With our second mystery, we move from the surreal river running through the dark continent to the surreal freeways running through sunny California. Same themes, same structure. In Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, our reluctant detective is Oedipa Mass, a California housewife whose name is our first hint at ...
Mystery #1 for Literary Snobs: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The topic of my last post on the Poisoned Pen Press blog was about the challenge of convincing literary snobs that there are indeed great works of literature that meet all criteria of that lowly genre known as Mystery. The 3 basic requirements of the genre (as more fully explained ...
Mysteries for Literary Snobs
Courtesy of Flickr Once upon a time, novels were just, well, novels. Pride and Prejudice was once just a novel, as were The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and The Woman in White. If first published this year, however, each would be slotted into one of the ...
Great Opening Lines: Thoughts from Other Fans
A few months back, I did a post on the greatest opening lines in literature. Since then, I've had a chance to sample through the thoughts of others on the subject. Below are some of my favorite pieces: Let's start with a fun post by Guy Dammann of the Times Literary Supplement and ...
“If You Build It, Hollywood Will Come”: More Thoughts on Movie Adaptations
It's simple Hollywood math: the most popular novel of the year--or even of the decade--has been read by just a fraction of the number of people who've seen the movie version of the novel. The subject of my last post was Mario Puzo's novel, The Godfather, and the Francis Ford ...
Some More Thoughts on Hollywood and the Novel
As I work on my next post for Poisoned Pen Press--"Mysteries for Literary Snobs"--I pause to return to our consideration of Hollywood adaptations of novels. While authors have long been happy to sell the motion picture rights in their novel, they tend to strike a condescending pose when asked about Hollywood. ...
End Game: The Art of the Closer
This is my sequel to my prior post on the Poisoned Pen Press blog. That one was on great opening lines in novels. This one is on great closing lines, including my five favorites. Enjoy!
The Perfect Ending: Hollywood v. the Novel, Part 3
And now for the third and final comparison of the closing scene in a major Hollywood movie with the closing scene in the novel on which it was based. Our focus today: The Maltese Falcon. The supposed last line of the movie version invariably makes those lists of Top Ten Greatest ...
The Perfect Ending? Hollywood versus the Novel, Part 2
Following up on my last post, here is a look at the closing scene of the second of three classic Hollywood movies and the closing lines of the novel on which it is based. While almost all of us have seen and can even recite lines from the 1939 MGM motion picture ...
The Perfect Ending? Hollywood Versus the Novel, Part 1
T.S. Eliot opened his poem "East Coker" with the line: "In my beginning is my end," and he closed it, "In my end is my beginning." I wrote about beginnings in my last Poisoned Pen Press blog post--specifically, the form and function of a great opening line to a novel. My ...
