[books 2010] more fiction
Jun. 22nd, 2010 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro39. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
This month's bibliogoths book.
Hammett and Raymond Chandler are always mentioned in the same sentences. I'm not sure why - they are not writing the same thing for the same audiences, and by any metric Chandler blows Hammett out of the water.
I'd only previously read Red Harvest, which was OK but not great. It's really different from The Thin Man, which is more of a screwball comedy than a noir detective thriller. The most notable thing about this book is the truly heroic amount of drinking engaged in by all the characters. And the lack of detecting.
Amusing enough, but really not my thing.
40. The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint
There are all kinds of reasons I shouldn't have liked this book, but I absolutely loved it. It must be the way he writes. See my recent review of Forests of the Heart - it's very similar, set in the same world.
As soon as I get through the remaining Chandlers and Ken Mcleods, I'm going to be making some serious inroads on de Lint's work. I can only get a few through the library though.
de Lint uses real bands and musicians as the background to his novels. I got a blast from the past I could have lived without when he name-checked Washboard Hank, who was a bit of a celebrity when I lived in Peterborough, Ont. (I never went to see him or anything, Peterborough wasn't *that* boring). Not something I expected to find, even in a book by an Ontario-based author.
This month's bibliogoths book.
Hammett and Raymond Chandler are always mentioned in the same sentences. I'm not sure why - they are not writing the same thing for the same audiences, and by any metric Chandler blows Hammett out of the water.
I'd only previously read Red Harvest, which was OK but not great. It's really different from The Thin Man, which is more of a screwball comedy than a noir detective thriller. The most notable thing about this book is the truly heroic amount of drinking engaged in by all the characters. And the lack of detecting.
Amusing enough, but really not my thing.
40. The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint
There are all kinds of reasons I shouldn't have liked this book, but I absolutely loved it. It must be the way he writes. See my recent review of Forests of the Heart - it's very similar, set in the same world.
As soon as I get through the remaining Chandlers and Ken Mcleods, I'm going to be making some serious inroads on de Lint's work. I can only get a few through the library though.
de Lint uses real bands and musicians as the background to his novels. I got a blast from the past I could have lived without when he name-checked Washboard Hank, who was a bit of a celebrity when I lived in Peterborough, Ont. (I never went to see him or anything, Peterborough wasn't *that* boring). Not something I expected to find, even in a book by an Ontario-based author.
