--- Jack Bludis <
buildsnburns@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's not the writing that makes a story or an
author
> memorable, it's the story, the novel.
Sometimes
> images
> enhance a work, but if it doesn't tell a story?
What
> good
> is it?
Jack,
This is the same argument that gets made in music: It's the
singer, not the song. There are so many exceptions and
contradictions to the premise you're working from as to make
it more distracting than convincing. For example, Joyce's
Ulysses pretty much has no story or the story it tells relies
on a myth that is woven into the text. It is the writing of
that story that makes it brilliant whether it's your cuppa or
not. Marquez's Hundred Years of Solitude is another obvious
example. The way that tale was crafted, its style, its pace,
the whole deal was in the writing. Chandler is all style
since by the end of the book even he can't remember who
killed whom and it can leave an unsatisfied taste in the
mouth. Right now I'm trying to get through a book by Ross
McDonald and I wish he would show some style or give me a
story because right now there isn't much of either. So I
think it is both and always both even if sometimes it seems
to be one over the other.
William
Essays and Ramblings
<http://www.williamahearn.com>
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