Blogger Blues

Blogger has been trying its best to keep me from posting today, but it appears to be cooperating again. For now, at least. So here goes.

Recently I've been reading James Lee Burke's Last Car to Elysian Fields. I've been a big fan of Burke's writing since I read a paperback copy of Lay Down My Sword and Shield around 30 years ago. But lately I find myself thinking that that he's overdoing the description bit. He does it so well that I don't really blame him, however. And there's another thing that bothers me. In reading Last Car and Bitterroot, I thought that there was a lot of sound and fury but not much of real consequence. Plenty of violent action, but not much else. And everybody in the book is screwed up beyond belief. Isn't anybody in Louisana anywhere near normal? While I'm carping, I'll also add that Last Car relies too heavily on the old deus ex machina or even what the Disney guys call "fairy dust" to help wrap things up. Or maybe I'm just a grumpy old man.