The Virtue of Suspense: The Life and Works of Charlotte ArmstrongAssociated University Presse, 2008 - 180 pagine "Does experiencing a suspenseful situation allow one to develop virtue?" "The suspense writer, Charlotte Armstrong (1905-69), no doubt believed that it could. In her works she implied the benefits of experiencing suspense by illustrating the rhetorical benefits of resolving it ethically or virtuously. Thus, in their dealings with other characters, her protagonists discover a virtuous approach to resolving suspense that involves an expanded view of the language one uses and the perspective one adopts." "After writing a number of theatrical plays, Armstrong began writing mysteries - whodunits - and then, at the advice of her literary agent, changed directions. She began writing suspense stories so that her readers, if not the other characters, would know the identity of the villain. This move left her free to focus on how one creates suspense and to what end." "Her shift in focus coincided with the family's move from New Rochelle, NY, to Glendale, CA, in the mid 1940s in time for Armstrong to absorb the elements of suspense in the new genre of film noir. Nonetheless, while informed by film noir, Armstrong's work is set in the everyday, the commonplace, where with one simple action, a series of events are set into motion that keep readers in high suspense." "In Armstrong's correspondence, one observes the lucrative market of women's magazines and newspapers for serialized novels and short stories, the painful bottom line of publishing houses, the diplomatic skills of literary agents toward their authors, the advent of television and its markets for, and marketing of, literary works, and the ever-present and ever-elusive offers from the film industry." "This book seeks to understand Armstrong's contribution to popular fiction through an exploration of her childhood diaries, her adult correspondence, her published and cinematic works, the reviews of those works, and the recollections of her agent, children, and grandchildren. What emerges is the portrait of a writer whose determination, curiosity, analytic mien, and ideas about humanity shaped her writing in ways that fascinated her critics and readers, a fashion that perhaps unconsciously recognized the virtue of suspense in her written works."--BOOK JACKET. |
Sommario
27 | |
To Dare To Challenge 192545 | 47 |
Jumping Off a Precipice 194651 | 59 |
To Cut To Control The Sirens Call 195259 | 89 |
Suspense in the Commonplace 196069 | 121 |
Parole e frasi comuni
Albatross Alexander Woolcott Alfred Hitchcock Alma Pritchard Anthony Boucher anxiety April Armstrong Collection Armstrong to Baumgarten Armstrong to Brandt August Bernice Baumgarten Better to Eat Black-Eyed Stranger Book Review Brandt Agency Brandt to Armstrong buying power Carl Brandt characters Charlotte Arm Charlotte Armstrong Charlotte's Chicago Chocolate Cobweb Corder Coward-McCann dollars Dram of Poison Dream Walker Edgar Award editor Ellery Queen's Mystery Ellis Amburn experience fiction film film noir folder 13 Frank Frank Armstrong genre Gerrig girl going Hollywood Ibid Innocent Flower Jack Lewi January Jerry Lewi July Knew a Fellow Less than Kind letter Lewi family literary lives March Mischief movie murder Mystery Writers narrative Nona Nonetheless October Papa play plot produced protagonist published Queen's Mystery Magazine Ray Stark readers reading response rhetoric Richard Gerrig Saturday Evening Post Seven Seats short stories Spig television thing tion White mss writing York Yorker young