Re: willeford RE: RARA-AVIS: recent reads

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 22 Jan 2010

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    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "James Michael Rogers" <jeddak5@...> wrote:
    >
    > That's funny. I'm very much a mainstream literature guy and I think Woolrich writes quite well. The only HB guy I cn think of who actually has good style, in the Gibbon sense, is maybe Hammett. Even Faulkner wasn't there, but you rarely hear Faulkner sneered at as a "bad writer" even though, as a stylist, he certainly was.
    >
    > James
    >

    Huh? In what sense was he a bad stylist? What is "good style in the Gibbon sense"? And what does Gibbon have to do with anything?

    I find the idea that there is writing and then there is "prose" rather funny. Spanish critics, for example, have this fixation with guys who have "good prose", by which they mean indigestible, long-winded nineteenth-century style -- as a consequence, they tend to miss almost all the good new writers and praise many mediocre ones.

    Best,

    mrt



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