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I'm a-doin' that thar book-learnin'
Oct. 2nd, 2007 12:10 pmSo I finished HOUSE OF LEAVES, and I have to admit... it was kinda overhyped. I found it interesting and a good deal of fun, and certainly creepy in places, but... well, in terms of--by this point--expecting sheer disturbing unsettling life-changing mind-fuckery literary awesomeness, I guess I'm almost like Marvin the Martian here:
"Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
I still dug it, especially as I'm a huge fan of playing with form. But really, it felt like a a post-modern Borges novel (a labyrinthine concept in of itself, I dare say), and so far, I think I prefer Borges. Yeah, yeah, Alan, I'm getting on it. Eventually. After I finish the next couple books of CHRONICLES OF AMBER.
But first, at this insistence of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
suburbfabulous, I'm starting James Ellroy's AMERICAN TABLOID, which I've owned for years but never yet read. And really, this is the absolute perfect book for me to read right now. For my Two-Face novel research, I was going to start delving into biographies of Elliot Ness, Capone, RFK, and Sam Giancana, really try to get into the nihilistic seedy underbelly of the "good old days" between Prohibition and the New Frontier. Some classic Ellroy tough-guy patois might also influence some of my characters' voices in positive ways as well.
At the same time, I'm reading this book on the heels of having also completed the biography PETER LAWFORD: THE MAN WHO KEPT THE SECRETS. God, what a sad story. The guy was the "male Marilyn Monroe" in so many aspects, but because he didn't die young (and because he had no boobs), no one cared. He was a genuinely good (but weak) man with marginal talents who got fucked-over his whole life. With the one-two-three punch of Sinatra blacklisting him, Marilyn's death, and JFK's assassination, he spent the rest of his life as a miserable, bitter shell of the man he once was, thoroughly giving into his addictions to booze, drugs, and sex for a long, slow, pathetic suicide. When he died, even the biographer had a hard time trying to find anything meaningful or poignant to say.
More than ever, I believe it was casting brilliance to have Angus Macfadyen play Lawford in the HBO RAT PACK movie. Someone make a whole Lawford biopic with Macfadyen! Doom demands it!
But yeah, between LAWFORD and AMERICAN TABLOID, I'm gonna start digging under the surface of Johnny Go's idyllic fantasy of his era. So that when THE ADVENTURES OF BUB AND JOHNNY GO finally do happen, we'll slowly see the layers peel away from Johnny's carefree utopia of neon lights. And in the process... maybe, just maybe, I can even find some redemption for Peter Lawford.
I mean, heck... if I don't do it, no one will.
"Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
I still dug it, especially as I'm a huge fan of playing with form. But really, it felt like a a post-modern Borges novel (a labyrinthine concept in of itself, I dare say), and so far, I think I prefer Borges. Yeah, yeah, Alan, I'm getting on it. Eventually. After I finish the next couple books of CHRONICLES OF AMBER.
But first, at this insistence of
suburbfabulous, I'm starting James Ellroy's AMERICAN TABLOID, which I've owned for years but never yet read. And really, this is the absolute perfect book for me to read right now. For my Two-Face novel research, I was going to start delving into biographies of Elliot Ness, Capone, RFK, and Sam Giancana, really try to get into the nihilistic seedy underbelly of the "good old days" between Prohibition and the New Frontier. Some classic Ellroy tough-guy patois might also influence some of my characters' voices in positive ways as well. At the same time, I'm reading this book on the heels of having also completed the biography PETER LAWFORD: THE MAN WHO KEPT THE SECRETS. God, what a sad story. The guy was the "male Marilyn Monroe" in so many aspects, but because he didn't die young (and because he had no boobs), no one cared. He was a genuinely good (but weak) man with marginal talents who got fucked-over his whole life. With the one-two-three punch of Sinatra blacklisting him, Marilyn's death, and JFK's assassination, he spent the rest of his life as a miserable, bitter shell of the man he once was, thoroughly giving into his addictions to booze, drugs, and sex for a long, slow, pathetic suicide. When he died, even the biographer had a hard time trying to find anything meaningful or poignant to say.
More than ever, I believe it was casting brilliance to have Angus Macfadyen play Lawford in the HBO RAT PACK movie. Someone make a whole Lawford biopic with Macfadyen! Doom demands it!
But yeah, between LAWFORD and AMERICAN TABLOID, I'm gonna start digging under the surface of Johnny Go's idyllic fantasy of his era. So that when THE ADVENTURES OF BUB AND JOHNNY GO finally do happen, we'll slowly see the layers peel away from Johnny's carefree utopia of neon lights. And in the process... maybe, just maybe, I can even find some redemption for Peter Lawford.
I mean, heck... if I don't do it, no one will.
