Knygatin Wrote:
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> Dale Nelson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > I'd say that I agree with Knygatin if his point
> is
> > that "bridges" are not automatically given a
> free
> > pass as qualifying as art -- which I think no
> one
> > was saying.
> >
>
>
> Then we would have a novel, or a story, with pages
> that interchange between fine literature and bad
> writing, between art and crap. No, I can't accept
> that. I don't want any such books on my shelves.
>
> Other words for "bridge" are "transport",
> "passage", "transit", or could be "filler",
> "padding". I understand that build-up is valuable,
> and also that between two intense scenes there
> needs to be a quieter moment or a different pace
> connecting them. But even quieter moments can be
> fine literature, written with subtle touch, it
> doesn't necessarily need to be intense.
>
> I just can't stand it when I feel that a writer
> relaxes his artistic efforts over a "bridge", and
> doesn't make it the best he possibly can. Reading
> mediocre literature bores me to death, it makes me
> cringe, makes me angry, and restless, wanting to
> tear the book apart.
In support of your point about an artistic transition from one scene dramatic action to another, there's this remarkable bridging passage in Raymond Chandler's "The Little Sister". He's driving from on place of action to another, at night...
Quote:The Little Sister:
I stepped out into the night air that nobody had yet found out how to option. But a lot of people were probably trying. They’d get around to it.
I drove on to the Oxnard cut-off and turned back along the ocean. The big eight-wheelers and sixteen-wheelers were streaming north, all hung over with orange lights. On the right the great fat solid Pacific trudging into shore like a scrubwoman going home. No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing. Here we go again. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe.
All right. Why should I be?…Who am I cutting my throat for this time? …All I know is that something isn’t what it seems and the old tired but always reliable hunch tells me that if the hand is played the way it is dealt the wrong person is going to lose the pot. Is that my business? Well, what is my business? Do I know? Did I ever know? Let’s not go into that. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe. Maybe I never was or ever will be…Maybe we all get like this in the cold half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right.
Now, wait a minute…You’ve got the wrong attitude, Marlowe. You’re not human tonight.
So then you end up at the next scene of dramatic action.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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