From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com   
      
   "ROBBIE"  wrote in message   
   news:A96dnbbfna0uFW_YnZ2dnUVZ8seinZ2d@bt.com...   
   >   
   > "Martha Bridegam"  wrote in message   
   > news:eEFHh.7798$re4.5808@newssvr12.news.prodigy.net...   
   >   
   >>   
   >> Maybe this is a more interesting idea phrased as a general question: does   
   >> a book, to be well written, have to stay at a consistent level of realism   
   >> throughout?   
   >   
   >   
   > Well I think realism can be a bit overrated at times. Not that I'm much up   
   > for magic realism and all that bollox. When Nigel N read a draft of my   
   > latest romance he objected to these two passages:   
   >   
   > At a party where someone's been shot:   
   >   
   > 'They both went downstairs into a mist of smoke and overpowering din of   
   > music. John noticed the spots of blood from the fashion designer's wound   
   > in the hallway. A policeman idly rolled a joint as someone shouted a   
   > statement in his ear.'   
   >   
   >   
   > And this, outside a shop, looking at its logo:   
   >   
   >   
   >  'I don't like it,' said John, 'it looks a bit poncy.'   
   >  He felt a sharp tap on his back. Turning, he found himself facing a   
   > mean-looking policeman wearing a fluorescent tabard, holding a long stick   
   > and on whose waist jangled the paramilitary appurtenances of postmodern   
   > law enforcement.   
   >  'What did you say?' he demanded with brute authority.   
   >  'I said it looked a bit.poncy.'   
   >  The last word of the sentence was obliterated by the sound of a bottle   
   > thrown at a passing car smashing on its passenger window. The policeman   
   > repeated his question. John answered.   
   >  'You do realise that's a potential hate crime against homosexuals?' the   
   > policeman said nastily, in the archetypal accent and inflection of a   
   > London copper.   
   > 'Come off it,' said John, who was half-drunk. He turned to seek Gimmick's   
   > support but he'd disappeared into the crowds with Tina.   
   >  'He didn't mean it like that,' said Amanda.   
   >  'How do you know what he meant? Are you inside his head?'   
   >  People drunkenly pushed past them.   
   >  'No, but I know that he wasn't being hateful towards homosexuals.'   
   >  'Intcha read any Michel Foucault?' asked the policeman, raising his radio   
   > to his lips.   
   >  'A bit,' said John.   
   >  '2-1,' said the policeman into his radio. 'Got section   
   > six-three-nine-two-four here. Back up needed.' The policeman looked at   
   > John again. 'Foucault was a post-structuralist, basically. The   
   > structuralists believed that the individual is shaped by linguistic,   
   > sociological and psychological structures over which he has little   
   > control. In that respect I have sympathy for you. That's my Derrida   
   > sympathies coming out as well. But the law is the law - even though a   
   > final and definitive interpretation of it is, by Derrida's standards,   
   > impossible. However, it isn't my job to interpret the law - that is a   
   > magistrates' job.'   
   >  A large shaven-headed man in a football kit swiped the policeman's helmet   
   > off and danced around with it for a bit.   
   >  'This guy here is responding to certain pathological deep structures,'   
   > said the policeman calmly, indicating the man. 'But at the same time, he,   
   > unlike you, is not indulging or promulgating prejudice or bigotry to   
   > sexual, racial or gender differences, know what I mean?'   
   >  'Isn't he making you look foolish though?' asked John.   
   >  'A righteous thing to do in many ways,' said a second policeman who had   
   > just got out of a flashing and squawking patrol car; 'a subversion of the   
   > hegemonic debate and all that.'   
   >  'Gramsci,' beamed the first policeman by way of explanation. The second   
   > policeman retrieved the first policeman's helmet. 'Come on,' he said,   
   > 'leave this - a barman called someone a 'wop' at the Cod's Eye.'   
   >   'Did he? Right,' said the first policeman. He turned to John and raised   
   > his finger to the sign: 'remember what we discussed.'   
   >  The patrol car squealed away. John and Amanda walked on quickly, hoping   
   > to catch Gimmick and Tina up. The crowds seemed uglier. Someone threw a   
   > petrol bomb at a tram and it rumbled past with a slather of flames   
   > discolouring the advertising on its side. Inside, people stared placidly   
   > through the windows.   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   > Now the realistic novel forbades both. But I want them to make points in   
   > an amusing way. 'Reality' SLIPPED, as Orwell said about Tropic of Cancer,   
   > 'but not so much that it turns into Mickey Mouse' *   
      
   ROBBIE   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)