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THUNDER

                                  February 26, 2004


        "Why can't I say it straight out?  Why do all
        of us (you too!) pretend we think honest
        feelings are infra dig?  In the nineteen-twenties,
        when I was still young, a lot of people in the
        theatre began jeering that all the old plays
        were funny.  If you took a part with real guts
        in it, if you cut loose and gave it the works,
        they said you were funny too.  They tried to
        scare you with the word 'ham.'  And why?
        Because they couldn't do a part with guts in
        it, so they know they'd better not try.

        "The theatre's changed now, thank God.  Or at
        least it's changing.  Even then I thought,
        'To hell with this mealy-mouthed stuff.  Play
        it in the grand manner or don't play it at all.
        If a line's difficult, show you know your job
        by getting away with it ... "

                        "Desmond Ferrier", in John Dickson Carr's
                        _In Spite of Thunder_, p. 148
                        (c. 1960, set in 1956)


  Carr frequently expounded on subjects
  like this inside of his fiction; he was
  a defender of the tale of blood and
  thunder, and had many an unkind word for       I sometimes wonder
  effette intellectual pretensions.              though how he would
                                                 feel about this
  Russian novelists in                           issue today...
  particular get rough       RUSSIAN_PLOT
  treatement at his hands.                             The public has if
                                                       anything even
  The above exposition reflects what is                less patience for
  really good about Carr:  if you're going             intellectual
  to do it, do it like you mean it.                    affectation than
  Don't wink at the audience about how                 ever before.
  silly it all really is, take it seriously,
  do your best to "get away with it".                  They want action,
                                                       fight scenes,
     And Carr certainly                                fart jokes,
     could get away with it...                         special effects,
                                  CASTLE_SKULL         and plenty of naked
     Note that Carr was a man                          breasts, (or things
     who knew something about                          that sort of look
     the 1920s (that was when he                       like them).
     started writing):
                                                    In comparison, Carr's
     Interesting that the irony                     version of fiction
     vs. sincerity war has been                     with guts in it is
     going on this long...                          remarkably civilized
                                                    and restrained, full
   But then, even those                             of references to
   terrible Russian                                 obscure technical
   novelists had                                    literature about
   something to say                                 poisons, histories of
   about it:                                        London in the 1600s,
                                                    esoterica about
      "He spoke involuntarily in his                medieval Satan
       habitual half-bantering tone                 worshippers and so on.
       which seemed to make fun of
       those who said such things             BOOKSHELF_OF_CARR
       seriously; and in that tone
       it was impossible to say what                      Be careful what
       had to be said to her."                            you ask for...

          ANNA_KARENINA  (1878)
          part II, Ch XI, p135                            DOWN_WITH_KAEL
          (Karenin speaking to Anna)

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