I did not find hostility in your Ellroy comments, Brian. I
know many people for whom the book held no satisfaction,
& have heard remarks similar to yours before. Which is
good--taste doesn't exist when it comes to stds. anyway.
Where I DID find hostility was in your anti-intellectual "big
brain"/"Joyce" comments, whether intended or not. The sum
total implied that because you yourself did not find worthy
the authors you mentioned (think Tolstoy was in there too),
only "nerds" or "eggheads" (i.e., the
"big-brained") could do so. Which is offensive to me. But
that was then, this is now. Maybe you didn't mean what you
implied. Or maybe we're all characters in a round-robin
manuscript passed among Tolstoy, Joyce, Ellroy, and maybe
even Harry Stephen Keeler. Which would make us all the
puppets of the big-brained.
(Sounds like SF, no?) Best, Rob
--- Brian Thornton <
tieresias@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Robert Elkin wrote:
>
>
> > Thanks for the hostility, Brian.
Much
> appreciated.
>
> There was no hostility in my posting. My
comments
> were directed at what I
> disliked about Ellroy's work. This is nothing
new
> here. A search of the RA
> Archives will bear this out. Someone else
here
> mentioned that they felt
> that Ellroy got it exactly right with WHITE
JAZZ,
> but had descended into
> parody with his next book. My comments, while
more
> explicit about what I
> disliked, style-wise, were not so different
from
> that (I just felt that he
> descended into self-parody faster). Besides, like
I
> said, I thought THE
> BLACK DAHLIA was brilliant.
>
> Isn't disagreement a logical and
foreseeable
> by-product of discourse, and
> vice-versa? The last thing I'd expect anyone
on
> this list to do is to agree
> with all of my opinions on the books we're
talking
> about. Is it wrong to
> expect the full gamut of opinions to be
expressed
> here when a controversial
> author comes up for discussion? After all,
who
> wants to be involved in a
> book discussion list that is just one big
love-fest
> for whichever author is
> getting discussed? If I were looking for that,
I'd
> be motoring on over to
> one of those Oprah Book Club lists that must be
all
> over the net by now.
>
> No harm intended, and nothing personal.
>
> All the Best-
>
> Brian Thornton
>
>
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