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TAKEN_LIGHTLY
May 13, 2003
About the Elliot Paul No relation to "The Red
book, "The Black and the Black", I'm sure.
and the Red" (1956).
RED_ON_BLACK
This is another entry in the
Homer Evans series that
includes such classics as
"Murder on the Left Bank" and
"The Mysterious Mickey Finn"...
One gets the sense that
he was trying to keep
up with Hjalmer shot
for shot while writing
this one. Paul has an odd way of
repetitiously bringing
For example, there's this up funny hats again and
bit where he's talking to again:
Kid Unamuno over
walkie-talkie, so they "so says Scott Jordan,
use theatrical script the freak who can
style in a bold typeface. detect pipssisewa, but
knows not of vino..."
Then later on, he's
hanging around talking to These become an almost
Miriam and for no reason musical refrain.
the narration shifts into
the same style. It's reminiscent
of fairy tales,
Throughout the book the which are Actually, it's
narrator seems to be using a after-all reminiscent of
very odd high-falutin/ ostensibly Homer...
intellectual tone, as though designed for
it's narrated by Homer Evans the young and FORBIDDEN_PLANET
himself, a more flowery Homer slow on the
Evans, speaking about himself uptake.
in the third person. 13CLOCKS
What's even odder is when (As opposed to
different random characters "best-sellers"
suddenly start speaking this which are for the
way also, including random old and slow...)
spear-carriers.
In one bit, we have a sand-rat
prospector begin discoursing
learnedly about the expected
density of rattle-snakes in
Nevada, in much the way you would
expect Evans to do, except that
the sand rat uses a heavy sand
rat accent to do it in.
How does Homer Evans talk?
He's supposed to be a cosmopolitan
intellectual, a gastronomic expert,
a genius-level detective.
He's inclined to lecture a bit,
in a discursive way, with a "Ossip's disregard for rules or
calm, indolent, philosophical principles is Ossip's major
attitude. fault, his Achilles heel," Homer
said. "Anarchists have many
HIPSTERISM more accidents than their
statistical share." p. 214
The narrative Voice:
Chapter one:
"The Rosy-Fingered Dawn Vies with Neon Signs":
"When the goddess Aurora, harbinger of light
and easy transition to activity of day-faring
beasts and the less fortunate of men, took
her initial peep over ancient foothills and Clear reference
noticed Las Vegas, Nevada, one fair Friday in to (satire of?)
November, A.D. 1954, she was more pleased Homer, if not
than indignant. True, the neons were blazing Homer Evans...
in most of the hues and colors God overlooked
in His primitive spectrum. Gamblers,
prospectors, tourists, Indians, hoods,
wheels, business magnates, show people, hotel
folk, beauties, bums and a sprinkling of
citizens (and most of those asleep in
ordinary beds) but enough to supply the weird
ensemble with officials, clerks, services,
articles and a civic background, were tooting
and convoluting in and around de-luxe palaces
of chance and proletarian hangouts for the
lower brackets. So in those parts, Aurora,
with her tinted clouds, her scented hush and
stillness, her subtle crescendo of natural
light, which elsewhere served to warn people,
fauna and flora of an impending day, for
better or for worse, had quite another
function. Dawn, in short, was but a warning
signal, scarcely noticed by the losers and
not much more by the winners, or those who
were even, on dead center for the moment."
There we go, right from the outset,
and it only barely lets up throughout.
This is evidently a light-weight,
frivolous comedy, and one might ask
why I can read it at all, because
I often hate this kind of thing.
In the world of "The Black and the Red",
our heroes constantly wink at death.
They barely blink at the bullet that
puncturers a hat-- or the return fire DEEP_BLUE
that kills the would-be killer.
Evans doesn't panic when a friend is taken
hostage, and reacts so calmly that his other
friends begin to wonder what's wrong with
him (but it turns out that All Is Under Control).
Tragedy is supposedly uplifting
and Comedy is deflating, but
that is not the experience of
reading a book like this.
The sense that nothing matters
much can be paralyzing ("Oh, why
bother?"), but it can also be
energizing:
What are you worried about?
Might as well dive into the fray.
Lets get some action around here.
Could there be a serious
thrust underneath the
frivolity?
Light "escapist"
fiction? But it
isn't about
running away. Another way I've said this:
It can't be said to be I intensely dislike
realistic, but that the philosophy of
doesn't mean that it's "escape fiction":
not addressing something it's very clear to
real... it projects an me that fiction (no
attitude toward life. matter how
apparently
"Escape" doesn't "light-weight") is
really describe about approaches to
it. "Engagement" life, not running
is closer. away from it.
Retreating to
counter-attack? FORGET_PLAY
"From such unliterary oaks, acorns of romance
bud, develop and, devil take the arrangement,
eventually drop, if the squirrels do not get
them first."
p. 173
"Since Hjalmar got started first, let us first
spy on him in that miraculous way our Father
in Heaven has granted us, I mean, through the
gift of a writer to be omnipresent,
omniscient and invisible, and that of the
reader, if he is worthy enough, to catch the
drift of prose, and supply the predicate of
appreciation to the writer's subject of
inspiration. None of this is to be taken
lightly, if at all."
p. 183
Indeed.
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