and exciting story of a
> walking-dead man and a damaged girl fighting their way
> through hell to seek redemption.
>
> Of all the many reviews I've read of GOD IS A BULLET,
> I am surprised at how very little commentary there is
> on his heavy-handed symbolism. I thought it enriched
> the reading experience.
>
> I liked the way Teran broke loose from the tired
> Freudian framework that's a noir standard and opted
> instead for a Jungian viewpoint.
>
> A lot of people found the ulta-violence gratuitous and
> cheap. I thought it fit the framework of the novel
> perfectly. I liked his stand on vigilantism. One of
> my big complaints about hardboiled is its tendency to
> romanticize and glorify taking the law into one's own
> hands, without making clear the moral ambiguity.
> Teran definitely glorifies a lot of violence, but he
> pushes it beyond the acceptable and makes the moral
> ambiguity strikingly obvious.
>
> I like the philosophical overtones. At the beginning
> of the book Bob is a man who has sunk into inaction.
> Spurred by his daughter's kidnapping, Bob watches as
> his beliefs crumble around him into an existential
> void. Case helps him regain his life through action.

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