I've read "Nick's Trip" halfway through (it was the only
Pelecanos in Turku city library besides "The Sweet Forever"
and that wasn't available) and have been slightly
disappointed. I understand the meaning of telling about
Stefanos's relationships, but I'm bored with them. I don't
mean that there should action instead, but if I want a
sitcom, I rather sit and watch it on TV than read it from a
hardboiled novel! I mean it's vital for the genre that the
characters' normal lives are described since everyone,
including P.I's, has a normal life, but it's a bit boring.
But the masturbation scene was mildly funny. But does it
relate with the story? There's always something nagging in my
head when I read stuff like this (Burke, Crumley, Muller,
Howard Engel) that the book isn't *deep* enough to be really
interesting on this level, that the accounts of the persons'
everyday lives isn't good enough. There should be something
else. I don't know what it is - maybe I'm thinking about
writers like William Thackeray, who describes the whole epoch
through the lives of five or six different persons. There is
so much more in that stuff than in the petty masturbating
stuff that the so called hardboiled writers now provide us
with.
Just my thoughts, like someone said.
Juri
jurnum@utu.fi
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