08-28-2013, 10:32 AM
I've tried Spillane a couple of times but he's never grabbed me. I find his prose a bit amateurish and pulp-y in the bad way. Maybe I'm just not macho enough to get it
I've never read Zola or Siddartha
As you I know I like Bukowski, though his posturing can grate on me at times. He could be a bit too generous with how he painted himself through his alter-ego, Chinaski. I also loved Agatha Christie as a kid, and she was shit at dialogue. One critic described it as being like tinnitus to the ear. Also, her detective stories lacked much texture - whereas one writer might take a page to describe a library, Christie would be content to say "the library was big" - but then she turned out a book a year, roughly, and her appeal was her plots, so that was understandable.
I've never read Zola or Siddartha As you I know I like Bukowski, though his posturing can grate on me at times. He could be a bit too generous with how he painted himself through his alter-ego, Chinaski. I also loved Agatha Christie as a kid, and she was shit at dialogue. One critic described it as being like tinnitus to the ear. Also, her detective stories lacked much texture - whereas one writer might take a page to describe a library, Christie would be content to say "the library was big" - but then she turned out a book a year, roughly, and her appeal was her plots, so that was understandable.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe