Dead & Buried (Patricia Cornwell in general)

Member Name: amygdala

Product:	Patricia Cornwell in general
Date:	20/08/00 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More proof that what America mindlessly worshipped the day before yesterday, we even more mindlessly worship today.

Disadvantages: We need more proof?

In popular writing, as elsewhere in the arts, there's a simple but highly useful formula: quality(x) = 1/hype(x). That is, the quality of a writer is inversely proportional to the hype he or she receives. Where x=Patricia Cornwell, the formula predicts that her writing, which is hyped to high heaven, should stink to high heaven too.

And it does, by Æsclepius it does. She writes the way a fish farts: to no visible effect. Except boredom and incredulity, that is. In fact, I nearly wound up on a pathologist's slab myself after sampling her first novel, because my jaw dropped so low and so fast it nearly crushed my trachea. But to call her prose leaden would make me guilty of the same sin as she is so often guilty of: that is, using words weakly and unimaginatively and without much regard for precise meaning. Her prose isn't like lead, it's like iridium or tantalum, which are MUCH heavier. If one of the serial killer and psychopaths who swarm thru her books did to a human being what what she does to the English language even her readers might find it offputtingly cruel and sadistic.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It is easy to be observant retrospectively. But most people don't pay that much attention to every detail of their residences, especially to rooms scarcely used." (Post-Mortem, chapter 1)

A millipede would find that pedestrian, and maybe America should drop the death penalty and make murderers have to read all of her books instead, straight thru without stopping. Then if anyone murdered anyone else you'd KNOW they were completely insane and unable to foresee the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately the Constitution would almost certainly disallow it as as cruel and unusual punishment. Vomiting your life away after a dose of cyanide gas? Fine. Sizzling for half-an-hour on the electric chair? No problem. Being forced to read a Patricia Cornwell novel? Hey, nobody -- but NOBODY -- deserves that.

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