Re: RARA-AVIS: Ellroy's L.A. Quartet

From: Kerry J. Schooley ( gsp.schoo@murderoutthere.com)
Date: 07 Feb 2006


Now that the ice has been broken, I'm going to follow into these frigid waters.

What you say about White Jazz, Tribe, I ditto. I first read Dick Contino's Blues (you can see the style developing there) and then White Jazz blew me away.

And I don't think it takes a big intellect to appreciate Ellroy (certainly not in my case) so much as patience. I remember reading that opening scene more than once to get into the rhythm and references, but it was worth it. There's a kind of a be-bop staccato that makes, I think, for the title and the poetry.

The gutter-life subject matter? Isn't this the side of life that noir and hardboil have always explored? Okay, different strokes and all that, but lately some on this list have begun to use the word "literary" as dismissively as the literary set once used the word "genre." I don't see the point in either case.

That said, I haven't been able to get more than 100 pages into The Cool Two Thousand. Or was it more than two thousand? That I can't remember indicates my level of interest. I don't put it down in disgust or anything. I just put it down and forget about it. And I've read nothing else Ellroy's written since that.

Dick Contino and White Jazz remain Ellroy's best, to me.

Best, Kerry

At 04:02 PM 07/02/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, I'm gonna take the plunge. White Jazz is a masterpiece. His stuff
>before Jazz almost seems amateurish in comparison. Ellroy's use of the
>language is virtually poetic...and that rat-a-tat voice takes hard-boiled
>prose and stretches it to its boundaries.
>
>Playing it safe is for the birds.
>
>Tribe
>
>
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><http://tribe.textdriven.com/blog>http://tribe.textdriven.com/blog
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