As an academic, I have to wait till summer to do much
"recreational reading." Here are some reactions to books
recommended previously (and commented on earlier) by avians.
Apologies for not being able to join discussions when these
were hot topics.
Gores' CONTRACT NULL AND VOID (?)--not sure this title was
praised, but know there are some Gore fans on the list, and I
will now count myself one..with only a few misgivings, based
on this first read. Jumping from operative to operative
(DKA), from piece to piece of two basic mysteries plus two
less integrated operative episodes, is quite impressive, and
keeps an almost breathless pace. He exploits the jumps for
humor nicely, with tag lines to foreground the situational
parallels. I guess the humor is to alert us to the fact that
things will ultimately turn out alright for the most
sympathetic characters. Still, does he have to be so blatant
with the "nick of time" appearances that save those
characters? No deaths that hurt? But, I'll read on.
Lethem (sp?)MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN was rightly praised for its
uniqueness. A very satisfying plot resolution, to my mind.
Don't see a series coming out of the Tourette character,
however. His outbursts add instability to certain scenes, and
are quite funny, but I noticed that the verbal performance
tapered off in favor of action toward the end. ...which is to
say, there's no sense in trying to do a James Joyce if you've
got a plot in mind. So what should I read next?
Finally got a copy of Pelecano's RIGHT AS RAIN. As I
expected, the characters are solid, especially the Southern
crackers, the urban loners. I'm used to his structuring
through characters, so the jumps don't bother me as much as
they apparently do some readers. Tighter structure than
Gores, better cause-effect probability, seems to me. Only at
some points does the structure seem forced-- parallel sex
scenes for each of two major characters (do they achieve
climax at the same moment?)--,but mostly you don't notice the
writer working at it, which is how it should be (Hemingway
bias here). One can always depend on GP for a sense of a
period's music or film or sports, and I was glad he decided
to weave in the Westerns, both traditional and spaghetti this
time. Made me aware of a feature of Leone and Peckinpah
shootouts that Pelecanos seems to have made his own: the
moment(s) of peace or the quiet gesture of a code, even if
your opponent doesn't follow the code. The still exchange of
looks or the turning away, when things could escalate or
defuse.Effective in giving the sense that even violenthumans
can be human, a higher order than animals with
automatics.
Bill Hagen
billha@ionet.net
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