OK. Let’s get back to work
(well, odd turn of phrase considering that I have been neglecting the blog for
the last month and a half because of, well, work…)
L.A. Confidential has been sitting on my bookshelf (probably the last of my
books from Books for Free in Stratford) for ages. Thing is, having watched the
movie I felt like there was no need to rush to read the book. But, as often
happens, I was wrong – the two are wildly different, something that is quite
evident as soon as one starts to realize how intricate the novel’s plot
actually is (and even then, it keeps on getting more and more intricate as the
book progresses).
Ellroy is as self-assured as
writers can get (reading his interviews at times I have the feeling that his
ego might have trumped even Gore Vidal’s) but he might have a point, as I think
he’s a better crime writer than Chandler, Hammett, or pretty much anyone else
in the 20th and 21st centuries. His characters are cocky,
witty, degenerate, ruthless, and yet not implausible. On top of that, real-life
characters add a decadently classy touch to this Ellroy book (or any other work
of his, really). And in the novel, Jack Vicennes comes into his own so much
more than in the movie.
I loved the movie, but the
book was of an even higher calibre – surely one of the best I’ve read so far in
2017 (one day I should do a yearly top-10…). Because of this I am now reading Perfidia, which might have been a bad
decision, but more on that later…
