Black Dahlia
Alright- so I am extremely curious as to how everyone felt about the book??
The language or tone seemed originally to be a barrier for me. I had a hard time getting "in" to the book during the boxing/ Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice intro. However, as I read in further, the tone is what seemed to draw me into the book. If I read for longer than an hour I would walk around sounding like a 1940's cop movie. How did everyone feel about the film noir speak? Were there any terms that you had a hard time defining? (I had a hard time figuring out what a "smoker" was- ah the irony)
The other thing that was strange was the triad relationship between Bucky, Lee, and Kate? What was everyone's take on that?
posted by Shannon @ 8:34 AM
21 comments
21 Comments:
Sorry I tried to get on last night but the blogger wasn't up and running....
So I had a hard time with the lingo... like Shannon I too had a hard time with some of the 1940's slang and ended up talking in quip wit sentences like the old time "hey pal the gig is up" type of stuff after reading for any length of time.
I found the mystery surrounding Kay bizarre and always left me wanting to know more... and why didn't Lee & Kay not have an intimate relations was it more of a father daughter, brother sister, friends relationship where Lee provided for her and that was enough?
And what was up with Bucky wanting to "do" the "Black Dahlia"? When he first met her she was dead!!
I found the twists fascinating, the end not really predictable and found my new fav term "Syphilitic Hoore".
Book.. ok (due to dry boxing beginning and time jumping which left me wondering) Movie.. Very disappointing and very different from the book... totally left out Mexico!
The book had a little bit of everything.
I was down with the '40's dope lingo. I took me a while to figure out what a smoker and a cooze exactly were, but other than that I was ok with the vocabulary. I know I had the urge to speak like Dick Tracy or Bugsy Seigel. But I like that kind of stuff.
The book was nothing like I expected, knowing very little about it and never seeing the movie. However I did like it. I liked the twists.
The author went extraordinarily out of his way to highlight the characters weaknesses. i.e. the cowardice of hiding during the riots, the lacking in their personal relationships, even the buck teeth. Is that like some sort of slant to prove they were human and thus would make mistakes? Like a pre-emptive defense for the fact that the real case was never solved.
And I agree the movie kind of sucked.
Kay always was a mystery. What was the point of that? Were we supposed to like her or hate her?
I felt that the tone and language of the book drastically changed as the story progressed. Like he was trying really really hard to sound like a hip 40's cop in the beginning and then gave up on that tact.
I found it hard to get into and was surprised that I finished it! At the same time, I read it in one sitting so I must not have been able to put it down.
I liked the book. I would never have read on my own and it was fun. The language was interesting, but reminded me again of L.A. Confidential. In that movie, soooo many of the names are used it's bizarre, mickey coen is a gangster, the night owl is a place, boyo, are all terms used in both. I haven't seen the movie yet though. I could believe that Kay and Lee were platonic IF they were both sleeping with other people. A boxer to be celibate for years? That was the most unbelievable part of the book to me. It was also much more sexually explicit than i had thought it would be, which was unexpected but not altogether unpleasant.
At times I found the book to be very graphic (i.e. the jars of body parts) yet at other times not graphic enough (the glossing over of Fritzies suicide).
Some of the names in the book are actual people.. if you look at the previous blog I posted of actual news paper clippings... where does fact stop and fiction begin?
To me it did seem a bit rushed in the end trying to tie everything up and get to an end. Which I found odd since the beginning was so slow. I did feel while reading this it was the book that would never end.
Not to mention I found the book eerie because Dan and I were just in LA/Hollywood this past June... getting engaged on Sunset Blvd.... I wish we read this before we went because I do think we passed the seine of where the Dahlia was found. Creepy.
Oh and I found the whole "black wig" episode just bizarre...again I don't get the whole drive to "do" the Dahlia.
I don't think the tone changed that much throughout the book. I think the boxing lingo in the beginning was much harder to follow. Terms like syphallitic whore were much easier to grasp.
And Erika's right- why did the author go over that edge? I know cops become obsessed with cases. But play acting with other woman that they were the dead girl? Butch is this a dude thing?
I think that the tone of the book changed, because of the time that lasped in the book. The times changes and Bucky matured. When the story started he was 25, when it ended he was 32. You tend to change the way you speak as life goes by. He went from being a boxer to a copper got, promoted, demoted and transfered several times. There were zooters at the beginning of the story the zoot-suit was on the fashion decline at the beginning of the story (it peeked in the late '30's) and was out of fashion by the late '40's and gone from the scene by the eary '50's as was that same hep cat lingo.
I liked the boxing and personal side to the story, as convoluted as they were. It did show they were all fractured and faulted people and that interpersonal relationships are always more complicated then they seem.
I also think that Bucky's sexual obsession with the Dahlia was based on "control". I also think that it was becuase around the time that he met Maddy and she looked so much like Betty caused a "blurring" or combining of the 2 and that was the source of his fixation.
It could have been the author's way of showing a subconscious remorse. Bucky starts to become more aware of Maddy's involvement in the case, which he had buried. Like it was the mind's way of punishing himself. He screwed Elizabeth in more ways than one kind of thing.
BINGO! Shannon just nailed it.
Also let's not forget that Bucky also went for days at a time on little to no sleep. Which can make you all kinds of squirrly alone but then taking benzies (or speed) and warp your way of thinking even more. He also lost his partner, best friend and found outh that Mr. Fire wasn't the shiny hero the thought he was. Sometimes your mind copes in weird ways. I also think he felt the same connection wtih Betty that Lee did, but for compeletly different reasons.
I don't recall reading that Bucky was on benz only that Lee was. However it was more than obvious that his struggle with reality was strong.
I did at times have a hard time with the "police" effort that was given in this book... the good cop/bad cop, framing, obstruction, with holding evidence... not to mention the "hey I'll do you to keep my name out of the papers" type of stuff.
Granted it was back in the day and was par for the course but Wow, what they got away with when “they” were the law. Amazing.
Oh and on Tone... I don't feel the tone of the book changed but rather the character him evolved. As Maureen stated he aged and had many different ups and downs... however he had that in the begining with the boxing, ratting out the "Jap's", and his father.
Bucky mentioned taking benzies a few times, like around the wig incident. But not often.
I hate to say it but sometimes the withold evidence, obstruction and the I'll do you for a favor or shaking down junkies for their stash, drinking on the job (Harry Sears) does still really happen regularly. Every few years you see a "dirty" cop go on trial.
i think there's a ton of corruption in law enforcement but the question becomes do the ends justify the means. In this story i would never have guessed that lee was the one who did the bank job and framed bobby for what he did to kay. is that justice? i don't know. as for the whole wig thing...you have to understand how much of a turn on anything forbidden is for men.
also, don't you think he had a love hate thing going on with the dahlia? he knew it would blow up the world he lived in, wanted off the case but was still obsessed by it. he worked on it and thought about it all the time, but isn't this what humans do? aren't we attracted to things that we know are bad for us all the time?
Corruption definitely exists in law enforcement. Look at the suicide rates among police officers which was also hit on in the book.
The whole visualization of the meat hook warehouse job thing was really bizarre to me. As i was reading it, I kept thinking "no way is Bucky going to let this happen"
Oh and how about Maddy and her "dad"... this book seemed to touch on everything that was "not the norm".
Not only did I not understand Maddy and her dad- but what was her obsession with the Dahlia? Was it the look alike aspect? Or as Maddy said the Dahlia was a "natural" at that life?
Does that make it a jealousy thing?
The maddy Betthy thing is totally a jealously thing. Se was jealous fo the floosy lifestyle. She was totally in to having a "twin" and having sex with "herself".
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