Mike,
In giving just the bare bones of the article, I guess I left
the wrong impression. The piece is part of a series in which
a well-known writer is asked to recommend three books on a
theme. This week's theme was inspired by the big heist in
England last week or the week before.
Latour is not indignant about violence in literature; in fact
he doesn't say that much about it, except "Most people
strongly repudiate violent crime, some to the point they
can't finish In Cold Blood."
He actually talks more about the contrast between fictional
and real-life crime. For instance, how in books/movies "the
robbers are nice, good-looking guys and the wronged ...
despicable bastards," with the result that "When a really
big, honest-to-goodness, multimillion-dollar caper takes
place, many of us experience both admiration and
discomfiture." To me it seems like he's saying that fictional
violence is minimized, if anything.
He concludes that most people enjoy books/movies where the
robbers get away with it, and may even root for real-life
thieves who get away without killing or injuring anyone. "But
when they learn about criminal ats in which innocent adults
or children are maltreated, tortured or murdered, they
resolutely side with the law. That is reassuring."
Then he ends with the question quoted below, which seems kind
of tacked on, somehow.
Karin
At 03:17 PM 12/03/2006 -0800, miker wrote:
>Karin Montin noted Latour's question:
>
>Have novelists, screenwriters and
directors
>excessively glorified and glamorized
crime?
>
>*****************
>Kind of makes it sound like a question of
a
>contemporary nature, doesn't it? It is.
Very
>fashionable nowadays to be indignant about violence
in
>literature. Violence, and lots of it, has been
a
>literary staple since its beginning.
>
>miker
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