Naah, Buzz Meeks is no ultra-bad. He's the closest to the
hard-boiled
archetype in the whole novel. Tough, unstoppable, with an
ineluctable
code of honor.
At first I was a little put off by Ellroy's constant PoV
switching,
wondering when we were going to get a closeup on the killer,
ࠬa _Red
Dragon_, but that never came. In the end, it all works back
to Buzz
Meeks, who drove off knowing the whole story, our ostensible
conduit for
transmission of the tale, just like Conrad's _Lord Jim_ where
all the
bits of narrative can be traced down to the teller. Lesnick,
the
killer's psychiatrist conduit, is the weakest link, but by
the time we
get round to him in the closing pages we readers are too
hungry for the
gory details to begredge Ellroy that minor leap in
plausible
transmission.
Such a pity narratology has fallen out of style. Hardboiled
fiction
offers such meaty material for it.
Cheers, --- Phil
Lyc饠Astier, Aubenas, France
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