Mamet on Patrick O'Brian

[Derek C. Maus]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, David Mamet, quoted by Doug Millison wrote:

> ...as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has
> outlived Charles Reade. God bless the straightforward writer, and God bless
> those with the ability to amuse, provoke, surprise, shock, appall."

While I can sympathize with and almost agree with the rest of what Mamet
said in this quote, how on earth does he manage to lump Twain in among
"the straightforward" writer. Not to whack on Mamet (another list, another
time, perhaps...), but shit, David, have you read anything other than "The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"? The later stuff that Twain
wrote is "straightforward" only if you use Proust and Pound as your
counterweights. I mean, come on..."The Mysterious Stranger" and
"straightforward" do not coexist easily for me. Hell, Huck Finn and
"straightforward" don't coexist easily for me, for that matter.

I'm also not real clear on why a non-"straightforward" writer would not
have the abilities that the quoted D.M. (not the quoting D.M. nor the
currently-writing D.M.) enumerates...

Shooting the message, not the messenger...

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Derek C. Maus               | "My fondest hope is to die at the hands
dmaus at email.unc.edu         |   of a murderer. In America, the truly 
UNC-CH, Dept. of English    |       famous are always murdered."
http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  |                   --Quentin Crisp
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