> Rene: I know you can't stand The Cold Six Thousand,
thinking about
Suicide
> Hill got me wondering what you think of other Ellroy
books. If you've
gone
> on at length on this already, let me know and I'll
give the archives
another
> once over.
> Chris
Actually, aside from my, probably over-documented by now,
dislike of THE COLD 6K I don't think I've said much about him
here. I've always been a little ambivalent about his stuff
but overall I very much liked the LA 1950's series, BLACK
DAHLIA etc. I had reservations about his writing style then
because I felt that the pseudo-beat type style masked some
fairly poor writing skills, IMO. What I mean is, I often
found myself wondering what Ellroy was saying, who was doing
or saying what to whom & I decided it wasn't my lack of
mental equipment but rather Ellroy's clumsiness in style that
would lead to the ambiguity. Of course, given the type of
literature I read & love, stylistic clumsiness is not an
unforgivable sin but in the case of THE COLD 6K the writing
is so bad & there's nothing else in the book that is
good. The characters & their motivations are to me
unfathomable & unbelievable, subplots & character
relationships seem to be recycled from earlier work, the
"research" into the historical period of this allegedly
historical novel is laughable, we have J Edgar Hoover using
words like "boffo" & "warp speed" (Hoover a Trekkie?). I
remember other people commenting on the offensively racist
nature of the book & to be honest I though those people
might have been a tad over sensitive but after having read
the book I feel the same way 9& I try hard not to let my
political correctness or my socio-political views affect my
judgment in literature. It would take up too much bandwidth
to illustrate what I'm talking about but I think anyone who
has read the book would know what I'm saying. Anyone who
hasn't read the book, I'd have to say don't bother but then
it seems, just from local observation, that the book has sold
very well, so what do I know. I think Ellroy had a lot of
potential & he wrote some memorable books but I think
he's hit too big, too easily, too soon & he'll be able to
make easy money churning out self-indulgent crap & while
he does that no-one in the publishing industry is going to
point out to the Emperor of Noir that he is seriously
sartorially challenged. (I understand a UK TV producer was
making a doco on Ellroy when the guy made the error of
telling Ellroy that he didn't like his new book (COLD SIX
6K?). The doco was cancelled.)
Rene
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