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Oh, I agree that "The Braille Encyclopedia" is far from a perfect work, having some deficiencies in the plot department, and striving for a lushness of language that is simply beyond its grasp.
My point, though, is simply that different ends require different means, and that one stylistic approach is not appropriate to all types of stories: "The Braille Encyclopedia" as written in the style of Raymond Carver would be hilarious, and not in a good way. All the qualities that Carver brought to his work--austerity, harsh wisdom, quiet humanity--would be all wrong for what is essentially a blood-and-thunder phantasmagoria, equal parts Clive Barker and the Marquis de Sade.
"The Braille Encyclopedia" is not a quote-unquote "literary," this-is-the-way-we-live-now story: it's a horror story. Genre fiction must be judged by different rules than "literary" fiction (at least, genre fiction that makes no attempt to surmount its genre, and I believe "The Braille Encyclopedia" does not): the characters can be grotesques, the prose can be iffy, the style can be decalrative rather than demonstrative--all of these considerations are subordinate to the overall effect.
I have not read "The Braille Encyclopedia" in well over ten years, but the imagery of its final paragraphs is burned into my brain. In the intervening years I have read countless stories that were doubtless better-written, but right now I cannot recall a single one. |
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