Ken Houghton
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1 year ago
in Number 55,384 With A Bullet on newcritics
Sorry for the brain short-circuit; was thinking of the co-screenwriter of To Have and Have Not, of course.
1 year ago
in Number 55,384 With A Bullet on newcritics
Pleasantville, home of Reader's Digest and neighboring town of the Clintons, is a fine place to be.
Writers also cannot protect their writing from editors, proofreaders, copyeditors, typesetters, designers, and cover artists (all of whom, it should be noted, also are professionals doing their job). It's why the co-screenwriter of Winter Carnival spoke of "creat[ing] out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before."
Not all inventions are used as they were originally intended. The creation is none the less.
Writers also cannot protect their writing from editors, proofreaders, copyeditors, typesetters, designers, and cover artists (all of whom, it should be noted, also are professionals doing their job). It's why the co-screenwriter of Winter Carnival spoke of "creat[ing] out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before."
Not all inventions are used as they were originally intended. The creation is none the less.
1 year ago
in Even Nobel Laureates Get the Blues on newcritics
Steinbeck has been out of favor for a long time. (Bradbry's "The Parrot Who Knew Papa" has him describe Steinbeck as "Finished last in the league.")
His prose is as painful as Hawthorne's, and eliding "the repetition and the melodrama, and the often clumsy ways set pieces are pushed into place" is not exactly a setup for praise.
He hits brilliant notes but rarely presents a complete symphony. (His social effect surely deserves to be credited, as greg in ak noted.)
In fact, if there is anyone today who is his successor, it's probably Stephen King (who I would certainly prefer to DFW for the Nobel; then again, I might be willing to make an argument for Lonesome Dove as a seminal work of American literature).
His prose is as painful as Hawthorne's, and eliding "the repetition and the melodrama, and the often clumsy ways set pieces are pushed into place" is not exactly a setup for praise.
He hits brilliant notes but rarely presents a complete symphony. (His social effect surely deserves to be credited, as greg in ak noted.)
In fact, if there is anyone today who is his successor, it's probably Stephen King (who I would certainly prefer to DFW for the Nobel; then again, I might be willing to make an argument for Lonesome Dove as a seminal work of American literature).