> No problem with your post, Karin. But I have
a
> problem with Simon Kernick' comment:
>
> "I personally wouldn't write a scene that
involved
> gratuitous..."
>
> He's hedging his bet with the word
"gratuitous."
> Anything that comes after it shouldn't be written.
If
> he doesn't want to do child violence, he ought to
at
> least have the gumption to say it flat out,
without
> qualifying it with cheap disclaimers like
> "gratuitous."
>
> miker
>
While I don't know Kernick's work and can't comment on what
he intended, I don't "gratuitous" is a meaningless adjective
when used to describe violence. For example, Vachss work
describes the abuse of adolescents or children but it's there
for a reason and I don't think anyone would accuse of him of
discussing child abuse simply to titillate or excite his
readers. Someone else mentioned the psycho- killer novel in
which the killer tries to find more-and-more creative ways to
snuff people out--that violence is often gratuitous--it's not
realistic nor does it serve a purpose beyond showing a novel
way of killing. I have no problem reading about violence if
it's convincing and advances the plot or provides a real
insight into a character, but sometime a more restrained
approach is actually more effective. For example, I just
finished Jim Tully's CIRCUS PARADE, leaving aside the
question of whether it's fiction or not, there is a
wonderfully understated passage in which Tully is describing
a real SOB who works as a circus boss:
"Slug Finnerty was the chief spieler. He had lost an eye in a
brawl many years before. The empty socket was red and
criss-crossed with scars. He was deeply pock-marked and
stoop-shouldered. His ears had been pounded until they
resembled pieces of putty clining to his bald and cone-shaped
head. An ex-cruiser of the old school, he had served five
years in a southern penitentary for a crime unspeakable. The
boy was injured internally."
You learn how violent this man is just from his description.
Nor is there any need to describe his crime (Tully would
probably not have been able to and get published in 1927
anyway)--to call it unspeakable would have been too vaugue by
itself, but the last line is sufficient to give let the
reader know what was going on.
Max
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 Mar 2005 EST