“They Say The Fucking Smog Is The Fucking Reason You Got Such Beautiful Fucking Sunsets.”

Andrew Nugent is an interesting man, being a crime fic writer and a monk in Glenstal Abbey, and he had something interesting to say while reviewing Brian McGilloway’s BLEED A RIVER DEEP on the Op-Ed pages of the Irish Times during the week. Quoth Brother Nugent:

“I was so surprised at the frequency of the F-word that I began counting from page 168. From that point there were 55 sightings. Whatever about what real people do or do not say, with such glorious resources of vituperation available to us – especially in Irish – why repeat so obsessively these Anglo-Saxon grunts?”

  Now, the problem with insulting someone in Irish – as gaeilge – is that very few people are going to be offended, unless of course it’s the Irish-speaking few you’re trying to offend ...
  As for the Anglo-Saxon grunts – as Brother Nugent points out, this is how real people speak in the real world, particularly when they’re under pressure, which is how characters in crime fiction tend to be, particularly as the end of a novel approaches. So it’s possible to argue that an author who aspires to realism has no choice but to use foul language, and particularly ‘fuck’, that gloriously adaptable noun / verb/ adverb / adjective.
  You could also argue that foul language has its own poetry, and that there’s a rare joy to be had in reading a master of the profane (cf: the post title, courtesy of Ray Barboni, in the movie version of Elmore Leonard’s GET SHORTY).
  You could also say, ‘Fuck it, I just like the word “fuck”.’ Personally, I also like “shite”, “cunt”, “bollocks” and “me arse”.
  As always, I blame the parents …

Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: If Music Be The Food Of Love, Eat On

We don’t know John Connolly (right, in a manner of speaking). Never met the guy, and with the exception of Critical Mick – the exception to every rule, including the rule of exception – we don’t know anyone who has. So why do we love JC so and want to have his Charlie Parker-shaped babies? Because he spaketh thusly to Mojo magazine: “What I love is that people would come up to me and say I went out and bought a Go-Betweens album after hearing them on your CD. You feel like you’ve done some good in the world.” To those not in the know, The Go-Betweens are the finest band ever to come out of the Southern Hemisphere, and rival only The Tindersticks in the tiny little hearts of the Crime Always Pays elves. Anyhoo, moving on … to yet another John Connolly interview! In the New Zealand Herald, no less! Crikey, worse than Uncle Travelling Matt Fraggle, that lad … Anyway, less of the Connolly jive, more of other writers wibbling on about the page-blackening process. To wit, Jason Starr’s funkadelic take on the writer’s choice of POV, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, and Brad Kelln’s so-crazy-it-might-just-work plot to conquer the free world by publishing a free novel on the free interweb and taking readers along for the free ride, for free. How cool is that? Almost as cool as Ray Barboni from Miami, seen below teaching Gene Hackman a thing or nineteen about hoodlum protocol … the most important rule being that you never say, “Look at me, Ray,” to Ray Barboni. And that’s it for another week, folks – be sure and drop by again next week, y’all.