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Title: The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy ISBN: 0-446-67436-2 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (103 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: perverse, gruesome, memorable... and somewhat flawed
Comment: 'Black Dahlia' is my first James Ellroy novel. Clearly the author wishes he was born 50 years earlier so he can live along side the likes of Raymond Chandler, James Cain and Dashiell Hammett ... the champions on 1940s 'noir' fiction. Being a fan of this genre I can say James Ellroy goes a long way in emulating his idols, but he falls somewhat sort of the mark.
Oh, the story itself is a wonder. Loosely based on actual events, 'Black Dahlia' involves the horrific mutilation of a young woman and the perversely obsessed cop tracking down her killer. No spoilers here, but Ellroy does a great job in engaging the reader while throwing in some plot twists. And he does a commendable job on the characterizations. So what could be wrong?
Well I had the feeling the author tried *too hard* to capture the essence of 1940s Los Angeles, especially concerning the lingo. Raymond Chandler-esque tough guy talk taken to, at times, an almost incomprehensible level. While it did take some getting used to I found this gratuitous verbage to be a distraction during the first third of the book ... enough to detract me from reading any more from James Ellroy. Yet to be fair I found the foul language to be far more realistic compared to the relatively sanitized dialogue found in books written from the period.
Bottom line: certainly a bizarre, remarkable story. Recommended.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ellroy's best, but still unbelievable
Comment: The Black Dahlia is the best of the books by James Ellroy that I've read, but it's still unbelievable. I think it's a question of the prose style. Ellroy's prose is highly self-conscious, highly percussive, highly alliterative. It's loaded with slang and strange diction. It's full of sentences that you have to read two or three times to understand. The twisted syntax--not to mention the drug use, corruption and violence which permeate The Black Dahlia and Ellroy's other books--seem the work of an author whose sensibility was formed after Vietnam and Watergate. As a result, the style of The Black Dahlia comes off as anachronistic, a projection of late 20th century attitudes back onto 1940s Los Angeles. Reading the book, I kept asking myself whether people living then would express themselves in this way, whether these events were actually credible, and I kept saying no.
But if the book as a whole doesn't work, it has brilliant individual scenes, like the boxing match near the beginning, the gothic trip to Tijuana, and the hot afternoon in L.A. when the detective finally solves the murder, with each of the long-planted clues falling neatly into place. Ellroy also succeeds in "opening up" the book to give a sense of the way life is actually lived. Characters appear, go away, and come back. Someone mentions a name and tells an anecdote in a casual, chatty way, and later on the name becomes important to the solution. Or it's just an anecdote, but it builds the impression of a city and a way of life beyond the tight little circle of characters created by the mystery. Ellroy is positively generous with this kind of detail, which is so often missing from the mystery genre. And it's a talent possessed by great masters of fiction like Tolstoy and Faulkner.
If only Ellroy would stop trying so hard with his prose style. The subtext of The Black Dahlia seems to be: "I'm James Ellroy, and I'm writing this! Boy, am I writing this!"
Rating: 5
Summary: The Rebirth of "The Black Dahlia"
Comment: This was my first James Ellroy book, and it is now my favorite of all time. He ended it in a twist...that i did not see coming. The frustration that he brings out in Detective Bleichert, and his passion for Kay and Madeliene, and Elizabeth Short, are unexplainable. It's a classic!
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Title: The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy ISBN: 0446674370 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir by James Ellroy ISBN: 0679762051 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy ISBN: 0446674249 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: White Jazz by James Ellroy ISBN: 0375727361 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: American Tabloid by James Ellroy ISBN: 037572737X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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