I haven't enjoyed Ellroy's last two books (_American Tabloid_
and _My
Dark Places_), which I regard as the works of a conspiracy
nut and
minor-league pervert.
Ellroy's best work, the LA quartet, elevates the grand
conspiracy (think
"Dud Smith") as a central theme to a pinnacle of sorts. It
works because
it's set in an era and locale that no longer exist, if ever
they did --
though Ellroy's '40s and '50s LA do, however, fit the mold of
what we
*expect* in noir/hardboiled literature. When Ellroy wrote
_AT_, though,
he was venturing into the world of investigible history --
indeed,
highly investigated -- where it must needs fall flat.
Instead, _AT_ was
a work of almost science fiction, alternate history, the
province of
Harry Turtledove, which is almost pathetically comical. Sure,
the
writing is intense, sharp, almost supercharged -- and
wholly
unbelievable. To be honest, I should tell you that I'm what
Ellroy would
call a "dyed-in-the-wool right-wing square," and I believe
Lee Harvey
Oswald was a vicious crank acting alone (see Gerald Posner's
_Case
Closed_).
As for _My Dark Places, well, that was an embarrassing
revelation of a
panties-sniffing dope fiend. Yeah, he's pulled himself out of
it, at
least a short ways, but he sees (bills) himself as the
Calvinist/profligate spawn of hicktown drunk Geneva Ellroy.
_MDP_
strikes me as a sad exercise in ancestor worship, and what
Ellroy calls
"Calvinism" is really hyper-Calvinism, more akin to Islam and
fatalism
than anything else.
I think Ellroy is in serious danger of writing crackpot
conspiracy
literature. I think his next two books, detailing the lives
of "the bad
men of American history" as he calls them, 1963-68 and
1968-73, will
prove me right, but we'll have to wait and see. Listen to
(US)
late-night radio sometime and you'll see the huge market for
conspiracy
theories. Ellroy knows his market, and he somehow knows how
to move it
upscale enough to make it palatable to the likes of _Time_
magazine.
Otherwise, I enjoyed, for the most part, rereading
_Hollywood
Nocturnes_, hepcats.
I'm watching "Red Rock West" (on the USA Network) as I write
this, and I
highly recommend it as a modern-day noir thriller.
-- Ned Fleming # # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.