--"I was writing some strange shit. Some time before, I
didn't know when, my mind had rejected all reality as I had
known it and I had begun to see the world as a cesspool of
buffoonery. Even the violence was funny. A man gets his
throat cut. He shakes his head to say you missed me and it
falls off. Damn reality, I thought. All of reality was
absurd, contradictory, violent and hurting."
Good take on Chester Himes, Al. I think his view of the
absurd--in the Camus sense--is what's distinctive about the
Coffin Ed Johnson Grave Digger Jones books. My own humble
opinion is that the books were a kind of burlesque of the
Hammett (Spillaine) view of the world. But then, I'm usually
wrong in my opinions.
Con Lehane
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