I'm eager to try SAVAGES based on recommendations here and elsewhere
but I'm thinking I might have to give BOBBY Z. Another chance too -- I
started it years ago and absolutely hated it. Maybe I just wasn't in
the mood for the levity. It reminded me in tone of Willards DOWN ON
THE PONCE except I loved that book.
I liked THE ZERO too -- the narrative delivered a disorientation that
was very credible. I think the previous time I encountered such an
effect was in the first part of the final Lew Griffin novel by Sallis
-- there was a section there where Lew didn't really know what was
going on but it crept up on you until Lew is admitting he is confused.
I heard Bowden on a CBC radio interview talking about Murder City and
meant to pick it up as a result, but since I was driving I forgot to
follow up. He was a very compelling speaker and the thing he
described were surreal. The interview is at:
http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20100414.shtml
Finally, on the subject of the original thread that restarted
activity on Rara-Avis; I blame smartphones for the drop in traffic.
They are okay for reading mail, but what a pain to write more than a
sentence or two. At least that's my excuse.
--Stewart
On Tuesday, July 13, 2010, David Corbett <davidcorbettauthor@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm reading Savages now and am blown away. Power of the Dog -- the only DW I'd read so far -- didn't prepare me for such a fun, savvy rip of a book. He mixes a tight, fast, witty style to a depth of understanding about crime and criminals that nobody else can match, imho. He's like a jocular Ellroy -- every bit as twisted but he doesn't get sucked down the rabbit hole into total blackness. He understands that good may not win out always and forever but it doesn't get annihilated either, at the same time he so easily sees the duplicity in human nature in clear relief. The book is just an amazingly good time, and I don't want to do much else but read it.
>
> This makes me blown away twice in just a week or so, because I read Jess Walter's The Zero over the July 4th vacation and found it staggering. Again, a great mix of tight, fast-paced prose mixed with wit and a savage understanding of human nature, but incredibly smart with a narrative conceit I've never seen before -- call it a reliably unreliable narrator. Kind of a Catch 22 for the war on terror.
>
> Also reading a work of non-fiction that is so surreal, by necessity, it almost reads like fiction: Murder City, by Charles Bowden, about Ciudad Juarez. Reads like a poem about hell by somebody who managed to escape.
>
> All 3 highly recommended.
>
> David
> www.davidcorbett.com
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
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>
>
>
>
-- Stewart Wilson Toronto, ON
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