Category: Consumption

Book review: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

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Easy Riders, Raging BullsEasy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is remarkable.

No, I mean it. If you’re a film buff there’s no need to complete reading this review. Just go read the book: you’ll thank me later.

Still here? Well, okay. The work is cobbled together through reams of interviews to provide a more or less seamless account of the rise of the auteur in the ’60s and ’70s. Well, those generally hailed as auteurs – thanks, Pauline Kael – rather than those who actually were auteurs. You know: Ashby, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Friedkin, De Palma, et cetera. (Add to that the associated producers, writers and actors – Nicholson, Beatty, Towne, Hopper and the like – and you’ve a colourful cast looking to smoke, snort, drink, fuck and generally behave badly with anything or anyone around. Continue reading “Book review: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” →

Book review: Bonjour Tristesse

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Bonjour TristesseBonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After an intervening couple of decades I revisited Sagan’s novel. I remembered enjoying it greatly when I read it in my teens, and hoped the same memories of cut-glass oceans and desultory fucking-for-effect conniving would hold true.

They didn’t. Continue reading “Book review: Bonjour Tristesse” →

Book review: Deep Kyoto: Walks

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Deep Kyoto: WalksDeep Kyoto: Walks by a number of contributors
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The offshoot of a blog, this book is a collection of loosely-planned walks through the ancient city (and former capital) with a variety of themes. There’s plenty of history, sure – you can’t really avoid it in a place like Kyoto – but there’s also a lot of personal history brought to bear, here. (Sometimes, a little too much – some of the writers’ digressions aren’t as amusing as they presumably believe, but I accept this may just be a personality clash.) Continue reading “Book review: Deep Kyoto: Walks” →

New Zeitkratzer review

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My review of a live disc of Zeitkratzer performances of Whitehouse songs has gone live (a little while ago, now) over at Cyclic Defrost. Here’s a sample.

Zeitkratzer are a great ensemble. Their acoustic mastery is undeniable, and the sounds they recreate without access to a bunch of broken boxes and fucked electronics are spot-on. But somehow the execution of the task seems almost redundant: there’s as much enjoyment to be had by the idea of a bunch of traditional instruments covering Whitehouse as there is from having the end result in your hand.

You can read the whole review here, if you like.

Book review: Setting Free the Bears

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Setting Free the BearsSetting Free the Bears by John Irving
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I first read this book when I was about 14. It seemed amazing back then, as it was an excursion into history and kinda-sorta sex and the road and motorcycles and that whole enthusiastic, Dickens-hipster thing. Yeah, daddy-o.

The problem about reading it with an older eye is that it hasn’t aged particularly well. The text is clunky and overcomplex, the characters pretty one-dimensional – Gallen is basically a big-hipped R. Crumb figure with less intrigue – and the whole atmosphere is a little too keep-on-truckin’ to be read without cringing. Continue reading “Book review: Setting Free the Bears” →

Book review: Blood’s A Rover

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Blood's A RoverBlood’s A Rover by James Ellroy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, JFK, MLK and RFK were all dead by the time this book began, so I was wondering where it would go. Who else could be offed? Thankfully, foreign casino insurgency and a gem heist gone to shit allow Ellroy the chance to work some of his favourite characters (requisite dirty cops, Sal Mineo and Sonny Liston, mysterious double agents, the Mob) into something which isn’t quite as weighed down by history as the preceding books in the trilogy.

The gem heist – and where the gems lead – provides a neat small-scale tableau to provide a break from the Nixon and Hoover machinations. As with the search for rogue drug dealer Durfee in a previous volume, the smaller crime has echoes in the larger political sphere. This time around though, it seems more – human. Continue reading “Book review: Blood’s A Rover” →

Book review: The Cold Six Thousand

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The Cold Six ThousandThe Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Cold Six Thousand picks up from where American Tabloid left off: immediately following John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The broad sweep of history continues through the book – Cuba, Castro, MLK, RFK, Howard Hughes in Vegas, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover and any number of Hollywood figures – are dissected and dramatised. The book takes us from JFK to RFK on one long death trip – with plenty of scalps on the way. Continue reading “Book review: The Cold Six Thousand” →

Book review: American Tabloid

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American TabloidAmerican Tabloid by James Ellroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first in another history-minded trilogy, American Tabloid unpicks the hem of the myth of Camelot while keeping an eye on the main chance. The prose is as jacked-up as half the characters, and it moves forward with a terrifying urgency.

Like his other works, there’s a lot of character specificity and a lot of fine detail evoked. But the Underworld USA trilogy manages to more convincingly convey a sense of momentousness, of this-is-probably-how-it-happened. But it ain’t pretty.

Reading this book is a bit like being repeatedly punched in the face by History. You know something has happened, and you know it’s important and will leave lasting traces for the future. Though you can’t help but feel as if Events had taken you out to an alley and kicked shit out of you. Continue reading “Book review: American Tabloid” →

L.A. Noire (2011)

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Otherwise known as James Ellroy: The Game.

Ah, I kid. Sorta. L.A. Noire is pretty indebted to Ellroy’s canon. It’s a mostly historically-accurate presentation of downtown LA in the 1940s, with some not-so-accurate versions of famous faces attached. It’s dark, long, a bit convoluted and full of wonkiness – but it’s as compulsive and endearing as any crime novel, largely because you’re made to feel that you’re in one.

We’re talking Los Angeles at the time of the Elizabeth Short killing. Corrupt cops, the birth of the freeway system, returned soldiers and streets awash with drugs and booze. There’s detailed clothing, excellent cars and bystanders who jump out of the way of your terrible driving with a spirited “Holy Toledo!”, while the movie plays on film noir tropes like there’s no tomorrow. Continue reading “L.A. Noire (2011)” →

Book review: The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women

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The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of WomenThe Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women by James Ellroy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hard on the heels of my reading of My Dark Places comes this, a second exploration of the role of women in author James Ellroy’s life.

You probably won’t want to read it if you’re sick of jacking-off-and-peeping stories. Because – though they’re not as explicitly described as elsewhere – they’re here. That and darkened-room fantasising. The short book reeks of control; of others, of self, and the lack thereof.

Ideally, this should be read in concert with My Dark Places. That book explains the importance of the murder of Ellroy’s mother, and its effect on his life. The Hilliker Curse moves past the mechanics of the death and into how his relationships with women have played out over the years. True, his mother is looming, forever, Continue reading “Book review: The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women” →