'PURPLE CANE ROAD' LOSES ME

I'm about three quarters of the way through James Lee Burke's well written and mostly entertaining novel "Purple Cane Road." But on Page 288, it's losing me.

It has gotten too complicated, and it's focusing on things I no longer care about. It's hard to spend so much time with low-lifes--criminals, psychopaths, pimps, hookers, hit-men, corrupt cops. 

The main character, Dave Robicheaux, is focused too much on the past. I don't care who killed his mother. Burke has not managed to interest me in that through-line.

Dave feels sorry for himself. Oh, poor me, my mother was a cleaning woman for hookers, and my father was a drunk who liked to fight in bars. OK, so Dave was born poor white trash. We all have our problems, get over it.

As the famous hard-boiled novelist Mickey Spillane said, "No one ever read a novel to get to the middle." But what pulls you along, usually, are dramatic questions (Did Hamlet's uncle kill his father? What is Hamlet going to do about it?) and concern for the fate of the character. (How will this affect Hamlet's life?)

In "Purple Cane Road," the dramatic questions I see are four: Will Letty Labiche be executed by the state for killing her molester? Will Dave find out who killed his mother and why? Is the sexy female attorney general corrupt? Will Dave's wife's past destroy their marriage?

Frankly, at this point, I don't care about any of that. Maybe I should, but I don't.

Maybe there are too many story questions. Maybe these story questions are not momentous enough. Maybe they are not matters of life and death. Maybe not vital to Dave's future. I don't know. Anyway, I am giving up, at least for now. Still, the writing is great.  

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle

'PURPLE CANE ROAD' - YES

I have been re-reading James Lee Burke's novel "Purple Cane Road" and I do love it. My buddy Adam asked me why I like it so much. Here is my answer:

I love "Purple Cane Road" for everything: mostly the incredible richness and complexity of it. It would take me years to write a novel like that, with several through-lines (which seem obscure at times); with so many weird, quirky, unforgettable characters; with a single narrative voice, but with multiple points of view, including first, third and omniscient, all in one unified story; lush descriptions of a fascinating place; wild, driven, original action scenes; ambiguous concepts of good and evil.

Whew. It is a big mother of a crime novel. If you like to get lost in a novel and live in that world, this will do it, at least for me.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle

SWEDISH CRIME NOVEL: THUD

Last night, I tried to read a "winner of the best Swedish crime novel," it said on the cover, THREE SECONDS, by Roslund & Hellstrom, whoever the hell they are. 

Honestly, it didn't work for me. I found the writing clunky and expository and not very clear, and it seemed to be trying way too hard, not to tell a story or create a world, but to jack up the reader. Snore.

I spent the first three or four pages trying to figure out who the hell the two characters in the story were and what they were up to. Not a good way to begin a novel.

I always told my students, back when I used to teach this stuff, that you have to orient the reader first.

We want to know who the characters are, where they are, why they are there, what they are trying to do, and what their problem is.

You know, in journalism they call it the five W's and the H: who, what, where, when, why, and how.

In fiction, you should show the characters in action and imply who they are and what they are up to. You should show enough evidence, or tell enough, that the reader's question is, how can they do that? Or, will they survive? Or, will they reach their goal?

The questions should not be, who the hell is this, and what the hell are they doing? To me, those are the wrong questions. That is confusion, not suspense.

I suppose some people might enjoy being confused, and I guess there is a fine line between confusion and suspense, although it seems obvious to me.

Anyway, this book starts out with a drug "mule" on a boat, but we don't know anything else about him. He has swallowed drugs and he is scared shitless. Then the narrative cuts to some mysterious character at some government training center with guns going off and a mock kidnapping attempt.

Who cares? Snore.

If you want crime suspense, I recommend James Lee Burke. His novels always keep me spell-bound. I also liked early Patricia Cornwell, before she got too successful. And early Thomas Harris.

I liked Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, and their series of comic crime novels about Max Fisher, the most egotistical and self-centered "hero" who ever "lived."

It's hard to find good fiction of any kind. I don't believe in the usual genre distinctions. To me, a good novel is a good novel. Period. And they are damned hard to find.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE GIRL WHO POOPED HER PANTS

I am so tired of all this Stieg Larsson crap.

Jesus. The girl who did everything. I did like the first movie, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," but the first book, of the same name, was a horrible experience, slogging through miles of slow, boring, tedious exposition, telling us the boring back-story, and reporting the story rather than rendering it.

Not enough scenes, not enough imagery, not enough details so you can bring the story to life like a movie in your head. That's what any good fiction should do.

Now here I am trying to read book 2, "The Girl Who Played With Fire." It is scary at first, and disgusting, with Lisbeth being tortured, I guess by her father. Sick. The next 143 pages were a roller coaster for me. I liked it, then I loved the two or three actually rendered scenes, but the massive exposition finally wore me down.

The exposition is at least clear and relevant, which it isn't in the first book of the trilogy.

I don't see how people can read this crap. I can't do it anymore. I just can't. No fun, no reward, not even any real interest. Please, God, don't make me read any more.

I finally gave up in one of many scenes where the fake dialogue is really exposition for the reader. Nobody talks like this: "I've been so fucking angry that you vanished without a trace that I almost decided never to trust you again."

Sounds like a robot, R2D2, perhaps. In real conversation, people don't spell things out like this. They talk obliquely, revealing themselves and not the back-story. They already know the back-story. This book is full of expository dialogue, and I hate it.

In fact, good dialogue in fiction sounds like real people talking, but it isn't. It makes you think, and it makes you figure out the story while it reveals something about the characters.  

Anyway, I've given up. I was going to study the Dragon Tattoo books, to see what made them so popular. Then I was just going to read them, to see what they are like.

Not anymore. Never say never, but right now I just don't care. These books don't do what I want fiction to do.

My advice: Read a good book instead, Faulkner or Fitzgerald or Cormac McCarthy.

-- Roger


(Links:)
As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text (Modern Library)
The Great Gatsby

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle