Posted by Russell Letson on November 16, 1996 at 19:06:29:
In Reply to: Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence posted by Philby on September 20, 1996 at 09:24:13:
At the risk of being thought obscure, if not incompetent:
The adjective "picaresque" generally applies to the story;
the [anti]hero is the "picaro." A story's milieu or world
can also be called "picaresque." Picaresque stories are
generally episodic rather than single-plot in structure,
and feature "low" (in both the moral and social senses)
characters. There are elements of the picaresque in many
early novels (Tom Jones, for example), as well as
road movies (including the Hope-Crosby series).
As the other posters have indicated, much of Vance's
work is immediately recognizable as belonging to the
picaresque tradition.
If I seem to go on, chalk it up to the years I spent
teaching college English.