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CHINESE_RED_SPACE

                                                    July 22, 2015

I had the strong feeling that the setting
of the novel "Chinse Red" was modeled on         CHINESE_RED
an actual building in New York's Chinatown:
there's a complex quality to the layout,
a sense that the author is struggling to        This is one of the
describe it in words without bogging things     few things I learned
down.                                           about writing
                                                fiction in my early,
                                                abortive attempts:
                                                Actual buildings don't
   There's one detail that the                  map to prose easily...
   author suprised me with --
                                                THE_MIST
        SPOILERS
                                                           SATANS_PLACE
   -- possibly because it was critical
   to the solution of the mystery:                            DIEHARD
   there's a staircase from a large
   balcony up to the roof.  I expect
   it's described somewhere early in the
   book, but I missed it, and I suspect
   the author was nervous about calling
   too much attention to it, and overdid        Similarly, it struck me
   the business of slipping it in but           as a difficulty that the
   downplaying it.                              murderer that has no
                                                distinctive character to
                                                speak of (and actually,
                                                his identity is already
                                                fading from my mind).
                                                There was no real reason
                                                it had to be him, so the
                                                problem is finally
                                                narrowed down to
                                                practical access to the
                                                murder weapon.



          A peculiar detail of the layout
          is there's this night club complex up
          on the top floors (hence the "balcony"),
          but down in the basement someone is
          working a tourist trap racket:

          A mock-up of an opium den, ala
          a was museum type deal.

                They bring people in from Times
                Square by bus to look at things
                like this...

                (Like I said: compared to it's
                contempt for tourists, there's       Though there's the
                very little prejudice in this        usual:
                book of any kind.)
                                                       HITE_OF_WISDOM



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