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Title: The Final Country by James Crumley ISBN: 0-446-67964-X Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not for me
Comment: Maybe it's me, but I just didn't get this book. Lured by good reviews from credible sources, evocative cover art (on the British edition, not the U.S. one), the book's award and the writer's reputation, I dived in for an entertaining escape & emerged impatient & disappointed. What saves the book are some good scenes, some decent description of place & some well-drawn characters. But for me the experience was more like reading a series of creative writing vignettes than a novel. The novel lacks a center, a heart. There is a confusion of characters who lack much more characterization than names & therefore are hard to separate. One character (Molly) changes abruptly from one personality earlier in the novel to another later on to the degree that it was difficult for me to see her as the same person (though I liked Molly No. 2). I found the plot confusing, hard to follow & too sketchy. I didn't know nearly enough about many of the people who turned out to be central characters in the plot's resolution. I specifically did NOT find (as The London Times promised) "lyrical descriptions of an almost vanished West" but rather a fairly average sense of place. On the other hand, Milo & bisexual Betty are interesting characters & the book does have a certain feel to it, so I'm thoroughly ambivalent. Given there's enough reading for several lifetimes out there, I'd recommend choosing something else.
Rating: 2
Summary: Nothing to be proud of
Comment: There was a time when I thought James Crumley would become the greatest writer the mystery genre ever produced, and achieve what Chandler only attained after his death, that is, literary respectability and recognition of his talents as a great novelist of contemporary fiction. Crumley had all the gifts a great writer needs - an engaging prose style, finely constructed plotting and a unique voice. And in his earlier book, The Last Good Kiss, he spun all those elements into a story that was intoxicating in it's brillance, a book truly worthy of comparison to the best of Chandler. But thats been more than 20 years ago now and Crumley has neither continued or built upon his earlier promise of greatness. Sure, he can still write a line so good so as to make your heart skip a beat, and he can be funny as hell, but it's in fits and starts and nothing ever comes of it all. Somewhere, somehow ,the discipline that could craft a book such as the Last Good Kiss has gone and we are left with the spectacle of a now undiciplined talent repeating himself to a lesser and lesser effect each time. If you want to read the real Crumley, read The Last Good Kiss or The Wrong Case and see what you've been missing, but don't read The Final Country - it just makes those of us who admired his earlier work sad.
Rating: 5
Summary: Believe it: The legend lives and he's on his game!
Comment: Ask most of the young crime writers in America who they revere and the name Crumley will fall off almost every tongue. In a genre that rewards the fast and the dirty, where publishers throw money at sloppy writing and half-assed plotting, Crumley is a beacon of quality and thoughtfulness. The man cares about the language. What a radical notion for a writer of detective novels. In The Final Country, as in any of his books, you'll find sentences both sleek and rangy, but always beautiful, thought out, worked on. And those sentences come together to form a Voice as consistent and engrossing as any on the contemporary scene - inside or outside the genre. But wait, as the pitchmen say, there's more. You also get a plot as ingeniously assembled as Lamborghini Diablo. A red one. That runs on nitroglycerin. And this books moves as fast as the Diablo. But don't worry, Milo's got his arm around you the whole way, rapping up a coke-fueled storm that, should you listen, will give you a few gem about how an ethical man lives in a foul world. Listen: as long as James Crumley can draw breath and pick up a pen, TV just doesn't stand a chance.
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Title: The Wrong Case by James Crumley ISBN: 0394735587 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 December, 1985 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Mexican Tree Duck by James Crumley ISBN: 0446677914 Publisher: Mysterious Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Dancing Bear by James Crumley ISBN: 039472576X Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 12 September, 1984 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley ISBN: 0394759893 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 05 November, 1988 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: One to Count Cadence by James Crumley ISBN: 0394735595 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 May, 1987 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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