The City at Three P.M. by LaSalle Peter;

Author:LaSalle, Peter;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4555456
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2015-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

Conclusions?

Overall, the French do have an uncanny sense, as backed by a winning track record, in figuring out what we ourselves sometimes overlook and don’t realize is our significant writing, maybe just because we are too close to it. Though, to be honest, I think that some off their interests are often not that different from what we ourselves Stateside do take seriously and not so seriously. James Ellroy, popular here, is extremely popular in France even as writers of policiers go; he appeared on French TV when I was last in Paris, himself acting like an absurd parody of the hip, tough-guy detective novelist and using terms like “daddy-o” for the voiceover translation, which seemed like exactly what the French interviewer wanted to hear. As of this writing, my Parisian sources, who might be viewed as reliable handicappers in this competition, tell me that Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy, each with a following in France already and two of the very best fiction writers we have right now, which we ourselves generally acknowledge (except for the author of a confused, much-discussed Atlantic article some time ago, who with forced naiveté and shameless misreading thump-ingly bashed them, along with Auster), and they should turn up sooner or later on that sacred Agrégation, DeLillo most likely the sounder bet. One correspondent says that so-called Rocky Mountain fiction, by popular writers like Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane and their mostly Montana cohorts, has emerged as fashionable, but it certainly hasn’t yet generated attention like that afforded the Southern when it comes to American writing. In addition, it should be noted that the French make a real effort to translate so much American writing. I can’t stress enough that the authors I’ve concentrated on here as venerated to some extent are those who have been regularly studied and written about beyond simple newspaper, radio, and television reviews—of which there are still a lot in France—and it is amazing to see how much American fiction does get translated, especially considering how embarrassingly little of their work makes its way into our bookstores. And, again, concerning the matter of our neglected authors: Set aside for a moment the unchallengeable, beat-the-crowd celebration of Poe and Faulkner by the French, and for me merely the single truth that they created a classroom audience and in-depth study for a book like The House of Breath that it never really enjoyed in the man’s own country, where prevailing tastes and values are such that a wannabe literary maestro like the late James Michener—blatantly commercially oriented, in spite of his aspiration to be seen otherwise—once had his visage displayed on the side of those tan Barnes & Noble plastic shopping bags that have also featured greats like Joyce and Woolf, yes, the French honoring Goyen is enough for me to validate their taste, however strangely the system dictating it sometimes works. Believe me, if you haven’t read it, The House of Breath is that rare.

So for the moping, slighted novelist

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