RARA-AVIS: Re: Vian and America

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 09 Dec 2008

  • Next message: jacquesdebierue: "RARA-AVIS: Re: Vian and America"

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "m23to53" <library.john@...> wrote:
    >
    > One example I remember was an early title by Jeffrey Archer, cannot
    > remember the title for the moment, but it was set in Washington DC.
    > It seems he used out of date guide books and I read that there was a
    > competition to spot the most mistakes - believe the number of errors
    > spotted was over 50. And that's a best selling author, not someone
    > churning out quick fiction.
    >

    There is plenty of that, to be sure, even when a guy from a region writes about another region of his own country... But I was referring more to the music: quite apart from semantics and lexical differences, language is music... and the ear quickly detects whether something is NOT jazz, so to speak. For example, part of the immense appeal in Cormac McCarthy is his authenticity of ear. Even in his most convoluted works, the ear registers uninterrupted jazz. Same with Faulkner. It doesn't mean that every Southerner talks like McCarthy or Faulkner, but that these writers practice the genuine musical genre.

    Best,

    mrt



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