The Big Book of Noir? Get it, get it, get it! It's
fantastic!
I'd add to Etienne's comment the names of some of the
contributors; Etienne
himself, the other previously mentioned Rare-Birds Bill
Crider and Robert
Skinner, and a few other suspicious characters, such as Bill
Pronzini,
James Sallis, Jon Breen, Mike Ripley, Maxim Jakubowski, Max
Collins, Ron
Goulart, Leigh Brackett, Ed Gorman, Lee Server, William Nolan
and Stephen
King. Like, nobody anybody here has ever heard of,
right?
My one gripe is that the original sources aren't listed. I
think I
recognize a few of the articles, but it would be nice to know
where they
originally appeared, even if the copyright has reverted to
the author.
THUMBS DOWN
As for Dora, I too, was rather unimpressed. I did manage to
finish it,
though. The violence didn't bother me so much as the fact
that I really
didn't care what happened to anyone in this strangely
lifeless book.
Mark's comment that
>Raymond's is a different writing style than much
hardboiled, kind of a
>degree zero writing, very matter of fact, little or no
engagement. This
>is particularly evident in Raymond's reading of the
book, which is very
>monotonic and reserved British sounding.
is right on the money. After all the raves, and all the folks
telling me
I'd love this book, I just didn't get it. It was possibly
the
least-engaging book I've read in years.
Both Dashiell Hammett and Joseph Hansen write in a rather
dry, detached
style, but their books become hard to put down, as the story
warms up. You
end up wanting to know what happens. In Raymond's book, I
didn't
particularly care, and after a while, I found it hard to pick
up. Degree
zero is right.
No doubt this was the writer's intention, and in that, he
succeeded. And,
according to an interview I read,considering how much disdain
he had for
the general reading public, he probably wouldn't have wanted
massive
popular success, either. He succeeded in that, too.
Just my opinion.
**************************************************
Kevin Smith
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
This month: New fiction by Terry White and Henry Mazel,
and Stand-Alone Private Eye Novels
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