NP Warlock (1959)

[Keith McMullen]

You typed in excerpts that were relevant to your inaccurate point and 
carefully omitted (sometimes mid-sentence) what supported what several 
of us are saying.

O'Brien says the movie is an "effective movie" which is "remarkable for 
its elaborate and unpredictable plotting." If that is the same as saying 
it is a "pretty good" movie, so be it. When I think something is 
remarkable, I never call it "pretty good," but I am an elitist.

O'Brien places Warlock as a forerunner to Larry McMurtry's _Lonesome 
Dove_ and Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_ , neither of which are 
"pulp westerns,"and one major point of the review is that, while Hall 
utilizes techiniques of the "pulp western," he is doing something new 
which transcends the "pulp western." There are many examples from the 
text itself illustrating this, but the last paragraph makes it crystal 
clear.

Most of the time I find jbor's readings spot on, but when he allows his 
own prejudices to distort a text's offerings, he will never cry uncle 
even when it is as obvious as hell, as it is in this case. He becomes 
the very thing he despises in others' readings.

Despite the disagreement, I do heartily agree that there is no need to 
apologise.

jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> Thanks Keith. I couldn't find that review on the web so only typed in 
> some of the excerpts which were relevant to the discussion, those 
> being (1) that O'Brien rates the movie as pretty good (which it is), 
> and (2) that the novel itself is in (and Oakley even situates it in) 
> the genre of pulp westerns. (And that Hall's dialogue clunks like 
> hell, which is part of what Pynchon and Farina liked so much about it.)
>
> That genre westerns are different from other types of "literature" is 
> stating the obvious, isn't it? Doesn't make them intrinsically 
> inferior though. Literary snobs can turn up their noses, but it's far 
> more accurate to say that _Warlock_ fits into the Zane Grey/Louis 
> L'Amour tradition rather than into the Dostoevsky/Joyce tradition.
>
> It's a good read, but does tend to get overrated here (e.g. "better 
> than Blood Meridian"), which sets up a false expectation.
>
> No need to apologise by the way.
>
> best
>
>